December 4, 2010
Obama pledges to deck house GOP leadership
by Tom Toburn
In a sign of increasing desperation by a President whose popularity is on the wane, and whose legislative priorities are faltering, a recent speech found President Obama more receptive to tackling Congressional Republican leaders Mitch O’Connell and John Boehner, and beating them senseless. “Its crossed my mind,” he answered a questioner who proposed physically confronting congressional adversaries at an appearance at a Des Moine High school. “Or I thought (Vice President) Joe Biden could armlock one of them, and I could get a shot in.”
The tenor of negotiations over extending the tax cuts initiated under the Bush administration have turned increasingly contentious, with supporters on both sides urging their party leaders to hold their ground.
“Our side needs to ‘man up’,” said columnist Laura Ingraham. “The president’s lip was bleeding after an elbow hit him playing basketball. He’s not so tough.”
“Filibusters are often used as hard-ball partisan tactics, and are also in play when inter-party negotiations fail,” said Presidential historian Delores Kearns-Goodwin. “But the President has a few inches and some arm-reach advantage on some of his adversaries, so we will see how the two sides match up.”
