The Reality of Congressional Leadership

There are those who would argue that the history of military defeats is based on the strategies of leaders who refuse to recognize that the enemy is playing by a new set of rules. As Barack Obama once again brings Congressional leaders together to stave off that "fiscal cliff," one wishes he were more up on this perspective. Until he recognizes that House Speaker John Boehner is a leader in name only, demonstrated by his own party's rejection of his "Plan B" effort to establish a "working compromise" position, there is little our President can do other than repeat the usual litany of appeals to rationality. By honoring "chain of command" and excluding Eric Cantor, designated "hit man" for the TEA Party, from the discussion, he is taking a position as foolish as our refusal to recognize the reality of the People's Republic of China for so many of the decades of the twentieth century (an irony that I doubt someone like Cantor would be willing to acknowledge).