The ‘Kommandant in Chef’

No, this is not “Cooking with Castro.” It’s only the illiterate ramblings tweeted by freshman Republican congressman Randy Weber from the great state of — wait for it — Texas. The entire quote reads: “On floor of house waitin on ‘Kommandant-In-Chef’ ... the Socialistic dictator who’s been feeding US a line or is it ‘A-Lying?’” It was posted on Twitter before the president had uttered one syllable of his State of the Union speech.

Rep. Tim Huelskamp, also from Texas, complained about an “imperial presidency” during Obama’s speech. Yet another Texan, Steve Stockman, simply walked out in the middle of the speech. Actually, the retreat by Stockman is a slightly more civil reaction than his previous one. During last year’s State of the Union Address, Stockman saw fit to bring the patriotic hero Ted “I’ve soiled myself to keep from serving in Vietnam” Nugent as a guest. The same gun-totin’ chicken hawk who’s threatened violence against President Obama. Another class move from the uber-right.

Former GOP Sen. Jim DeMint took time out from his current duties as head of the Heritage Foundation to chime in calling this an “imperial presidency.” I suspect the “imperial presidency” thing is going to be a recurring theme.

DeMint posted on Facebook: “This President has acted like the playground bully who, when he can’t have everything he wants, decides to take his ball and go home.”

Actually, a playground bully wouldn’t take his own ball and go home, he’d take your ball and go home. Making allowances for the muddled metaphor, the former senator from South Carolina may have zeroed in on the Republican angst.

What did Obama do? What was in his speech that has the right wing in such an uproar? Has he declared marshal law? Are we finally going to all be marched off to the labor camps that were promised during his first term? No. It’s worse than that. Let me quote from the Kommandant himself: “Whenever and wherever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that is what I am going to do.”

Wow! There it is. Work without the cooperation of the legislature? And do it within the constitutional boundaries of his office! I think some congressional feelings were hurt. After all, it’s not like this Congress has blocked more legislation and accomplished less than any other Congress in our history. Or the Senate has produced more filibusters and less real work than any U.S. Senate ever. Actually, that’s exactly what it’s like. In fact, this president has been the recipient of an unending tirade by the “I’ll take my ball and go home” extremists who have taken over the Grand Old Party.

Of course, it wasn’t just Obama’s rendition of “All by Myself” that had the right all atwitter. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz took issue with Obama’s foreign policy.

Graham said, “The world is literally about to blow up,” and Cruz painted a doomsday scenario that had New York and Los Angeles reduced to nuclear rubble by Iran. Of course, no mention was made that for the first time in more than a generation we are able to send inspectors into that country to see what is going on. No, I guess it’s better to rattle sabers and let them continue to work in secret.

The disjointed official and official-ish responses to the State of the Union offer us a glimpse into what Obama has had to deal with. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers from Washington gave the official response to the president’s speech. In it, she says the GOP has a better way to address issues of health care and wealth disparity. Of course, we don’t get even the most condensed of details, but we did hear a rather compelling autobiography.

Next, the Republicans took time out from fence building to show their inclusiveness, and Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen delivered the Spanish language edition of the McMorris Rodgers response. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah managed to tear himself away from drawing hearts on Ted Cruz campaign posters to deliver the Tea Party response. It went something like “get the government out of Wall Street and back into the bedroom where it belongs.”

Rand Paul gave his “I want to be President” response.

Unfortunately, this was really just another day at the office for President Obama. This has been his response from the opposition party since before he took office. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said his No. 1 priority was to make Obama a one-term president before Obama was even sworn in. Things didn’t quite work out that way for the senator, and it seems that filibuster-anything-that-moves McConnell is more adept at doing nothing than actually accomplishing something.

These are the folks who are up in arms because after six years of head-butting, the president has said enough. Just who is the playground bully here who wants to take the ball? Actually, I think Charles Schultz’s Lucy with the football is a more accurate depiction of what’s going on.

It seems the only real unifying force in the Republican Party today is its distain for all things Obama. The president will accomplish whatever he can within his constitutional purview without their help, because it is obvious their agenda has nothing to do with the good of the country and everything to do with discrediting his presidency. The reality is the discredit falls on them.

Chuck Legge is a freelance political cartoonist who lives in Sutton. His political cartoons, “The World According to Chuck,” are printed in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman and other newspapers around the state and nation.