There’s not much doubt that trying to get at least some mileage out of the lame-duck session is on Democrats’ radar.  In response, right-leaning pundits, politicians, and various organizations are calling for Democrats to pledge that they will not pass any major legislation during the lame-duck session.  I get the politics of this — forcing incumbents to take a stand on these issues before the election, or look like they have no regard for their voters — but it is meaningless in the long run.

There is no reason to stop calling for these pledges if they’re useful politics, but they are meaningless.  There is no way to enforce them, and what repercussions are there for someone that has already been voted out of office?

What needs to happen is for anyone and everyone with an audience to call on Obama for pledge to veto any major legislation that comes out of the lame-duck session.  This pledge is different, for several reasons.  First, if he actually took such a pledge, that bare fact would make attempts to do anything in the lame-duck session far less likely.  The threat of a veto, however unlikely in practice, would position Congress as not only working against the will of the people, but against their own president as well.  A soon-to-be unemployed representative may not care about the former if he has a cushy lobbying job set up, but the latter might give him pause.

Second, this pledge would have teeth.  A politician that is never going to have to face voters again can afford to give them the middle finger, but Obama will still be in office after the lame ducks have flown.  He will have to face the polls, thoughts of his legacy, and an impending election that will be more and more on people’s minds as the Republican primary heats up next year.

The main effect of calls for a pledge to veto lame duck bills, though, would be to make Obama own anything that comes out of that session.  He likes to hide behind Congress (and his attorney general, military commanders, etc.), so it is important that people focus on his actions, not those of the outgoing (hopefully) Speaker of the House.  If he sees that he will get the full blame for the passage of any unpopular bills, he may be less likely to push for action during the lame duck session.   Even if that doesn’t make him hesitate, he will own the negative consequences and publicity.

Keep hammering vulnerable members of Congress, by all means, but every call for restraint to a Democratic Senator or Representative should be coupled with a call for a veto from Obama.

UPDATE (7/24):

Why are people still asking for members of Congress to make this pledge?  It’s utterly meaningless.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

1.  What benefits Obama?  Usually in political terms, but not always.  Keep in mind that this is what he thinks will benefit him, not what actually will.

2. What will further Obama’s agenda? If there isn’t a clear political benefit to Obama himself, look to what will further his corporatist/socialist program.

These two cover nearly every situation and can be summed up as:  there is no domestic policy or international policy, there is only Obama policy.  What is best for the U.S.A. is not a factor.

On those rare occasions numbers one or two do not apply, there is a rule number three:

3. Vote present.  If a decision can be avoided, do so.  If there is no way to avoid it, delay it.  When it can no longer be delayed, go with the option that is the closest to the status quo.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

Obama won’t relieve him of command, but there will probably be some sort of ‘probationary’ period.

Why? Well, when you are faced with a difficult decision you can’t avoid, going with the status quo is as close as you can get to voting “present.” The probation would be a bonus: the final decision is delayed, and then never really made.

We’ll see tomorrow, but I can’t think of any occasions where the president has made a hard decision — e.g., one where one outcome is not clearly to his advantage.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

What I didn’t expect was that, while trying to out-Carter Carter in weak-kneed ineptitude internationally, he would also attempt to out-Nixon Nixon in domestic ham-fistedness and thuggery.

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Do, or do not . . . there is no try.

President Obama’s policies and intentions are arguably aimed at promoting peace, but no one can rationally claim that he has actually done anything yet.  (It is also arguable — with much better evidence– that Obama’s policies and intentions are aimed more at making Obama look good, rather than achieving any kind of concrete goal.)  The committee apparently succumbed to the siren call of amorphous Hope.  Or something.

The committee is made up of five Norwegian politicians.  That’s it.  No renowned thinkers, no experts on world events, just five former members of Norway’s parliament.  Think about that for a minute.  Then think of some of the stellar examplars of international peacemaking that have been previously honored, like Yassar Arafat.

Two of the last three Democrat presidents have now won the prize (Carter and Obama).  The one left out — Bill Clinton — actually did the most of the three in actually promoting peace (see, e.g., the Oslo Accords and subsequent peace process).

Two of the last three Democrats nominated to run for president have also won (Gore and Obama).  Poor Kerry.

Think about Al Gore’s award for a moment.  No matter your opinion of man-made global warming, how in the world does promoting consciousness of it qualify one for a prize that was established to reward:

the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

So why Obama?  My favorite quote so far today:

Essentially, Obama’s award is for the outstanding achievement of “not only not being George W. Bush, but joining the rest of the world in blaming him for everything.”

Others are discussing the appropriateness of the prize, and the potential drawbacks for Obama, but one advantage is that it provides a useful litmus test.  Namely, how one defends the award to Obama pretty clearly separates out the true zombies from those who still have a few functioning brain cells.

