Left Foot Time

A 92 year old living in Levittown was quoted in the Bucks County Courier Times as offering up this advice for the President on the eve of the State of the Union: “We need friendship across the aisle. … He needs to say that ‘I’ve extended my hand of friendship. If you don’t accept that, these are my elbows and knees. And here comes my left foot.” I agree, with one caveat. We’re already past elbows and knees. President Obama extended far too many hands in friendship for far too long. I think that collegiality and cordiality are great. Cooperation and collaboration are extremely important. When people you are trying to work with make it clear that they are interested in none of them, however, the time has come for knees and elbows and feet. This is particularly true when the agenda they are pushing makes no sense at all. No, the time for handshaking ended a while ago, and unfortunately President Obama was late to realize it. He really needed to take more leadership from day one. He let the Democrats in Congress take the lead on health care and other issues when he should have done that. He responded to Republican intransigence with bewilderment and inaction, when he should have been pushing back. The Republicans steadfastly refused to work with Obama and he kept hoping they would. They pushed a bewildering agenda of deregulation in response to a financial crisis caused by inadequate regulation, general bashing of the size of government with little attention paid to efficiency and other things that matter, illogically heavy handed foreign policy demands, the linking of a whole host of social and cultural propositions that would never pass muster with the majority of Americans to issues on which there should have been less disagreement, and generally obstructive politically motivated machinations. They refused to agree on even the most inane things (like the President’s place of birth). He kept right on trying to work with them. He needed to be pointing out who is protected by ‘big’ government and who the Republicans want to reduce taxes for long ago. He needed to be appointing folks when Congress was out of session and scoffing at artificially created deadlines long ago. He needed to be leading and pushing back long ago. He needed to be in there with elbows and knees long ago. It’s nice that he is rising to the occasion. I just hope he realizes that it’s left foot time now.