“Aren’t I going to get a reputation for being soft on turkeys?”
In the film “The Object of My Affection” (which we happened to browse into because it’s a lazy Saturday afternoon), Alison Janney and Alan Alda play a married couple.
Which to West Wing fans, means there’s an alternate dimension where CJ Cregg and Arnie Vinick got hitched.
Worlds Collide: Obama Channels “The West Wing” Debate
I saw this on MSNBC this morning and it’s like Lawrence O’Donnell is writing for the President. From yesterday’s speech about immigration:
THE PRESIDENT: We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement. All the stuff they asked for, we’ve done. But even though we’ve answered these concerns, I’ve got to say I suspect there are still going to be some who are trying to move the goal posts on us one more time.
THE PRESIDENT: You know, they said we needed to triple the Border Patrol. Or now they’re going to say we need to quadruple the Border Patrol. Or they’ll want a higher fence. Maybe they’ll need a moat. (Laughter.) Maybe they want alligators in the moat. (Laughter.) They’ll never be satisfied. And I understand that. That’s politics.
You may remember the seventh-season episode live debate, where Matt Santos and Arnold Vinick have the following exchange:
SANTOS
Okay. We get it. Why not triple the border patrol?
VINICK
Well, if we could find room in the budget…
SANTOS
I don’t know how you plan on…
SAWYER
Congressman, please let him finish.
VINICK
No, I’m finished.
SANTOS
I don’t know how you’re going to find room in the budget to double the border patrol with the tax cut that you’re proposing. Why not double the border patrol? I’ll tell you why not: because we already have. Since 1990 we’ve tripled, not double, tripled the border patrol along the Mexican border and you don’t need me to tell you that it hasn’t solved the problem.
VINICK
If we had more agents…
SANTOS
Doubling the border patrol means that 80% of illegal entries will get in instead of 90%. Don’t let anyone tell you that the border can be secured by doubling the border patrol. The problem of illegal immigration is much bigger than the border patrol.
Deja vu all over again. Nice to see the President in campaign mode again.
"A disastrous fiscal crisis looms when the federal government is shut down after the President and the powerful Republican Speaker of the House (Steven Culp) disagree over an extra two percent in budget reductions that would trim many of Bartlet’s key social programs. Opinion polls reveal that the public blames the Democrats for the impasse. As Leo, Josh and Toby send the staff home, the trio remains uneasy as the President refuses to compromise – until he hatches a bold plan to personally and publicly challenge the Republicans in the halls of the Capitol. By marching to the Capitol, the President humbles himself and thus re-gains public support by symbolically proving that he is the one who is willing to make the effort to overcome the impasse. Speaker Haffley’s counter-measure – snubbing the President by refusing to meet with him right away – backfires when the President eventually leaves, indicating to the public that after the President had taken the first step to resolving the shutdown crisis, it was Congress who had chosen politics over negotiation."President Obama needs to go for a walk.
