Burn All The Bridges

Bloomberg's David Reilly has some advice for the President:  Piss everybody off.  He's got some good advice:  tell the banks to screw off and make their lives miserable and jettison Timmy, Larry Summers, and Rahmbo.  But his leading piece of advice is this misguided trope:

-- Bring congressional Democrats to heel with a Sister Souljah moment.

Such an action is named for former President Bill Clinton’s putdown of hate speech by a rapper -- and, by extension, the far-left wing of the Democratic Party. Clinton’s move was designed to appeal to centrist voters.

For his Sister Souljah moment, Obama needs to pick a particularly egregious action by his erstwhile allies on Capitol Hill and then use a veto, or the threat of one, to show congressional Democrats he is in charge, not them. 

Yeah, depress the base even further.  Tell those dirty rotten hippies to screw themselves.  Great idea in a year where there's a enthusiasm gap.  You see, the Village Bipartisanship Clause says you can't punish the people responsible for the mess over the last decade without taking shots at the liberals who have done...basically nothing in the last ten years.  What power have they wielded where the Senate was full of Joe Libermans, Ben Nelsons, Evan Bayhs and Blanche Lincolns?  They had the power to get things done in the House only to see bills die in the Senate.

For this, Obama has to go veto something to show those hippies what for.  They might start thinking Obama might pass progressive legislation that people actually want, like a public option for health care insurance or repealing DADT.

He'd have to get something through Congress first however before he can threaten to veto it.  That's kind of the problem, if you haven't noticed there, Dave.