Unless an idea is bite sized, nobody can wrap their head around it
Hal Cohen -- World News Trust
Feb. 28, 2009 -- There has been a lot of talk this week about President Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress and Governor Jindal’s Republican response. Much of the media driven punditocracy has admittedly failed at wrapping their heads around most of the ideas debated. This was predictable.
It is not possible to “wrap one’s head” around anything! A head, after all is a mostly solid object with the only extendable piece being the jaw. So, unless an idea is bite sized nobody can wrap their head around it.
Essentially, wrapping one’s head around something is akin to wrapping a bowling ball around something. Be that as it may, I am having a hard time wrapping my hands around something. Ideas, being ephemeral, tend to slip between fingers when one tries to grasp too hard. President Obama’s speech received rave reviews while Governor Jindal’s performance has been panned even by Kool-aid drinkers.
The opposition party is always at a disadvantage when giving their response because they don’t get to present it to the complete congressional delegation. For the last eight years, the Democrats suffered from the disease of response. However, during that time, and for many of the years since Ronald Reagan was elected President, I have missed a very serious Republican disconnect that Governor Jindal reminded me of.
While the Governor did call on Washington to lead in a time of crisis, he described that leadership role as one of vacancy. President Obama’s plan calls for Government to solve problems that according to Governor Jindal are best solved by you, the American People. Maureen Dowd recently asked in a column, if you aren’t insolvent then why take government funds, and if you are insolvent, why spend government funds on Sheryl Crow?
If, as Republicans claim, government is the problem, then when a Republican runs for office, shouldn’t they run a commercial stating, “vote for me, because I want to be part of the problem.” This is where we get to the Republican Disconnect.
President Obama ran a campaign where he did not claim the ability to solve society’s ills. He promised to accomplish exactly nothing. On the campaign trail he always talked about what “we” could do. Republicans like Governor Jindal, who rail against the government in pseudo-populist terms, forget that as one long-ago Republican said, our Government is made up OF the people, and is run BY the people, FOR the benefit of the people. And I, for one, know it shall not perish from the earth.
Hal Cohen is editor and publisher of Mollynyc.com