The president and first lady this weekend gave a traditional Christmas message of sorts, thanking the troops and the visitors who streamed through the White House to see the extravagant decorations.
Not that there wasn’t room for a little policy gloat.
“You see, the war in Iraq is over. The transition in Afghanistan is underway. After a decade of war, our heroes are coming home. And all across America, military families are reuniting,” President Obama said. “So this week let’s give thanks for our veterans and their families. And let’s say a prayer for all our troops – especially those in Afghanistan – who are spending this holiday overseas, risking their lives to defend the freedoms we hold dear.”
“Our military families sacrifice so much on our behalf, and Barack and I believe that we should serve them as well as they serve this country. That’s why Dr. Jill Biden and I started Joining Forces – an effort to rally all Americans to honor and support our veterans and military families. Just go to joiningforces.gov to find out how you can show your gratitude for their service,” Michelle Obama said.
“Because that’s what this season is all about. For my family and millions of Americans, it’s a time to celebrate the birth of Christ. To reflect on His life and learn from His example. Every year, we commit to love one another. To give of ourselves. To be our brother’s keeper. To be our sister’s keeper. But those ideas are not just part of our faith. They’re part of all faiths. And they unite us as Americans,” the president said, coming this close to launching into the fairness doctrine.
In the weekly GOP address, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) could have stuck to a Christmas greeting but instead relived his notoriously bad week.
“The House has done its part to avert this entire fiscal cliff. On the 10th of May and again on Thursday, we passed legislation that would replace the ‘sequester’ with responsible spending cuts. We also passed a bill to stop all of the January 1 tax hikes. The events of the past week make it clearer than ever that these measures reflect the will of the House,” Boehner said.
“The American people re-elected President Obama on Election Day. They also re-elected a Republican majority in the House. In doing so, they gave us all a mandate. It was not a mandate to raise tax rates on families and small businesses. It was a mandate for us to work together to begin solving the massive debt that threatens our country’s future,” he continued.
“Unfortunately, the president and Senate Democrats have vowed to reject and veto all of our proposals while failing to offer a responsible solution of their own.”
Boehner said while Obama has “to challenge the members of his party,” he’s done just that with the GOP. And that culminated in his Plan B compromise not even having the votes to come to the floor last week.
“The president’s solution of raising tax rates would still leave red ink as far as the eye can see. And it would hurt jobs, at a time when far too many of our citizens are struggling to find them,” the speaker said, vowing to continue working on a plan. “For now, I wish all the American people a blessed and merry Christmas.”
Look at ‘Christ’ through Baha’i glasses.
That’s the ‘Christ’ he is talking about.. just some prophet
Obama isn’t a Baha’i – he’s a Muslim. Muslims consider Issa (Jesus) to be only a prophet, and nothing more.
Islam was nothing more than a heresy against Christianity. This dude from Syria had it all figured out in the eighth century.
I do not for one moment believe Obama’s phony lip service to christianity is a reflection of personal faith. Of course, we expect politicians to pay lip service to all things good, and the fact that he is giving the nod to at least that much of our culture means that, for the moment at least, some good things still hold sway even over this administration, and that is a god thing.
Relax John. On May 10th 2012 you gave Obama a gift – its called The Fiscal Cliff – something you could not imagine going over. Something Obama could not imagine NOT wanting to go over.
This ain’t a checkers game John – start playing chess – thats what Obama is playing – and he’s whipping your ass.
It is not a fiscal cliff, it is the start of the OBAMA TAX INCREASES. Hang it around the Kenyan’s neck where it belongs. Obama could easily stop the coming doom but so long as the damage to him and his cronies is minimal, why should he. If we label every potential ill as resulting from the OBAMA TAX INCREASES, maybe he (and Harry, his running dog) will be willing to negotiate.
Merry Christmas, despite President Obama and Speaker Boehner.
Here’s my little yuletide message for the President, as he has Uncle Joe prepare his gun-control plan for January, when the nation presumably will be in a bad mood towards Republicans after being swept off their feet by the State of the Union oratory:
“As realists, the Framers believed that constitutional protections of rights meant little during times of popular hysteria; any member of the Constitutional Convention could have cited examples of gross abridgements of civil liberties in states that had bills of rights.”
—”Origins of the Bill of Rights”, Leonard Levy, pg. 22
And thus, as we celebrate the day where the message was in part that stronger power alone is never sufficient justification, let us thank God that those who were so concerned about the possibilities of an anti-Muslim backlash after 9/11 would never, after a mass murder, try to whip popular opinion against a group they did not like anyway, even before the murders occurred. Tis a blessing.
Øbama on Christ? Well show me your faith by your works. By their fruits ye shall know them. Or as the great prophet Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
In other words, Obama wants to pull a Clinton and “balance” the budget by gutting the military.
In truth there is no room to cut anything anymore. Troop levels can’t be cut and expect the military to remain effect by allowing rest, keeping trained and experienced people, and maintaining institutional knowledge that will be needed when the next war comes. Equipment levels also need to be maintained because the defense industry needs contracts or it will dry up and have to be painfully rebuilt from scratch when the next war comes.
This is also a time of growing global tension. While we can’t keep playing global cop on a big scale, our enemies and rivals are on the march at least as forcefully as any time during the Cold War. They are already emboldened by the weakness of our overstretched military. Cutting would be an invitation to trouble.
But then that is the historic pattern for the US: fight a war, gut the military and spend the “peace dividend” buying votes, act surprised when we get kicked in the face by a new enemy, rush to rebuild the military and send it off to get slaughtered for a year or two before the lost knowledge and experience is regained.
So go ahead Obama, gut the military. The way things are going the next big war will likely happen under your watch. Maybe that’s what he’s counting on: he could then follow FDR’s example and say “we can’t change leadership now, not in the middle of a war.”