Buck Up, Barack

Somewhere someone is trying to instill in young people the virtue of working together, of putting aside our petty squabbles and outsized egos and personal politics for the betterment of everyone, me, you, the stranger you see at the bus stop on your way to work and the old lady who you really should help with her bags.

In other words, somewhere there’s someone who’s getting no help from Washington, DC.

This has nothing to do with deficits and debt or fraud and waste. Nothing to do with war or the economy or tax breaks for the astronomical rich. 

This has everything to do with grown-ups who hold some of the most powerful positions in the world being so stubborn that they’re unwilling, for even one night, to put aside their petty squabbles and outsized egos and personal politics to do something good. 

Something like giving the president, our president -- no matter your party, color, or creed -- the chance that the Constitution affords him (and one day her) to address Congress, and the rest of us, without hassle, in hopes of getting things back on track. 

What’s the big deal, you say, he’ll get his chance to talk the next night? 

Well imagine if at work tomorrow you went in expecting to make a really important sales pitch to some really important clients but a rival coworker who has a really bad tan and holds the keys to the meeting room refused to fork them over until his buddies had their moment in the sun. 

That’s pretty much what’s happening down yonder. 

I don’t buy the excuse coming from the speaker’s office that the original timing of President Obama’s much anticipated jobs speech didn’t work. Rather Speaker Boehner’s unprecedented decision to force the White House to postpone the speech has everything to do with politics. Specifically everything to do with the timing of next week’s Republican debate. And as cynical as it sounds and as much as my journalist friends may want to stone me for saying it, these debates have become every bit part of the media and insider elite’s way of building up candidates just to tear them down, all in the name of some process that’s supposed to help us see who’s best fit to lead our country but is really a carnival of tragic comedy and the grand theater of the self-obsessed.  

The White House has it right. Republicans hellbent on turning Hope into Nope have proven they will do anything to “muck” things up, even if it means doing what’s never, and should never, be done.

The sad thing is I’m not even all that surprised, just upset. Politics is war, I know, and both Republicans and Democrats share the blame for the stubborn, recalcitrant tone of the city of my birth. The only problem is we all suffer for it. People trying to live lives of cooperation, who put compromise over gamesmanship, suffer for it. If you’re like me, we all suffer for it. Come over and we'll stew together.

Fortunately, however, I still think another embarrassment can be avoided. It doesn’t sound like your people are interested in hearing it, but here’s what you have to do, Obama:

Forget about Congress, forget about them for now. Your speech isn’t really about getting them to act any way; you know Republicans aren’t going to listen to anything you have to say, let alone entertain doing anything if it means you will be able to take credit for helping people and businesses ahead of the election. It’s that polity called the “American people” who you really want to address. So address them you should. It’s still warm out. Roll up your sleeves. Have your staff set up the podium on the South Lawn and tell it like it is. Lay out your plan. You wanted to talk next Wednesday, when Congress is back in session (not because that's when presidential wannabees are debating), so talk next Wednesday, not Thursday. I know you didn’t want to downplay the speech by making it at some town hall. But now you have a bigger issue. Now is the time to show the American people and the bond rating agencies and the rest of the world that it doesn’t have to be politics as usual. Force “them” to act. Show us that big ideas, if you still have them, aren’t held hostage by ego and politics and those whose power is their only concern.