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Obama to Boehner: 'I Will Use Inaugural Address, State of the Union to Blame GOP'
Townhall.com ^ | December 23, 2012 | Kate Hicks

Posted on 12/24/2012 12:08:49 AM PST by Kaslin

Statesmanship at its finest: during fiscal cliff talks, President Obama reportedly told Speaker Boehner that he would use his two major speeches in January to blame Republicans for the stalled deal. According to the Wall Street Journal, the president wasn't too happy with the options House Republicans were willing to present, and made it clear he was willing to throw the GOP under the bus for the nation's financial woes.

Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn't reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, "I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?"

"You get nothing," the president said. "I get that for free."

Sounds like those talks are going really well.

In seriousness, the article makes clear that the president has refused any and all deals Boehner has offered, even those in which Republicans capitulated on tax hikes for the wealthy, an Obama staple. It's clear that the president and the House are both unwilling to bend to one anothers' terms, and it's disconcerting to see that Obama would rather use his platform to keep pointing fingers than for some more inspiring message, nevermind swallowing his pride and accepting a semi-viable deal.

Obama claims to have modeled himself after Lincoln, but it certainly doesn't sound like he's minding his favored predecessor's example of how to compose a second inaugural address in times of turmoil:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Imagine the man who spoke those words coming before his country in a time of distress and blaming a rival political party for all the nation's ills; it's impossible. Obama is a well-known admirer of the Lincoln biography "Team of Rivals," but while he's talking to the other side, he seems unwilling to listen. Apparently, he's content with laying blame and saving face at the expense of the nation's financial health.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Government; US: Ohio
KEYWORDS: abrahamlincoln; barackobama; bewarethefff; bushtaxcuts; fiscalcliff; johnboehner; misshimyet; obamacare; ohio; speech; zerocare
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To: Bud Krieger
The GOP house members should just yell, “ You lie “, after every sentence of his speech.

You'll notice that Ubama busy was calling his critics liars when he was called out for lying about his programs.

Who is he to get to call OTHER Americans "liars" without challenge?

41 posted on 12/24/2012 11:09:38 AM PST by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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To: Kaslin

Obama is a low class, drug dealing, gutter bum. That’s all he has ever been and that’s all he’ll ever be.

The man has disgraced our nation beyond words. He has no honor or dignity. He’s a zed dog in the pack and how he ever got elected not only once but twice just shows how stupid half of America really is.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard him utter a single true word out of his punk mouth. I find the mans actions and his agenda totally offensive.


42 posted on 12/24/2012 11:15:29 AM PST by BCR #226 (02/07 SOT www.extremefirepower.com...The BS stops when the hammer drops.)
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To: vpintheak
Bankrupt America, that’s what it’s all about. Setting up a dictator and making people pay.

Probably should insert "declare a national state of emergency" between those two sentences. That would bring a bunch of Executive Orders into play to enable the "dictator" part.

43 posted on 12/24/2012 11:29:01 AM PST by Max in Utah (A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.)
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To: Kaslin

The deal, whatever it would have been or will be, will only make our economic woes stay the same or get worse. And when that happens, obama will blame the republicans anyways.


44 posted on 12/24/2012 1:00:37 PM PST by lowbridge (Joe Biden: "Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy.")
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To: chiller
He could do that. It would make a powerful statement about the separation of powers. For a number of years, SOTU messages were sent in writing to Congress. There were no SOTU "Addresses" for the first half of our history.
45 posted on 12/24/2012 4:54:11 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: Venturer
The SOTU message is a constitutionally required message to inform Congress "from time to time" on the state of the union. It is not meant to do anything other than to inform Congress of what the president thinks is the state of the union, and to recommend steps to improve it. It does not have to be a speech.
46 posted on 12/24/2012 5:00:48 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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