CBS news contributor Nancy Giles wants to sue Congress.
Why? For going to bed instead of taking president Obama’s “touchdown dance” call on the night of his 2012 reelection victory.
But it also sheds light on the media strategy that will be used in 2014 to bolster the president.
In a nutshell that strategy is known as the “I’m-Rubber-You’re-Glue-Whatever-You-Say-Bounces-Off-of-Me-and-Sticks-to-You,” campaign narrative first used in 1973 by 3rd grader Amelia Snodgrass of Temple Mount, NJ as she swept into her second class presidency in three years.
Accordingly, in her Sunday column, CNN’s Giles gets childlike in her complaints that Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went to bed instead of taking Obama’s call.
“Call me crazy,” says Giles, “but if the leader of the free world calls, don't you think it might be important enough to get out of bed?”
I agree with her: She’s crazy.
“So I'm wondering,” writes Giles, clearly not in the right mind, which gives her impeccable bona fides as a progressive, “Can the president counter-sue John Boehner? Or the entire House of Representatives [for not passing more of Obama’s laws]? Can we sue? And can Judge Judy officiate? Please?”
Perhaps, as will be clear shortly, she should first figure out who does what in our government before hiring an attorney. Or maybe she just needs to consult with a mental health professional that can prescribe something.
Giles outburst was in response to Republican Speaker John Boehner suing Obama for not faithfully executing the laws as any president is supposed to under the Constitution.
Boehner says that in his view “the president has not faithfully executed the laws."
Well, yeah. There’s that.
Duh.
Obamacare, Clean Air Act, Immigration laws, War Powers Act, Dodd-Frank, NSA spying, IRS thuggery, The Great Disappearing Email act, The Amazing, Changing CIA Talking Points Memo are just selective examples of selective enforcement by the executive branch.
And it’s not even a comprehensive list either.
Everyone outside Obama’s White House Bubble knows that Obama has acted extra-legally. But the media, which is anxious to be part of the cool kids’ club, is still eager to be the force field that protects every idiotic power grab the administration makes. They are, in short, the thin membrane of the bubble in which Obama lives, inside or outside the White House.
Like the force emanating from the mothership in the movie Independence Day, the White House Bubble the media creates travels with him even when Obama leaves his mothership, as he has in the last week on campaign stops in Minnesota.
Just as the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the president abused his authority in making recess appointments—that is he didn’t faithfully execute the laws—Giles and company felt compelled to protect him from the 9-nothing slap down from the high court.
“Now that's funny,” complains Giles after grumbling about Speaker Boehner’s lawsuit and not mentioning the Supreme Court decision. “Article 2 of that same Constitution says that among the President's other powers, he ‘shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.’”
I’m not sure what Boehner has to do with the Senate—he is Speaker of the House—or what recess appointments have to do with Boehner’s lawsuit.
But Giles isn’t the only media sentry who has tried to put an Ike Turner style beating on the Supremes last week by using faulty logic, failed reasoning, and brute intellectual force.
Our Ezra Klein is an Idiot award winner this week on Ransom Notes Radio was anchor Carol Costello of CNN who insisted that Obama really won the court case that was decide 9-zip against the White House.
“As usual this is a more complicated decision,” says Costello, “It’s just not black and white. Because I guess you could say the president lost, but did he?”
Duh, yeah, he lost.
Badly.
Just like he governs.
But there is a certain admirable, wide-eyed consistency in the media’s approach to projecting Obama as a “winner.”
They’ll tag Congress with the do-nothing label, and Obama as the strong man, at every opportunity, as we now see, even if the conversation has nothing to do with: 1) the topic at hand; or 2) reality.
But there is also a major flaw in their strategy.
So far, they haven’t called no givebacks.
But it’s early, yet.
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