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Thursday, September 01, 2011

Well, I guess Boehner "put him in his place"
Posted by Jill | 5:40 AM
Check out this screencap, from the front page of Rush Limbaugh's web site (red box added by me, for emphasis):



Yesterday Randi Rhodes played the clip of Limbaugh screeching about how John Boehner has to "put the guy in his place" about the timing of his speech on jobs. When you talk about putting someone in his place, and the person you're talking about is black, it is a racial remark, no matter how red faced and sputtering Limbaugh may be in denial of that fact. But if you still don't believe it, look at the graphic. Look at the photograph, which deliberately depicts the black President of the United States supplicating himself before a white (well, ok, orange) man.

So what does this president do when faced with a lying, hatemongering right-wing radio host demanding that the Speaker "put him in his place"?

He caves, of course (NYT link, emphasis mine):
In a surreal volley of letters, each released to the news media as soon as it was sent, Mr. Boehner rejected a request from the president to address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday at 8 p.m. — the same night that a Republican presidential debate is scheduled.

In an extraordinary turn, the House speaker fired back his own letter to the president saying, in a word, no. Might the president be able to reschedule for the following night, Sept. 8?

For several hours, the day turned into a very public game of chicken.

By late Wednesday night, though, the White House issued a statement saying that because Mr. Obama “is focused on the urgent need to create jobs and grow our economy,” he “welcomes the opportunity to address a joint session of Congress on Thursday, Sept. 8.”

The president had sent in the first volley with his request for a speech next Wednesday night, when Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is scheduled to debate his fellow would-be Republican presidential nominees for the first time.

“No, of course not,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, replied when a reporter asked if the timing of the president’s speech had been meant to play havoc with the Republican debate plans. He said that “one debate of many was no reason not to have a speech when we wanted to have it.”

Mr. Boehner was not budging.

“As the majority leader announced more than a month ago, the House will not be in session until Wednesday, Sept. 7, with votes at 6:30 that evening,” the speaker wrote. “With the significant amount of time, typically more than three hours, that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House chamber before receiving a president, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks.”

Mr. Boehner did not specify what votes were scheduled for 6:30 that evening that could not be moved. The House calendar shows that members are expected to vote on the “suspension calendar,” generally minor bills like naming a post office.

Congressional historians said Mr. Boehner’s move was unprecedented.

“The Senate Historical Office knows of no instance in which Congress refused the president permission to speak before a joint session of Congress,” Betty K. Koed, associate historian with the Senate, said in an e-mail.

But then, we've never had a black president before, never mind one who has demonstrated over and over and over and over again that there is NO fight with Republicans from which he won't shy away.

Meanwhile, certain corners of the sizable Democratic base that this Administration threw under the bus very early in this presidency have stopped rumbling that perhaps it might stay home in 2012 and like Pavlov's dogs, are already falling for the same "We Suck But He's Crazy" card that Democrats have been playing for two decades:

Perry panic has spread from the conference rooms of Washington, D.C., to the coffee shops of Brooklyn, with the realization that the conservative Texan could conceivably become the 45th president of the United States, a wave of alarm centering around Perry’s drawling, small-town affect and stands on core cultural issues such as women’s rights, gun control, the death penalty, and the separation of church and state.

“His entry in the race is a signal and a wake-up call,” the Rev. Al Sharpton told POLITICO.

Perry, Sharpton said, “is looking to go to the O.K. Corral and start shooting. … Rather than the left get caught sleeping, we better load up, because he is bringing it.”

For Democrats, the pre-Perry GOP primary process was hardly for the faint of heart, as the other candidates have jockeyed to show who dislikes Obama the most. But even as the primary is fought on conservative turf, liberal leaders say they and their constituents see Perry as far worse than your average, hated Republican, and indeed as bad — if not worse — than his hated predecessor in Austin, George W. Bush. And progressives who might have had a hard time getting worked up about Mitt Romney find themselves struggling for superlatives with which to express their fear of a President Perry.

Oh, get real, people. Seriously. Does anyone actually see Barack Obama as some kind of bulwark against the kind of oligarchical theocracy that Rick Perry represents? The entire Republican Party has decided that an oligarchical theocracy is what it wants, and this president can't even stick to his guns about his own Constitutional right to call together a joint session of Congress? And people are looking to him to stop this relentless march backwards to the 13th century that Republicans now represent?

Idiots. They don't even realize that it's already a done deal. The only issue remaining is what the Obama Administration is going to say to try to tell us that massive tax increases on the poor and mandatory conversion to the teachings of R.J. Rushdoony are a GOOD thing.

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10 Comments:
Blogger Arthur Mervyn said...
Maybe the timing wasn't intentional, but I'm skeptical. And what's the speech going to consist of - more warmed over rhetoric with an exhortation to Congress to do something about jobs, and perhaps some insubstantial recommendations on what to do? I'd rather watch reruns of OFFICE and 30 ROCK.
9/1/11, 6:54 AM  
Anonymous the wifely person said...
That was the most disappointing thing the president could've done. My needle is beginning to move closer to the "spineless" sector.

