Published: Sunday, January 20, 2013 at 4:30 a.m.
Obama's going on the offensive
Last Sunday's column began, "Now
that the president has been re-elected, the only thing left for him
that counts is his legacy." Although he won't give voice to it,
there is no doubt that President Barack Obama knows this first term
has not achieved all that much. And he knows that as long as radical
Republicans control the House of Representatives, his maneuvering
room is severely limited.
In other words, he's trapped. And,
if you assume House Republicans will never sit down at the bargaining
table with him, then either he must concede that he has no real
chance to leave office in 2017 with a legacy that will put him in the
pantheon of great U.S. presidents, or he must find a way for
Democrats to recapture the House in 2014.
And his first move on the
chessboard to set up the House GOP for their demise two years hence
is his oft-repeated statement that he will not negotiate with
Congress over the need to raise the debt ceiling. Just a few days
ago, in the final news conference of his first term, President Obama
stated that he would not negotiate the debt ceiling while the House
Republicans hold a gun to the head of the American people.
He's made these kinds of statements
in the past about the debt ceiling and about income taxes, but he has
backed down in the face of Republican intransigence. However, this
time he means it, and he's hoping the GOP will be naïve enough to
assume he's bluffing again. If they foolishly make that assumption,
he's going to obliterate them.
He wants them to assume he's
bluffing because that will embolden them and cause them to push the
nation into default and/or shut down the government. When that
happens, Social Security payments, veterans' benefits and military
pay will be delayed. It ain't gonna be pretty. Obama is betting that
when the tea party Republicans take those draconian steps, they will
find that the nation turns on them with a vengeance, thus setting the
stage for their demise on Election Day in 2014.
We need only look at the symbolism
the president will use in order to appreciate what's coming as we
approach his private inauguration today, the public inaugural at the
Capitol on Monday and his State of the Union address on Feb. 12.
Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Feb. 12 is the anniversary
of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln. Moreover, the backdrops
for all the symbolism soon to be unveiled are the 150th anniversaries
of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Battle of Gettysburg,
which was the turning point in the Civil War.
At his swearing-in Monday, Obama
will use two Bibles. The first is the Lincoln Bible that the former
president used at his inauguration in 1861, and the second will be
Martin Luther King Jr.'s traveling Bible.
And there's more. It is likely that
Steven Spielberg's powerful and evocative film "Lincoln"
will sweep the Academy Awards on Feb. 24. Don't be surprised if
Spielberg and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, the author
of "Team of Rivals" upon which the movie was based, are
seated in the House Gallery next to a beaming first lady Michelle
Obama during the State of the Union address.
Lastly, when the confrontation
between the president and the House radicals reaches the boiling
point in February, the nation will be in the midst of Black History
Month with celebratory events in the media, public schools,
universities and churches — well, most churches.
The cumulative effect of the use
all of these symbols from late January through March, as the battle
lines are drawn between President Obama and the House radicals, is
going to be devastating for the GOP. By the time it's over, Obama
will have morphed himself into a black Abraham Lincoln and turned the
ideas and ideals of the founder of the Republican Party into the
sharp end of the spear that will pierce the heart of the GOP
insurgents.
It's going to be very bloody, as
was Gettysburg. It's going to be akin to the decisive battle on the
third day at Gettysburg when 12,500 Confederate soldiers, led by Maj.
Gen. George Pickett, charged the center of the Union line on Cemetery
Ridge. The carnage on both sides was ghastly, but Confederate Gen.
Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was decisively defeated.
Lee had no choice but to begin his tortured retreat that culminated
at Appomattox.
Now don't get me wrong — I'm no
fan of President Obama. I have long believed he was not adequately
prepared for the job and that his tenure thus far has been feckless
and timorous. But the House Republican radicals have proven
themselves to be something far more sinister and far more malevolent
than any of us suspected. It's what caused Colin Powell to say on
"Meet The Press" last Sunday, "There's also a dark —
a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party."
It's always the case that
doctrinally driven zealots of all stripe inevitably push their luck
to the self-destructive breaking point. In a forced choice between
benign and malignant, I'll take benign every time.
The Shadow's deciding which GOP
House patsy to defeat in 2014. Hopefully, it won't need to be the one
in the 11th District of North Carolina! Goldman, as always, can be
reached at: Email Me
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