Can you please give us a refresher on the recent history of Obama’s budgets? I keep seeing arguments that the GOP’s filibuster is the reason there have been no Obama budgets passed. I thought budgets were filibuster proof. Also I read arguments that Obama’s budgets won’t pass because the House is controlled by the GOP. Exactly how many Obama budgets were defeated in the House? Thanks — O.B.
I’m sorry. Were you talking to me? What do I look like? The Schoolhouse Rock guy? Budgets … filibusters … this is Ask Matt Labash. Not Ask CongressDaily. I’m lucky if I can keep tabs on my own budget, especially with so much of it going straight up my nose. Not cocaine, Yankee candles — I like to smell fragrant things, particularly Autumn Lodge, Christmas Cookie and Riding Mower (the last of which is part of their new Man Candle collection.)
As the title of this column suggests, you can ask me about anything in the world. And yet, you want to talk even more about Barack Obama? One of the most over-talked about persons in the history of over-talked about people? I’m not knocking you. Everybody needs a hobby. But I suggest trying one of the several hundred thousand other forums on the Internet that provide for that opportunity. In the meantime, give the guy (and me) a break already. In 2008, a post-partisan Barack Obama vowed to unite this country. And he largely has. Now, both his most acrimonious detractors and his most ardent supporters can objectively agree that he’s failed us all. Why belabor the point?
When I drive past a grisly car accident on the side of the road, I too slow down, stop and stare, get out of my vehicle, upload a few photos to Flickr and rake the ground for the loose change that might have gone flying from the victims’ pockets. I might even call 911. But eventually, the show’s over, and it’s time to move on and get to my destination. Time for you, too, O.B., to stop obsessing over Barack Obama, and to move onto your destination. The days are growing short. The barn is on fire. The empire is in decline. Obama won’t be here forever. But human misery will. So let’s contemplate it in all its myriad variations, and not limit ourselves to a single predictor of doom.
