Joe Scarborough Just Doesn’t Get It

Joe Scarborough, like so many conservatives, live in the past, the golden days of Ronald Reagan, so when things don’t go like they did back then, he simply doesn’t get it. I say this because he doesn’t understand why President Obama takes this message to the people, instead of trying to penetrate an impenetrable object like House Republicans. Joe seems to think that the president has to find something that the tea party republicans can agree with. How can you deal with a party who wants to be judged on what they repeal? They remind me of trolls who repeat the same message in a continuous loop thinking it’s a winning strategy. The only way to deal with spoiled children or trolls is to ignore them.

It’s no secret that Joe Scarborough doesn’t like President Obama, but he puts the entire blame of gridlock on the president’s shoulder because of his lack of leadership. He doesn’t see the reality; the Republicans of today do not respect the current president of the United States. They remind me of the 1950s, where a white filling station attendant, thought he was more important than a black Harvard-educated lawyer because of his skin color. That’s not to say that today’s Republicans are racists, but they harbor the same resentment towards President Obama. Sure, many Democrats didn’t think highly of President George W Bush’s intellect but their disagreement never led to a government shutdown. Today’s House Republicans would relish a government shutdown.

For the past few months, Joe Scarborough has used the years 1995 through 1997 to illustrate that Bill Clinton managed to find a way to make deals with a right-wing Congress like the one he belonged to. Although he’s been told many times, Scarborough won’t accept the fact that in those years, there were 45 moderate Republicans in the House of representatives, today there might be 2. Back in those years, there were sweeteners called pork and most members wanted to sit on committee chairs, but that’s no longer the case. The gerrymandered districts of 1995 are now super gerrymandered districts. This Congress has only passed 19 pieces of legislation, and the tea party is probably complaining about that. Those members love that 12% approval because it only enforces their message that any government is bad.

This morning, Nicole Wallace quoted from the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial that essentially said that the president’s policies were bad for the middle class. Nicole Wallace is a reasonable person, so I went back to read the article she quoted from. The statistics they used were nothing that liberals haven’t been saying all along about inequality. As expected, the conservative editorial blamed ObamaCare, regulations, taxes and uncertainty for the stalemate. The president is talking about a middle class-out strategy while conservatives still seem to think that a top-down strategy is best.

There’s a world of difference between Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama. President Bill Clinton is a political junkie who could tell you who’s running in the 21^st district of West Virginia and what their poll numbers are at any given time. President Obama couldn't care less, and he’s not interested in smooth talking anyone for their vote. Bill Clinton did not carry a grudge because he was thinking of the next piece of legislation that he wanted to pass. The president is less forgiving because he has a long-term vision, so he’s not interested in the day-to-day today squabbles or people who are prone to lying. For example, Bill Clinton did make a deal with the GOP, he got re-elected but he lost several seats. President Obama is not willing to cut a deal that will cause his party to lose seats. I guess you can make an argument that Bill Clinton put country before party but did he?

The House of Representatives reminds me of the “Wild Wild West” where members of Congress can’t wait to get to the microphone, so that their outrageous statements make the evening news. A Republican member of the House of Representatives blamed the media for broadcasting Representative Steve King’s racist remarks. Really! In a committee meeting about legislation regarding the Dreamers, Steve King said that for every valedictorian, there were 100 drug mules in that group who packed 75 pounds of marijuana into this country, as evidenced by their cantaloupe sized calves. When asked for his proof, he named some anonymous border patrolmen. Oh, the speaker condemned the words, but he remains on the committee. This is the same speaker who removed three committee members for voting against him for the Speaker the House.

The bottom line, the Speaker the House, John Boehner, cannot control his own party but Joe Scarborough expects the president to come up with a proposal they can agree with. That’s a tall order.