I was bemused when I read this headline today on the Huffington Post. Even more so when I read Bob Woodward pronouncing the following with evident consternation and indignation:
Let’s call it what it is, they are trying to blackmail the president and say, ‘Look, we’re going to shutdown the government or default on our debt unless you – we go back, rewind the clock, on Obamacare and delay it or somehow cut off the funding…’
You can’t govern that way… It will be exposed.
No doubt this was the deus ex machina many people were waiting, perhaps even praying for. After all, this pronouncement comes from a man whose writings are to (Washington) politics what the gospels are to Christianity.
Therefore, having Woodward blame Republicans for threatening this (partial) shutdown tonight is rather like having Jesus himself blame you for committing a cardinal sin. And, given their professed regard for the gospels, you’d think Republicans would take heed.
Not to mention what a mockery their obsessive, delusional opposition to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare; yes, Obama cares) makes of the most fundamental calling of their Christian faith, which, of course, is to help the poor. Obamacare, after all, guarantees life-sustaining healthcare to 40-50 million uninsured Americans. (In this case, it’s clearly too inconvenient for these Bible-thumping charlatans to ask: what would Jesus do?)
Republicans have calculated that it is far more important to oppose healthcare reform – in the vain hope of positioning themselves for big gains in mid-term elections next year, than it is to support it – in the salutary hope of providing millions of Americans a chance to gain healthcare coverage for life.
(“Healthcare Reform Passes Milestone,” The iPINIONS Journal, December 28, 2009)
The problem, however, is that no less a person than Bob Woodward has spent the past five years blaming President Obama (in such books as The Price of Politics and Obama’s Wars) for his failure to reason with the very Republicans he’s now condemning for their unreasonable behavior. Woodward’s abiding refrain, which he reiterated today, is that:
They should be meeting, discussing this, because as I think Steve Ratner showed earlier, the American economy is at stake and the president, if there is a downturn or a collapse or whatever could happen here that’s bad, it’s going to be on his head.
The history books are going to say, we had an economic calamity in the Presidency of Barack Obama… He’s got to lead.
(Morning Joe, MSNBC, September 30, 2013)
Alas, like the gospels, Woodward’s pronouncements/writings are replete with contradictions. For example, if Obama were to negotiate with Republicans who are trying to blackmail him – as Woodward suggests, Woodward would be the first to criticize this as a failure of leadership worse than negotiating with terrorists.
What’s more, Woodward seems oblivious to the fact that the Republicans’ declared intent (from day one of Obama’s presidency — as articulated by no less a person than Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell in the November 4, 2010 edition of the National Journal) is to ensure that “economic calamity” occurs on his watch.
These born-again zealots would prefer economic Armageddon to what they have deluded themselves into thinking is Obama’s (black-nationalist/Muslim-inspired) plan to turn America into a socialist, Greek-style banana republic. So irrational is their mission that one could be forgiven the suspicion that their dark, ulterior motive is to see America become so dysfunctional and humiliated under Obama’s leadership that Americans would not even consider electing another Black person as president for at least another 100 years.
(“S&P Downgrades U.S. Credit Rating,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 8, 2011)
Which is why, by offering his rough draft of the “history of the Presidency of Barack Obama,” Woodward is actually blessing on one hand the Republican blackmail that he’s condemning on the other hand.
And lest you forget: Republicans already tried to repeal Obamacare 42 times in Congress and failed; they tried to get the Supreme Court to declare Obamacare unconstitutional and failed; and, most significant, they tried to get the American people to vote against Obamacare by using opposition to it as the clarion call last year not only to defeat Obama’s re-election campaign but also to win control of the Senate … and failed. Now they’re resorting to national blackmail.
And, trust me, the only thing that explains their motivation in every case is a toxic mix of racism, resentment, and revenge stemming from Obama’s election as the first Black president of the United States….
But here’s the bottom line, which Obama laid down during remarks on this looming shutdown from the White House just moments ago:
One faction of one party in one house of Congress, in one branch of government, does not get to shutdown the entire government just to re-fight the results of an election.
Unfortunately, the most influential Republicans (namely Tea Partiers like Ted Cruz) are in such a jihadist state of mind these days that they have rejected as political heresy even the entreaties of such notable Republicans as Senator John McCain, 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, and political strategist Karl Rove to abandon their attempts to govern by congressional blackmail.
It clearly does not matter to these crusading Republicans that all they will succeed in doing is forcing the closing of National Parks and Smithsonian Museums, furloughing of hundreds of thousands of federal employees, and suspension of federal assistance to millions of poor Americans. For, as Obama himself intoned today, “You can’t shut [Obamacare] down” – because it is being funded through mandatory, multi-year spending that has already been appropriated.
Hence, by forcing this government shutdown, these “wacko-bird” Republicans are undermining what little credibility and influence their Party has at the federal level for a plainly unattainable goal (a classic case of rebels without a cause). Why? Because, all of their partisan talking points and political posturing aside, these are people who hate Obama(care) more than they love their country.
Meanwhile, everybody knows that it’s only a matter of time before political pressure compels more sensible and responsible Republicans to break ranks and join with Democrats to reopen it.
Yet Woodward would have you believe that unless Obama allows these crazy people to blackmail him into repealing his signature accomplishment, history will judge his presidency a failure? I don’t think so.
Related commentaries:
Healthcare reform…
S&P downgrades…
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Monday, at 6:10 pm