Geese and Ganders

by Fred Thompson

 

Remember a couple of years ago when Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that his goal was to make President Obama a one-term president? The media went nuts. They equated those candid-but- thoroughly-unsurprising remarks with wanting the country to collapse.  Ever since, the Administration has used McConnell’s comment against Republicans every time they opposed Obama on anything.  An MSNBC host called what McConnell said “pathetic.”  Sen. Chuck Schumer wondered if the Republicans “aren’t trying to slow down the economic recovery for political gain.”  Google the term: “Mitch McConnell goal to defeat Obama,” if you have a free afternoon to wade through the national main-stream outrage.  The only thing more ridiculous than the blog posts were the “comments” to the blog posts – apoplectic sputtering, interrupted by occasional (numerous ) accusations of treason.

Flash forward to last Sunday.  The lead story in the Washington Post, front page, was “Obama Sees 2014 as Key to Legacy.” Quoting key Obama allies, the article describes in great detail how Obama plans to defeat the House Republicans almost a year and a half from now to take back the House.  He is clearly obsessed with the idea, and is at least as open about it as McConnell was about defeating him. He is raising money, helping to recruit candidates and has launched a political “non-profit” group that would give access to Obama for a contribution of $500,000. These efforts, the story goes, will allow Obama to take the House and push his “progressive agenda on gun control, immigration, climate change and the economy (read new stimulus spending) in his final two years.”  While we say “what’s good for the goose” … the media begs your pardon while it collectivity yawns.

Keep in mind that this lack of coverage comes while Obama is getting his fanny kicked on sequester, having failed to sufficiently frighten the American people or intimidate House Republicans.  Getting caught lying about janitors being laid off in the Capital, almost simultaneously with his Education Secretary getting caught doing the same thing with regard to teachers, didn’t help his strategy to terrify.

The point here, of course, is that it is perfectly okay to work to change one branch of government (even if you have to bring back selling the Lincoln bedroom to do it), but it is outrageous to work to change another branch.

An even more significant point is the fact that Obama is well on his way to one major achievement: Project Overreach.  First with the sequester, then with his selling of access, and third with his notion that gun control is a winner for Democrats.

It’s funny how the pendulum swings.