My heart is totally broken over this.
9/1/11, 7:50 AM  
Blogger Thingumbobesquire said...
Sound and Fury Signifying Less than Nothing

Obama's speech before Congress on creating jobs had to be delayed...Who cares, except the news media? Americans with the least bit of savvy already know it is just another shovel ready full of the end product of the "post industrial society's" ongoing collapse.
9/1/11, 8:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I admit to slight disappointment that it played out this way, but it was just a brief, knee-jerk reaction. The problem is, the president does not have a "Constiutional right" to speak to the Congress without an invitation from Congress (separate branches, remember?). Of course, such an invitation has always been given without controversy, but the president cannot just say, "Oh no you don't, I'm coming on the 7th and that's it!" Besides, what is to gain from extending another GOP fauxtroversy any longer than the ridiculous amount of time spent on it already? Nothing. There is nothing to gain from allowing this to dominate news heading into the Labor Day weekend.

Speaking of which, "Happy Labor Day, people." Try to remember for even a moment at some point this weekend all that the labor movement has given us as workers. then, consider what life for workers would be if we allow the anti-labor minority to reverse all that was gained.
9/1/11, 8:52 AM  
Anonymous Kana W said...
There's no way to have an effective progressive President without a progressive Congress to back him up.
There's no way to have a progressive Congress without progressives in power locally to get them elected.
The right wing has been working on this for a decades - that's why they're in power now. It's a long game.
I'm just not sure we have the time to turn things around.
9/1/11, 12:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I don't know why Obama felt he needed to make this speech TO Congress, IN Congress. He could have sat at his desk in the Oval Office and addressed the nation as other modern-day presidents have done -- and hoped that the Congress critters might at least watch the tape at some point.

There was NO need for him to make this speech to Congress; Obama just wanted to make a bigger deal of his speech than it probably warrants.

Oh,. I am sure he'll say some lovely things, but don't we all understand by now that his words are meaningless?

I don't plan to listen, but that's not what's important.

What's important is that Obama is apparently still fool enough to believe the Republicans want to meet him halfway or even try to find common ground.

And the other important point is that we should all be wised-up enough by now to recognize that Obama does NOT intend to fight for anything he proposes anyway. His only goal now is to get re-elected and he hopes to do that by making speeches that will embarrass the Republicans who, he should know by now, do not get embarrassed easily.
9/1/11, 10:54 PM  
Blogger Pangolin said...
The decay will continue until the American People wake up to the fact that neoliberalism is a dead horse. It's taking us nowhere regardless of which party is in power.

The U.S. is not energy independent and will not be as long as we continue our energy use patterns.

Exporting all the manufacturing jobs abroad was a huge mistake.

Allowing banks to do anything but banking is begging for the bank officers to loot.

Refusing to prosecute corporate crime while criminalizing poverty is begging for torches, pitchforks and tumbrels.
9/2/11, 3:40 AM  
Blogger Distributorcap said...
i guess the speech move and the reversal of the smog rules really showed those independents that obama is on their side

i am beginning to think it couldnt be any worse under romney

the whole fracking govt is a ponzi scheme to help themselves build that rocket to mars
9/2/11, 9:12 PM  
Anonymous m Andrea said...
When I read your article posted today, entitled "At Last Someone Points Out The Obvious" I thought sure of course the republicans are racist, what else is new.

But the picture you posted in this article, the one created by republicans and with that sentence they wrote about "needing to put Obama in his place"... wow just wow. yep it's REALLY RACIST. Merely describing that image to me had little effect, I had to see it for myself to understand just how PATHOLOGICALLY racist the republicans are. Nobody who has even a smattering of awareness regarding our racist history in this country would ever be stupid enough to repeat such an historically offensive statement.

These republicans are PATHOLOGICALLY racist. Without any exaggeration, it is safe to say they are truly operating only on instinct from lizard brain. No wonder they're so weird, this really does explain a lot and thank you very much for posting this image. Anyway. my only suggestion is that we keep electing Black man after Black man to POTUS for the next fifty years until they get desensitized to the "horror" of a Black man as president.

And apologies, but if this is how bizerk they get at a Black (male) president, I have zero desire to watch them react to a woman (of any ethnicity) president.
9/2/11, 10:18 PM  
Anonymous m Andrea said...
You know what that sentence is? It's a dog whistle. It's a push phrase used after your target has already been brainwashed (though in this case I'd say they GLADLY submitted to the brainwashing). It's a code. It's designed to trigger a certain feeling -- the kind of pure evil CASUAL INDIFFERENCE that a nazi german would feel as they watch people dying right in front of them.

That sentence is more horrifying to me than literally anything else I've heard them say. It's the banality of evil, the tedium of hate. NO DECENT PERSON WOULD EVER USE THAT PHRASE IN REFERENCE TO A BLACK PERSON. Rush's minions knew exactly what they were doing when they wrote that.
9/2/11, 10:48 PM  
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