At last President Obama gets a respite from life in the polarizing cross hairs of partisan politics. Thank you, District Judge Barbara Crabb, and thank you, Goldman Sachs.
The former is the Wisconsin judge who ruled that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. She said it amounted to a call for religious action. The Obama Justice Department is appealing posthaste, saying the National Day of Prayer, established by Congress in 1952, is merely an acknowledgement of the more-than-manifest role of religion in America. Not unlike, say, “In God We Trust” or “So help me God.” It will challenge the decision in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.
Not that the president is now on a bi-partisan roll, but it hardly hurts when your loudest critics are atheists and agnostics. Not exactly the “Take Back America” crowd.
The second half of the political parlay is trickier but, nonetheless, a political winner.
While the GOP can claim to have free-market DNA, it’s risky to be associated with America’s new arch enemy, the traitor traders of Wall Street. All of a sudden, government-initiated reform and Glass-Steagall-like re-regulation doesn’t seem like the slippery slope to socialism — but a prudent course correction for a market run amok with insider conniving and derivative overdosing. Anybody want to rally around Fabrice Tourre and Lloyd Blankfein?
Either the president gets — and gets credit for — much-needed financial reform or a flummoxed GOP takes an unnecessary hit in the fall elections for having thwarted such efforts. Anybody want to rally around Mitch McConnell?