Sports, Slurpee-Obsessed President tells Congress to act like 'Grown Ups'

The Financial Times, still playing the rube:

Barack Obama has often been accused of looking too professorial behind his presidential perch. [If you say so–Ed] But on Tuesday, the US president looked more like an annoyed dad, tired of keeping his squabbling children out of each other’s hair. [No editorializing there, either.]

But his bad mood had little to do with his daughters Sasha and Malia, and everything to do with the teenage antics of the leaders of the US Congress, Republican House speaker John Boehner and the Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. [We’re really going to run this hackneyed metaphor into the ground, aren’t we?]

In key moments during his first significant foray into the debate over the 2011 budget and a looming government shutdown, he sounded like a father reminding his crying child that sometimes life is not fair. [Indeed we are.]

“There are some things that we can’t control. We can’t control earthquakes; we can’t control tsunamis; we can’t control uprisings on the other side of the world,” he told reporters. “What we can control is our capacity to have a reasoned, fair conversation between the parties and get the business of the American people done. And that’s what I expect.”

For months, Mr Obama has been accused by Republicans and some Democrats of being absent during negotiations. On Tuesday, he put himself at the centre of those talks, vowing to work tirelessly to help Democrats and Republicans reach a consensus, even if Mr Boehner had made clear that the president was not invited to a second round of talks between the speaker and Mr Reid on Tuesday afternoon.

“That’s fine. If they can’t sort it out, then I want them back here tomorrow. [Why doesn’t the president drop by Congress or the Senate instead? Maybe to discuss, oh, I don’t know, Libya, just to pull a topic out of thin air.] But it would be inexcusable for us to not be able to take care of last year’s business,” Mr Obama said.