Topic: WorldNetDaily
Garth Kant huffs in an Oct. 1 WorldNetDaily article:
President Obama is willing to negotiate with the Syrian dictator he wanted to bomb for gassing his own people.
He is willing to negotiate with the president of Iran and the Taliban.
But, Obama said, “Absoutely, I will not negotiate” with Republicans.
But Kant is taking Obama's statement out of context. The statement in question -- as proven by the NPR article to which Kant links -- was a response to whether Obama would negotiate on raising the debt ceiling, not the current government shutdown:
Absolutely, I will not negotiate. And the reason, Steve, is because if we establish a pattern whereby one faction of one party controlling one chamber in Congress can threaten default, that the United States of America is no longer meeting its obligations and fulfilling the full faith and credit of the United States unless they get 100 percent of what they want, then we've established a pattern that fundamentally changes the nature of our government. At that point, any president — not just me — any president is subject to that kind of blackmail continuously.
If you had a Republican president in here and a Democratic speaker said, "We're not going to raise the debt ceiling unless you pass background checks on guns. We're not going to pass the debt ceiling unless you raise the corporate income tax by 30 percent," you know, that Republican president would find him- or herself in a similar position. That's not how our Constitution was designed. Raising the debt ceiling is not raising the debt; it is simply saying Congress is authorizing the Treasury to pay for those things that Congress has already approved.
Further, Obama and his administration have repeatedly stated their willingness to negotiate in a reasonable fashion, and Obama has met with congressional leaders trying to reach an accommodation.
Kant also appears not to have considered Jon Stewart's advice: "If it turns out that President Barack Obama can make a deal with the most intransigent, hardline, unreasonable, totalitarian mullahs in the world but not with Republicans, maybe he's not the problem."
