Toon- Leadership

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By Tom Toles
Could Obama do MORE to get the country back on track? Is he showing enough LEADERSHIP? If he gave a big speech, would the Republicans be persuaded? If no, how about if he gave the same speech but changed some of the words to be the very special words that would change Republicans’ opinions? You know what I mean by that.

By that I mean the special words like the special words you were trying to come up with that one night when you were awake at 2am composing the killer email that would fix that problematic person in your life once and for all. You did not stint on your efforts on the wording, OR the multiple reworkings of that wording. Why, you tried every combination that your brow, furrowed but unseen in the darkness, could come up with. And then finally you got it, the perfect phasing that would cause the capitulation you so vividly desired, and deserved. And then you went back to sleep. Wait! No! Here’s and even BETTER way to phase it, to close off the loophole you now see you left in your original phasing. And so on and on and on until the alarm went off and your first cup of coffee at the keyboard in the menacing rays of actual daylight makes you realize what a waste of time your fevered nighttime exertions had been.

Here are a couple different questions for you. Could REPUBLICANS do more to get the country back on track? Are THEY showing enough leadership? These are the better questions, but they go unasked because of the preposterousness of the possible answers. The reality in Washington is all about power, not wording, and that is a subset of economic interests. So you won’t get satisfying answers to your questions until you start asking the right ones.