Bitterness transferred

Remember during the 2008 Presidential campaign when Barack Obama talked of certain folks bitterly clinging to guns?

As President, clearly he's the bitter party now in light of a bill to expand universal background checks for gun purchases failed to pass the US Senate Wednesday.

The disappointment was all over the faces of Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, their mouths turned into deep frowns as they appeared in the Rose Garden shortly after the vote.

"The fact is most of these senators could not offer any good reason why we wouldn't want to make it harder for criminals and those with severe mental illness to buy a gun," Obama said. "There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn't do this."

This push to restrict firearms hit a fever pitch after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, CT this past December. In essence, the Obama administration claimed they would put forth proposals which would prevent another awful tragedy such as what occurred in Newtown. But since the recent gun bill going through the Senate would not have prevented the Newtown massacre (or the January 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, AZ for that matter) had it been law, that seems to me the most coherent argument to make. The President recently chided Republicans for resorting to "political stunts" when a handful of GOP Senators threatened to filibuster this gun-control legislation. Rather ironic he would levy such an accusation in, of all places, Connecticut where he was putting on display the parents of the slain Sandy Hook children and flying them around on Air Force One.

The bottom line is passing legislation that would not have prevented some of the more high profile shooting sprees seems to be the ultimate in political stunts.

The President's bitterness can also be bubbling over for a different reason. He doesn't have the luxury of a rubber stamp Congress like he had the first two years of his Presidency. As such, abominations like Obamacare, the $800 billion stimulus and Dodd-Frank were rammed through. You can bet he's pining for the good old days, which is why Obama For America is already on the ground looking to get the House back in 2014. The President did emphasize that Wednesday's defeat was only round one. In his mind, future rounds will occur (and be won) if indeed OFA achieves its ultimate goal.

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