UPDATE:

The Washington Post also notes the passing over of Bill Clinton, and reminds me of an example of his work toward peace for which he was more responsible than the Oslo Accords:  Northern Ireland.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

I give the eternal campaign until about next Fall before it becomes the running gag that defines Obama’s presidency in the public’s minds.

Today, at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey writes:

We talk about the permanent campaign, but this is a little ridiculous. The best way to tell between campaigning and governing is that Obama appears most often now with a suit coat when in public. Otherwise, it’s all campaign, all the time — and he is outsourcing his leadership to Nancy Pelosi, who has run wild with a radical agenda.

He wanted to be President. Maybe he should spend some time being that, instead of the Oval Office Campaigner in Chief.

It’s not quite there with the general public, but, if anything, Obama has gotten worse instead of better and there is no sign of him wising up.  I think I may have been a little off in my prediction, but not by more than a few months.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.

Even though I am not opposed to the speech as such, I think that the way it has been rolled out is yet another example of this administration’s ineptitude.  The ‘teaching guidelines‘ certainly didn’t help by instructing students to write letters to themselves “about what they can do to help the President” (not the country, the president), and the scheduling fail of planning the speech before many large school districts begin classes reeks of cluelessness.

The biggest problem I see, though, is not the overreach by the administration, but the way in which the speech is to be broadcast.  My local school district is not showing the speech to students — not because of parental outrage (at least in theory), but because of logistics.  Lunches, lesson plans, and other scheduled events are a good reason to give schools a recorded copy of the speech, rather than insist on a live simulcast.   An even better reason — and my guess as to the true foundation of parental concern — is the Orwellian overtones of gathering all of the children together, across the nation, to listen to dear leader speak.

If Obama were simply giving a speech aimed at all students, which the Department of Education would then make available to schools to use as they saw fit, there would be some grumbling (there always is) but I don’t think there would be the uproar.  Schools could then work it into lesson plans as appropriate, or choose to ignore it altogether, with no fuss either way.  Instead, not only does the administration push for all students to watch it at the same time, they actually came up with suggested lesson plans based on the speech — all of which bypassed local control of our schools (school districts and boards) by being addressed directly to school principals.

Given the president’s declining popularity, coupled with fears of statism and federal intrusion as exemplified by the Tea Party and health care protests, it is hard to imagine a more tone-deaf approach to the president’s speech than to force a federal agenda (harmless or not) on institutions over which local control is fiercely guarded.  Especially when children are involved.

I think the most charitable explanation is that the administration is simply clueless.  Obama and his advisers seem to believe all of their wonderful press, and cannot fathom that some people are genuinely suspicious of their motives.  Add in their belief in centralized control of all things, and it is easy to imagine how they would see nothing wrong while their opponents see a scene straight out of 1984.

UPDATE (9/8/09):

The speech is soon.  Anyone think that congress will hold hearings and investigate, the way they did the last time a president did this (George H.W. Bush in 1991)?

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Obama is pushing seven months in office, has the media enthusiastically cheering and covering for him, and solely on the basis of his own performance his popularity is tanking.

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The verdict?  The Democrats have definitely delivered on Change.  Click through and read the whole article.

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I don’t recall now where I read it, but someone recently made the suggestion that downplaying the protests was for the consumption of Democrat legislators that might otherwise be influenced, rather than for the public.  That is really the only view that makes sense, because while the public is generally ignorant and apathetic, it is not completely stupid.

Whether or not Joe Sixpack knows about the Soros-funded MoveOn and its ilk, he isn’t too likely to buy what the Democrats are selling (unless, of course, he’s already bought it).  The average person does not have a very high opinion of politicians in general, and Congress in particular.  Joe Sixpack starts from a baseline of assuming all politicians are lying, Republican and Democrat both (a smart and safe assumption).  So when one party starts spinning elaborate conspiracy theories to debunk its opponents, Joe’s bullshit meter is going to peg — especially here if he is already skeptical of government healthcare, which the polls show he is.

The Reid-Pelosi-Obama strategy of demonizing and de-legitimizing the Tea Party and/or healthcare protesters is insulting to the average person’s intelligence.  They either are, or know people that are, angry over the government’s overreach, so the conspiracy claims won’t wash.

In my opinion, the result will be to simply make the majority that is skeptical about health care trust the Democrats even less.  Not to mention making the protesters — who know they are not being paid by anyone to show up — even more adamant.  The only possible win is in the short-term, if they can convince Democrat legislators to close their eyes to reality long enough to get a bill passed.

I wrote around the time of the election (and not just me, of course) that Obama could either be a two-term president, or push through his liberal agenda, but not both.  The utter disregard for the long term (not to mention public sentiment) makes it clear which path he has chosen.

©2012 Zero Sheep. All Rights Reserved.