The Republicans are majority party as Obama has become a "Lame Duck" President.
The press has hyped this headline as if it were something new, a unique and epic level of partisan animus. Members of the Obama administration also promote it as something new since it assumes no deals with Republicans will be possible. It gives Obama a handy excuse they will now use: "It's not us, they vowed from the beginning they wouldn't work with us!"
But none of this was new. The other side always vows to crush you. Anyone who's been around for a while in Washington knows the opposition always are trying to sound tough, using hyperbole to buck up the troops. It's how they talk when the other guys are on the ropes. The president and his staffers have been around for a while and they understand what they were hearing was par for the course. Sadly the majority of the voting public is too young, preoccupied, uneducated and ill-informed to know these facts; so, they are gullible to easily swallow the idea for executive orders without any objections.
Obama had really put down a red line in the 2014 Midterm elections boasting his policies were on the ballot with the Democrats who would be elected. Instead, the Republicans victoriously crossed over it while the electorate rejected his policies. So is it time for Obama to pull out the pen and sign Presidential Executive Orders for actions to pass more laws and regulations?--Where is the Constitutional Law defining the balance of powers now?
Obama believes that in order to gain any public support in the waning days of his disastrous legacy of a lame duck presidency he must pull out his pen. After all, there is no bipartisan cooperation now. So, he is attempting to write into the history books his Stimulus Programs, Immigration Reforms, War Powers Acts, Monetary Policies and Tax Reforms as laws. Obama's writings are akin to scribbling graffiti on the walls of the bathroom stall for everyone to see but no one really cares to read anyway.
Bill Clinton's foes made fierce vows about him, the enemies of both Bushes did the same. The opposing party always gets on the phone or gathers in what used to be Georgetown dens to
President Reagan & Speaker Tip O'Neill - 1985 at White House denigrate the President and vow to fight him to the end. That's how blowhards blow. When Reagan came in they vowed to take him down, and it was personal. Speaker Tip O'Neill called him "ignorant" and a "disgrace" and said it was "sinful" that he was president. He called Reagan "a man who has no care and no concern for the
Political Pundit Chris Matthews working class of America" and said: "He's cold. He's mean. He's got ice water for blood." An O'Neill staffer, now a cable news pundit, Chris Matthews once greeted Reagan in the Capitol with the words: "Mr. President, welcome to the room where we plot against you." They did. President Reagan knew it. Yet he had no problem dealing successfully with O'Neill. He didn't moan, "Oh they hate me, it's no use!"
In the movie 'Casablanca', as the Nazi's Prefect of Police, Captain Renault raids Rick's Cafe Americain as he shouts, "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" - Note to the Obama White House: There's always gambling at Rick's Cafe Americain. It's never a shock and not an excuse. It's business as usual. And if you're a leader you can lead right past it.--Sound like Washington, DC?
"People do what they know how to do," meaning politicians use whatever talent they have, and when it no longer works they continue using it. Obama, however, has now resorted to "pulling a Bogart" by adopting Bogie's film persona, Rick's attitude of a world-weary resignation at how bad things are and what little he can do about it - "After all, it's the Republican's fault." - Obama is now a Lame Duck!
*******
CASABLANCA, the 1942 Best Picture Oscar winner - Paul Henreid, Ingrid Bergman& Humphrey Bogart.
In case you are not familiar with Casablanca, the 1942 Best Picture film classic:
Casablanca - In French-occupied Morocco. American expatriate Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) runs a dive bar called Rick’s and makes money gambling. When his former lover Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) comes into his bar, all the old feelings of their past relationship in Paris come back to him. Unfortunately, Ilsa and her revolutionary husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) are trying to get out of the country and are meeting resistance from the Germans and the Prefect of Police Captain Renault (Claude Rains) in his service as a figure of authority of the Nazis. As Rick and Ilsa start to fall back in love, the two are torn at what to do in order to survive.