Back in the late 70's, Norman Lear produced an amazing fake soap opera, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Among its odd and delightful characters was one played to the hilt by Martin Mull, a guy named Garth Gimble. Besides being a sleazeball (and a wife-beater), Garth was something of a neat freak. Unhappy with his wife's performance of her domestic duties, Garth decided to lock her in the closet when he went to work. When he came home, he looked around and announced to his wife (still locked in the closet) that since the house was not yet clean, "I guess you'll just have to stay in the closet."
I think President Obama could relate to that.
The Republicans regularly appear on TV to intone that Obama hasn't fixed the economy. People are still unemployed. The house is still not clean. Of course they've locked him in the closet politically with filibusters and non-stop obstructionism. There has never been a more obstructionist GOP in my lifetime. Not one idea, not one appointment, not one piece of legislation has been met with anything but total refusal to cooperate, even when a host of those proposals were from the Republicans themselves.
That would be bad enough (and it is) but the growing chorus of liberal voices complaining that the house is still not clean is troubling. Liberals should know better. Most do, but too many are standing outside the closet door doing their best Garth Gimble impersonations. This is unfair, ignorant and ultimately suicidal.
There is much to fault Obama on. Too much. But to fault him for an economic mess he did not cause and has had zero bipartisan support in cleaning up will be our undoing. Think it's bad now? Just wait.
Oh, one other thing. Garth Gimble came to a bad end. He impaled himself on an aluminum Christmas tree that was stored in that closet.
© 2011 Kona Lowell
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