THE DAILY BLADE: Metaphorical Madness
The debate over how to resolve the debt ceiling crisis was contentious even by today’s level of ulta-partisanship in Washington, D.C. When one side was being accusatory, the other side was name-calling. It became a food-fight when President Barack Hussein told legislators to “eat their peas” and House Speaker John Boehner (OH) complained that negotiating with the White House was like "dealing with Jell-O" that had been left out overnight. And the “metaphorical warfare” went downhill from there, with “ominous talk of driving off a cliff, collateral damage, loaded guns, hostage situations, the dark cloud of uncertainty and the fog of the Twilight Zone,” The Associated Press reports.
You can always count on VP Joe Biden to take a metaphor one step too far, and he didn’t disappoint. During a two-hour closed-door session with House Democrats Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA.) complained, “We have negotiated with terrorists” and Biden affirmed, “They have acted like terrorists.” After sources in the room tipped off Politico and details of the exchange were published Biden’s spokeswoman disassociated the veep from the incendiary language, and he also denied using it:
[S]pokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said: “The word was used by several members of Congress. The vice president does not believe it’s an appropriate term in political discourse.”
Biden later denied he used that term in an interview with CBS.
“I did not use the terrorism word,” Biden told CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Scott Pelley.
It would’ve been easier to believe Biden’s version of what transpired in that room – where Tea Partiers and the GOP were also called “arsonists” – if Biden hadn’t also told the Dem caucus that the threat of default on U.S. debt obligations was the Tea Party’s “weapon of mass destruction.”
More benign than the violent rhetoric – hey, wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of a think tank devoted to “civil discourse” that was supposed to put an end to all that? – were the “golden oldies” of triteness.As AP Noted, “[i]t wouldn't be Washington if somebody didn't complain about the use of "smoke and mirrors" and somebody else didn't refuse to write a "blank check" and somebody else didn't pronounce a plan "dead on arrival." That's "business as usual."
For its part, New York magazine recently pulled together every instance Obama uttered the clichés "bumps in the road"; "into/out of the ditch"; and "headwinds" to describe the economy between March 12, 2009 and June 13, 2011. Maybe his Teleprompter is on autopilot or on some sort of endless feedback loop, because over the past 15 months, there've been bumps in the road (three times) to recovery, because the economy faces serious/strong/tough headwinds (five times) and the economy was in a ditch (at least 15 times) and he is trying to get it out of the ditch (seven times).
Tell you what: Let's ditch Obama in 2012 and see how fast those headwinds change direction and become the wind beneath the wings of our economy, soaring high above the bumpy road leading past all the shovel-ready projects that bankrupted the nation.
Editorial Note: The violence rhetoric casually bandied about was especially unfortunate considering that Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) - whose shooting in January inspired soul-searching and short-lived pledges by pols to set a better example - made the effort to be present so that she could vote in favor of the House bill:
"I have closely followed the debate over our debt ceiling and have been deeply disappointed at what's going on in Washington," Giffords said in a statement release later.
"I strongly believe that crossing the aisle for the good of the American people is more important than party politics. I had to be here for this vote. I could not take the chance that my absence could crash our economy," she said.
If Biden knew Giffords would be in D.C. just a few hours later, he might not have told Senate dems her colleagues that Republican leaders have “guns to their heads” in negotiating the necessary concessions to Tea Partiers to get a bill passed. But then again, being Biden, he might have gone ahead and said it anyway.
In Memoriam
Dan Peek, November 1, 1950 – July 24, 2011
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