Leadership: A Casualty of Political Power

The budget ping-pong circus that passes for governance in our nation’s capital should be an affront to all rational Americans.
As John Boehners’ House of Representatives makes futile attempts to diminish an unpopular law (Obamacare) using the threat of government shutdown as leverage, it runs headfirst into real leverage in the form of the democrat-controlled senate with its bullheaded leader Harry Reid backed by a presidential veto. Thus the House of Representatives is all dressed up with no place to go while showing signs of disarray. Why they even thought of getting at Obamacare through such an unrealistic means is baffling, but I am an independent and care little for the offensive aroma of partisanship and party-base influence. Likewise the democrats in the person of Reid will protect theirs and the president’s prize jewel, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), dream centerpiece of their progressive ideology.
Where is the president in all of this? Oh, yes he’s busy giving his umpteenth speech glorifying Obamacare while demonizing the GOP. The message is clear: you can’t mess with the ACA, it’s law. The Supreme Court says it’s OK and besides we won the last presidential election. The intransigence on both sides is staggering as they accuse each other of being the “bad guy” and a government shutdown proceeds. How bad a thing that is, is debatable, but President Obama and his Senate buddies will likely succeed in dumping blame on the GOP.
As Governor Christie recently suggested, maybe if the president were really a leader he could get Boehner and Reid in a room and tell them, “You’re both not leaving this place until we hammer out a compromise that keeps the government funded, ends the shutdown and lays a path forward to a real budget instead of just another continuing resolution.” But Obama won’t do that because next to the ACA, he covets most injuring the GOP so badly that they will lose the House of Representatives in 2014.
As much as we might gripe about gridlock it is far better than runaway partisan power. It’s bad enough as it is with one party in control of both Senate and White House. If anyone thinks Obamacare is not so hot, just imagine the stuff the democrats could crank out with the Congress and White House locked up. The entitlement state would be just the beginning with its economically unsustainable policies and regulatory gluttony.
There was a time, during such an impasse/shutdown, when the president would take the warring parties to the “woodshed” for a chat, and then emerge with a resolution. That can’t happen today because this president rejects that statesman-like role, preferring to join only on the side of his progressive friends. Even if he chose to do so, I am not sure he has the skillset needed to pull it off. Reid and Boehner aren’t going to reach an accord. A mediating entity is needed—that should be the president if he would or could. But Obama lacks the leadership skills and inclination, preferring partisan power politics as do the two parties he should be mediating.
So we’ll eventually get another continuing resolution after he decides he’s heaped enough damage on the GOP’s 2014 chances. I’ve often feared the nation may one day be sacrificed on the altar of political power. That day draws nearer.