January 29, 2009

L’Etat, C’est Obama

Shame on Eric Cantor. The House Minority Whip reportedly had the temerity last week to query the 44^th president of the United States as to why the Virginian and his fellow GOPers should swallow provisions in his $825-billion stimulus plan that essentially convert the IRS into a welfare agency.

Quoth the Chief Executive: “I won.”

So it wasn’t enough to be The One. Now he wants to be the Sun King.

L’etat, c’est Barry.

At least we now get the full symbolic portent of the Yes-We-Candidate’s animated logo, which movingly portrayed a red, white and blue orb rising over the horizon.

Perhaps His Highness was in Indonesia for the part of grade school where they teach “checks and balances.” Not to mention that Rep. Cantor and others visiting the new Versailles had also “won,” having been elected by constituents with the mistaken notion that they deserved representation.

It seems, however, that someone has given the one-time constitutional law professor a civics lesson. Because this week the president traversed Pennsylvania Avenue for direct, back-to-back meetings with the entire caucuses of House and Senate Republicans that could best be described as rarer than good hair days for Rod Blagojevich.

The former senator apparently charmed his erstwhile opposite numbers, several of whom praised his sincerity, as Obama promised to take some of the minority party’s suggestions back to congressional Democrats for consideration.

Color me skeptical. I’m thinking the new Prince of the Potomac is merely seeking to lure the opposition party back into the political Bastille in which they had been shackled by their partisan ties to the previous holder of his office – the nominally Republican progenitor of America’s first true taste of socialism.

But having run blinking into the daylight of freedom to express once more their free-market ideals, I’m doubting that GOP legislators will acquiesce to a bill that even Bill Clinton’s budget director insists will not “stimulate” anything (although the now-removed family planning provisions might have brought new meaning to the term), yet feeds a newly monarchical executive.

I especially took note when a Republican who was playing political maverick as a state legislator when John McCain was still in flight school responded with disdain to Sleek Barry’s overtures. You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time. But you can’t fool Chuck Grassley.

In contrast to Obama’s smooth stylin’, the hog-farming Ioway senator is so corn pone he makes maize blush. But don’t let his Mr.-Smith-Goes-to-Washington mannerisms throw you. My wily old boss knows when he is being taken for a ride by members of either party.

In a statement, the ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee snarled that no one should “be mistaken that this (stimulus) bill is the result of bipartisan negotiations.” Calling the mega-billion-dollar whopper "a deal made between the Democratic Leadership and the Obama Administration,” Grassley added: “No Republican ideas need apply."

Meanwhile, at this writing, Rep. Cantor and the minority leadership were “whipping” their cohort to resist Obama’s blandishments and stand as one behind a Republican plan consisting mostly of tax cuts that yield immediate bang for the buck – without blowing out government.

The House GOP guerillas had no chance to prevail. But maybe they have at least stirred up the ashes of our two-party system.

Sun King, hear their cry: “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité . . . and tax cuts!” To the ramparts!