A Democratic Shellacking

I have always liked the word shellacking.  It always reminds me of when a pitcher gets "shelled" during a bad outing.  Maybe that's why President Obama used it to describe this week's elections.

"I'm not recommending for every future President that they take a shellacking like I took last night," a somewhat reflective President told a White House news conference on Wednesday.

"It's hard.  And I take responsibility for it in a lot of ways."

"I'm sure there are easier ways to learn these lessons," Mr. Obama added.  

What lessons those were was not immediately clear, as the President did not exactly emerge from the Oval Office with any peace offerings for Republicans, just talk about bipartisan cooperation.

When asked about health reform for example, and the GOP pledge to repeal the new health law, the President made very clear that he was not interested.

"As I said before, I think we would be misreading the election if we thought that the American people wanted to see us over the next two years, re-litigate arguments over the past two years."

In other words, the can of worms that was the political storm of health care reform is not going to be re-opened on his watch, no matter what Republicans want to do.

But Republicans have different ideas, as they signaled again on Monday that they will push ahead with efforts to repeal the controversial health law.

"Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says he'll push to repeal the health care overhaul passed by congressional Democrats, and if that fails he'll try to undo the law "piece by piece," read a story on Wednesday, indicating that the GOP isn't going to just roll over because the President says so.

So what's ahead?  Probably a lot of gridlock, which might not be all that bad for both parties, as they can conveniently blame the other for the lack of progress in the halls of Congress.

"Our job is to listen to the American people and follow the will of the American people," said House GOP Leader, and soon-to-be Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

Both parties will say they are listening to the American people.  This time, more of those listening to the Republicans showed up at the polls.

Two years ago it was the opposite.

You might not want to hold your breath on the two sides cooperating on a host of issues before the Congress.

I have always liked the word shellacking.  It always reminds me of when a pitcher gets "shelled" during a bad outing.  Maybe that's why President Obama used it to describe this week's elections. "I'm not recommending for every future President that they take a shellacking like I took last night," ...