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Politico...
Obama debt ceiling taunts draw fire from Republicans
By Jonathan Allen
6/30/11 

President Barack Obama is quickly finding out that hell hath no fury like Republicans scorned by a comparison to pre-adolescent girls. 

On Thursday, Republicans lashed back at Obama’s schoolmarmish scolding of them for taking time off and failing in, his words, to do their “homework” on a debt-limit increase. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called on Obama to drop what he’s doing and come to the Capitol for a meeting. 

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the president should put his money where his mouth is by canceling a Thursday night fundraiser in Philadelphia to focus on the debt. 

Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), a freshman lawmaker, sent Obama a letter asking him to put forward a specific deficit-reduction plan. “House Republicans acted, and now we await your spending reduction plan — perhaps not with open arms, but we do have open minds,” Labrador wrote. 

And Republicans haven’t even started talking about Obama’s weekly golf outings or his vacation plans this summer. But Democrats who thought Obama was churlish in his Wednesday White House press conference know that criticism is coming. 

“The president might as well cancel every golf game, Martha’s Vineyard vacation and fundraiser from here until doomsday because he’s living in a glass White House and Republicans are already throwing rocks,” said a senior congressional Democratic source who described watching Obama’s press conference in bewilderment. 

It remains to be seen who will win the battle of the schoolyard taunts — both on politics and policy — but Republicans clearly think the president drew the wrong line in the sand during his nationally televised press conference. 

And it’s not clear, exactly, who the president was trying to win over in terms of building a coalition for a debt limit vote. Certainly not the Republicans he’ll have to cut a deal with. 

“The president doesn’t seem to get it. So let me do something that I think would be constructive,” McConnell said in a Senate floor speech. “I’d like to invite the president to come to the Capitol today to join Republicans for lunch, or at any time this afternoon that he can make it. That way he can hear directly from Republicans why what he’s proposing won’t pass. And we can start talking about what’s actually possible.” 

Read the rest of the story at Politico



 
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