If Alexandra Petri and I are both having a spot of trouble with misbehaving words, it's in the great tradition of Saturday Night Live's perpetually angry scourge, Emily Litella (Gilda Radner), who (for example) couldn't understand what all the fuss was about "violins in schools.""The American people said they wanted change, but really what they wanted was just a little bit off the top because anything else would frighten their spouses. . . ."The president thought that when we said we wanted jobs and changes, we wanted jobs and changes. He will learn. Even then, he used fewer executive orders than his predecessors, but -- hey, it's not the scale, but how you use them, that counts."-- Alexandra Petri, in her washingtonpost.com "ComPost"column, "Why not sue the president, Speaker Boehner?"by KenFirst off, I should try to correct possible misimpressions arising from the above post title, by which I don't mean to say that Sunny John is, you know, such an august personage that he shouldn't be nattered by a journalistic gnat doodling an online column called "ComPost." No, on the contrary, anyone who is aware of my substantial esteem for Ms. Petri, not to mention my feelings about our one and only U.S. House speaker, who for me has roughly the stature of an inexplicably-as-yet-unsquooshed bug, will surely understand that I mean Sunny John is literally not worthy of such esteemed spoofing skills.Fortunately, I think Ms. Petri will be inclined to be kind, since (a) she is, I believe, recently back from vacation, and anyone who has been on vacation owes, if nothing else, the tiniest modicum of kindly indulgence toward those of us who haven't been, and (b) she got bogged down in a linguistic bog of her own at the start of her attempt to mediate the brewing legal brouhaha developing between Sunny John and the White House:
When I first heard that Speaker Boehner was trying to force an unwanted suit on President Obama, I must confess I felt a certain sympathy for President Obama. Once a co-worker attempted to force some unwanted dresses on me, and let me tell you, it was tense around the office for a while after I realized that I either had to pay her for them or admit that I did not want them. They hung in my cubicle for weeks, looming ominously, like the dresses of Damocles.
Fortunately, Alexandra gets the confusion sorted out fairly quickly, and proceeds to disagree with such authorities as White House press secretary Josh Earnest, who attempted to dismiss Sunny John's threatened lawsuit against the president -- for some imagined diabolical (one might call them "Bush-like," except that those were real) executive usurpations of authority -- as "a taxpayer-funded lawsuit against the president of the United States for doing his job" and "the kind of step that most Americans wouldn't support."ALEXANDRA THINKS WE'D SUPPORT SUNNY JOHN'S STUNT SUITFor the record, Alexandra is not one of those people who believes Sunny John's threatened lawsuit is "a flagrant partisan stunt."
That is nonsense. A flagrant partisan stunt would be much more fun: Say, a man in a bright red suit shouting, “OBAMA’s not MY president!” before jumping a motorcycle over a long row of flaming trucks — which actually happens in some parts of the country, come to think of it.
On the contrary, says Alexandra. She's convinced that we Americans would support the speaker's lawsuit.
If there is one thing that I, as an American, feel certain of, it is that you can make good money by suing people. Especially when those people are just doing their jobs. We just need to play our cards right. Maybe we’ll actually get some remuneration out of this whole arrangement, which we can pool and put into our collapsing roads and bridges. Frivolous lawsuits and apple pie! That’s what this country was built on.
And in case Sunny John hasn't got the case entirely worked out yet, Alexandra explains for him. "Where are the jobs?" the speaker apparently wants to know." You or I might answer that they were taken away by the people who paid to put and keep an unsquooshed bug like Sunny John in power. But no, says Alexandra. Where are the jobs? "Simple: The president is hiding them."
It is well known that once you are elected president, they lead you to a big room just inside the Oval Office where there is a big lever labeled “JOBS.” All you have to do is press this lever, and it will produce all the jobs you could ever want. And some you don’t want, like the job of the guy who has to alter the numbers on the population signs outside small towns whenever Old Father Cartwright dies.And yet President Obama contumaciously persists in refusing to push it. Never mind the jobs numbers and reports. That’s the executive branch, and they are known for their trickery. I don’t know what he’s waiting for! A third term? That is just what a “king or monarch” (Boehner again) like him would want!
"I BELIEVE EVERYTHING I HEAR ON TALK RADIO"This "king or monarch" business really rings a bell for Alexandra, who believes the president "has been acting far too much like a 'king or monarch' and for far too long."
He is acting so much like a monarch that he showed up at a state dinner clad entirely in ermine robes and the dashed hopes of peasants, carrying a large scepter, and causing several portraits of George Washington that were hanging on the wall at the time to get up and walk pointedly out of their frames in disgust. At least this is what I heard on talk radio. (I believe everything I hear on talk radio because everyone seems so upset. Why would you get so upset about something that was not actually happening? Unless it were the Star Wars prequels, or any time someone dies on Game of Thrones, or a Kardashian relationship, or — or – well, I still think it’s a good rule.) Also, I hear he walks around these days entirely surrounded by corgis.
Contrary to what the president seems to believe, Alexandra says, we Americans didn't really want "change." This is easy enough to demonstrate.
If we wanted bills and things to pass to maybe create those jobs we have heard so much about, we would not have voted so that the House and Senate would be composed of the people they are composed of, with the majorities and filibusters and occasional flutters of committee-ing that this entails.
Sunny John is not one to be fooled by executive protestations of some dire need to do something.
No, I’m sorry, he says: “When there are conflicts like this — between the legislative branch and the executive branch — it is my view that it is our responsibility to stand up for this institution in which we serve, and for the Constitution.”Also the President spilled coffee on him one time and did not warn Speaker Boehner that it was going to be hot, and he thinks we can probably get a lot out of him for that. Or was that McDonald’s? No, I think that might have been McDonald’s. I’m sorry. Go on with the regular suit. If anything, I’m worried that it isn’t frivolous enough.
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