Record Rains, Heat Wave

Give up. There's neither rhyme nor reason to our weather around here. But the plants in my backyard are loving it.

There's a different kind of weather in Washington, D.C. As always, I like watching political events and evaluating them and then switching off the pundits -- right, left, whatever.

I recommend this for everyone. The problem with listening to people who either agree or disagree with you too much is you may not keep your own intellectual muscles sharp.

So, if you did watch President Obama's press conference this week, like I did, and if you also ignored the pundits, right, left or whatever, then you may have an opinion as uninfluenced by others as mine.

FWIW, here's mine:

Obama is a master at the art of press conferences. He controlled the tempo, stayed on his message, and didn't answer any question he didn't want to answer.

He also laid down a series of challenges to Congress that may give him an advantage in the looming battle to avoid the prospect of the U.S. government, for the first time ever, failing to make a payment on a debt.

Or not. Maybe the Congressional Republicans will calculate that the game of chicken they've been playing for months still favors them and they will force this dangerous confrontation to the last possible moment.

As I watched Obama play his hand, somehow I sensed that he is no longer having fun. I know he is a competitor, a good one, but when he brought his daughters into the argument, I was surprised.

It is my impression that he values their privacy so much that he rarely mentions them. But by bringing their homework habits into this debate, in an effort to shame Congressional Republicans, I felt he was overplaying his hand.

It felt unfair and unwise.

But that's only me, and who am I to question those who toil in the Swamp in summer? If you've never lived in Washington, D.C., you may not understand what I am talking about, but it is truly one of the most uncomfortable places on earth to be this time of year, and it can easily fry your brain.

A conclusion?

I suspect Obama is going to win this round. I think the GOP leaders are having nightmares that if they follow their most extreme base and force the government to default on payments they will also forfeit whatever remote chance they might have had to unseat Obama in next year's Presidential election.

So, to continue the Chicken analogy, it's probably time for them to pull off of the road and make sure a head-on collision does not occur.

On the other hand, in order to make that decision, they have to figure out who is this Obama guy? Is he as gutsy as he sometimes appears to be or just another Liberal wimp?

Here is my advice, FWIW. In trying to gauge Obama and what he is willing to do in games of risk, consider what he did to Osama bin-Laden. That was probably the riskiest thing any President has done since Kennedy undertook the Bay of Pigs invasion, which proved to be a complete disaster.

By contrast, Obama played his hand and won. Do you really want to take on a man like that?

-30-

p.s. Prediction: Obama will be re-elected by a margin of 60-40 over whatever Republican wins that party's nomination.