Bush & Company

Is capitulation by the president, expected and feared by many, only an appearance? Will he and Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, hopefully with the cooperation of Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, reach an acceptable agreement or will Reid and Obama be obliged to lead Republicans on then try to trump them? If need be, the president could sign a simple statement, to raise the debt ceiling, divorced from all other considerations, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (entitlements being the real issue) left intact, eliminating the artificial interdependence of issues comprising the current crisis. Brought about solely by the intransigeance of a handful of shameless politicians, short-sighted and self-serving, some subservient to the rest, they seek to make the blameless pay, House speaker Boehner deliberately stalling with a plan they all knew wouldn't pass in the Senate.

The president continues to insist on a bi-partisan solution, although it's clear there'll never be a truly satifactory compromise from the Tea Party-controlled House.

The Republican mission, dating back to the 1930s, to shrink the government and abolish all Democratic programs, as well as to unseat President Obama, is heading dangerously toward fruition.

One can only hope that Mr. Obama, if all else fails, is waiting until the last minute, thus averting Congressional obstruction, to exercise his executive right to invoke the Fourteenth Amendment, despite possible future litigation, and raise the debt ceiling independently, ending the conflict with all its variables and needless complexities.

The president could be outdone,
By those Republicans undone,
Unless he's had a master plan,
Perhaps since this to-do began.

Just out to keep his speakership,
Boehner's stand is nothing new,
While still firm on bi-partisanship,
Obama's apt to lose his due---

A bill, diluted by the few.
Those mindless rightists won't unbend;
Yet our Barack could make it end
By wielding his rightful power,

Though doing it at the eleventh hour.