Mac-Coleman

8 September 2011 –

I think the best remarks in last night’s Republican discussions were Mr. Herman Cain and Speaker Gingrich. Mr. Cain’s plan of taxes, the three nines, I believe, sounds great. Speaker Gingrich was eloquent in his explanations of everything from the Reagan years to his time as Speaker. Concise and focused, the both of them.

The winners were both Governors Romney and Perry. Of course, the moderators spent most of their time on the two of them. The both of them looked presidential enough. They both sound authoritative and intelligent. They made points and counterpoints without being snide. The commandment must be repeated: Thou shalt not criticize fellow Republicans.

The biggest loser was, of course, President Obama. He was the unseen, unwanted founder of the feast by having his job’s speech to Congress thrown to the next night. Tonight, with another slap, some television stations that serve interested audiences in Wisconsin and Louisiana are playing the NFL pregame show to the Packers and Saints game instead of the President’s speech. Again, the President showed he doesn’t know how to develop and use power appropriately. He reminds me of the king of a planet that the Little Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry visited in his travels. The king would command the sun to go up at a certain time and command it to go down at a certain time. The sun obeyed scrupulously. The Little Prince was perplexed and told the king that what he was doing made no sense. After all, the king was simply telling the sun to go up and down when the sun was going to do it anyway. The pragmatic and wise king responded that, of course, that is what he was doing. After all, if he were to ask of his subjects something they could not do, then he would no longer be king. President Obama has demanded something neither Speaker Boehner nor NFL fans were going to comply with. When will he see that he ain’t no king?

Or was this an even bigger slap in the head? In the movie, Silverado, the local sheriff, played by John Cleese, was riding out of town to chase the protagonists. He and his deputy reached a point on the trail where they came under the sights of a sharpshooter protagonist, played by Danny Glover. The sharpshooter shot a branch off a close-by tree with a round from a Sharp’s .50 caliber. The deputy protested that the shooter cannot hit anything. The sheriff responded that the shooter indeed hit everything he was shooting at. The deputy then protested saying that the sheriff’s jurisdiction didn’t end until a bit down the road. Then, a round went through the sheriff’s hat, knocking it from his head. The sheriff turned his horse around and said “Today, my jurisdiction ends here.” A wise adjustment of power politics to keep in the game for another day. I wonder if the President—and his advisors—learned a lesson from this week’s debacle?. I doubt it. As much as his far left supporters say that he is abandoning his base, the President has yet to do anything that decisively and thoughtfully follows any obvious strategy. His effective jurisdiction is rapidly shrinking. Maybe he should go on vacation again. Football fans won’t miss him.