Saturday, September 03, 2011

OBAMA, AS USUAL: I'M SURE THE BULLIES WILL BE SATISFIED WITH ONLY SOME OF MY LUNCH MONEY

I imagine you know about this:

The White House announced Friday that it is shelving a major planned Environmental Protection Agency regulation that would have tightened smog standards, dealing a huge blow to environmentalists that had pushed the Obama administration to resist industry pressure to abandon the regulation....

It just seems like classic Obama: make a partial concession and hope that will be enough for the Republican thugs. Of course it won't be:

The rule was among 10 regulations that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had singled out for elimination in a recent memo laying out the GOP's fall jobs campaign....

The office of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the withdrawal of the rule "a good first step" toward reducing regulatory burdens on businesses, but said there is more to be done.

"This is certainly a good first step, and we’re glad that the White House responded to the Speaker’s letter and recognized the job-killing impact of this particular regulation. But it is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to stopping Washington Democrats’ agenda of tax hikes, more government ‘stimulus’ spending, and increased regulations -- which are all making it harder to create more American jobs," spokesman Michael Steel said.

"#GOP jobs push working," a triumphant Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Cantor, said Friday in a tweet after the withdrawal of the smog rule was announced.


So there are your optics: the Republicans will say Obama has met them a mere one-tenth of the way, while crowing about an Obama jobs initiative that's actually their initiative. And since they're going to block everything of his own that he proposes anyway, this is effectively going to be the Obama jobs plan.

Ah, but we're told there's a light at the end of the tunnel:

In a statement, Obama said he has asked the agency to wait until 2013 -- you know, after the next election -- to improve the standard.

Look, if Obama wins reelection, it's not going to be like Reagan in '84 or FDR in '36, or even Clinton in '96. It's going to be like Harry Reid in 2010. If Obama wins, he's going to win because the Republicans nominated someone unelectable -- and even then, as in the case of Sharron Angle, the unelectable candidate will probably almost get elected.

The only question is whether we're in for sixteen more months of this and four years of Teabagistan or five years and four months of this. Obama may as well have postponed reconsideration of the rule to 2017.