To the greatest extent possible, I have been avoiding the company of Democrats since Tuesday. I am, after all, a policy consultant, not a confessor, a psychiatrist, or their mother, but despite that, there has been no shortage of disappointed Democrats wanting to cry on my shoulder this week as if I were one or the other. Republicans, on the other hand, have been coming dangerously close to dislocating their shoulders as a result of enthusiastically patting themselves on the back. To hear them talk, one would expect Ronald Reagan to rise from the tomb presently and lead a triumphant procession of Tea Party true believers and free-market conservatives down Pennsylvania Avenue from Capitol Hill to the White House, there to conjure the ghosts of Adam Smith, Barry Goldwater, John Birch and Ayn Rand from a bonfire of vanities built on the south lawn and thereby initiate the Second Coming of Christ. That’s what finally getting control of both houses of Congress can do to certain people, I guess. Fully a third of my consultations on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – which is to say nearly all of those I held with Americans – degenerated, depending on the political stripe of my client, into a solipsistic display of hubris, usually consisting of a discussion of Republican plans for revenge, retribution and the meting out of long-delayed justice, with particular emphasis on the contemplated actions of my interlocutor, naturally, or a pathetic pity party of hand-wringing, whining, Maoist self-criticism and pious soul searching so nauseating that it often left me wondering what Democrats like Harry S Truman or Adlai Stevenson might have thought of such sniveling, vacuous omphaloskepsis on the part of their philosophical and political successors. Say what you want about James Earl Carter, at least the man had the intestinal fortitude to stand up and admit he lost the election because he didn’t get enough votes, not because too few single women, Latinos, blacks or young people had gone to the polls, or that Joe and Jane Sixpack were insufficiently perspicacious in their assessment of significant improvements in the national economy. So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when late on Friday afternoon, Gretchen told me that Vice President Joe Biden had requested a telephone consultation. She managed to work him into the schedule quite adroitly, considering how packed it was, actually.
Tom: Good afternoon, Mr. Vice President! To what do I owe the honor of this telephone call?
Biden: Aw, shucks, Tom, you don’t have to call me that. Call me Joe like you always do.
Tom: Okay, Joe, what’s up?
Biden: It’s Barack.
Tom: What about him?
Biden: He hasn’t been himself lately.
Tom: How lately?
Biden: I’d say since about Wednesday morning.
Tom: It’s not because he’s bilious again, is it?
Biden: No, Michelle’s been making sure he gets enough roughage.
Tom: So it’s the election, you think?
Biden: Yeah, that’s got to be it. You know, Tom, when he and I started out on this, he had a lot of big plans, and now, six years later, he’s feeling kind of frustrated, you know?
Tom: I can imagine.
Biden: I mean, that Mitch McConnell, he’s been a real [expletive] from the get-go, trying to make Barack a one-term president and just acting like a bigger [expletive] when that didn’t happen and we got a second term anyway.
Tom: Not one of my favorite people, that Mitch McConnell.
Biden: Or that [expletive] Boehner. Total pain in the [expletive].
Tom: I think John Boehner’s big problem is that tough, miserable childhood he had. Conservatives maintain that confronting adversity at an early age builds character, but in my opinion, all it really does is create mean-spirited, selfish adults.
Biden: I can’t say if it was John Boehner’s upbringing that made him the brass-bottomed son of a [expletive] he turned out to be, but whatever it was, it worked pretty [expletive] well, that’s for sure. Now that these guys are looking at a majority in the House and the Senate next January, they’re completely insufferable. Did you hear McConnell talking as if the President were a little kid, talking about him playing with matches and getting burned? That really [expletive] me off when I heard that!
Tom: Condescending to the point of frank insult, that was. No doubt about it, the Republicans have been quite full of themselves since Tuesday.
Biden: Tell me about it! Yesterday, he said he was going to [expletive] the EPA up the [expletive] with no [expletive] Vaseline!
Tom: Actually, I think his exact words were, “…try to do whatever I can to get the EPA reined in.”
Biden: Whatever! It’s just a euphemism. How the hell can we get other countries to reduce their carbon dioxide output from coal if Mitch McConnell gets his way and our own EPA is running around like a neutered poodle and can’t even control emissions here in the United States?
Tom: Good question, Joe.
Biden: And forget about campaign finance reform!
Tom: True, McConnell’s a big fan of unlimited billionaire funding for Republican candidates at all levels of government.
Biden: And you know what else he said yesterday? He and Boehner swear they’re going to kill the Affordable Care Act!
Tom: Well, you and I both know the Republicans are going to use their control of Congress to pass a whole slew of bills they fully realize Barack would never sign, just to score political points for 2016 when he vetoes them.
Biden: Of course! And only God Himself knows what kind of crazy [expletive] they’re going to come up with, and even He isn’t absolutely sure.
Tom: It’s going to be an interesting two years, no doubt about that.
Biden: And you know what happened today at lunch?
Tom: Lunch?
Biden: Lunch at the White House. We had fish. And some pumpkin things. Very nice. Never had a bad lunch at the White House. Barack invited McConnell, Boehner and a bunch of other Republicans over. He provided them with briefings on the important issues of the day, you know, like Ebola and ISIS and so forth and so on. After he threw the press out of the room, we tried to have a friendly discussion with them about how the One Hundred and Fourteenth Congress could work with the White House on stuff like college affordability, roads, bridges, infrastructure… you know, places where we thought there could be some common ground, at least. But no dice. Those [expletives] just sat there, staring at us like we’d handed them a warm, steaming bowl of [expletive].
Tom: So they’re not interested in whether kids can go to college or how many potholes there are on the Interstate Highway System, then?
Biden: Not that I could tell.
Tom: So what were they interested in, if anything, besides continuing obstruction of whatever it is Barack Obama wants done?
Biden: Well, okay, then Boehner said, all right, in that case, let’s work together on this jobs bill.
Tom: A Republican jobs bill?
Biden: Yeah.
Tom: The one they’re tossing around Capitol Hill that wipes out the minimum wage, raises taxes on the middle class, gets rid of job training programs for displaced workers, gives massive tax breaks to corporations, and creates more loopholes for billionaires to pay nothing at all?
Biden: Ah, yeah, stuff like that. Crap they know Barack would never sign into law. So Barack says, he’s “interested in hearing and sharing ideas,” which I thought was pretty polite and diplomatic of him, given that everybody in the room knows what would be in a Republican “jobs creation” bill. Then there was the immigration debate.
Tom: How’d that go?
Biden: The Republicans made a big deal of warning Barack not to use executive orders to change immigration. John Barrasso, that senator from Wyoming, said doing that would be a “toxic decision.”
Tom: Toxic? Good Lord. For whom?
Biden: Not sure. So then Boehner said, “If the President acts alone, he will poison the well.”
Tom: Lovely image in that metaphor, to be sure. Then what?
Biden: Barack told the Republicans that his patience is running out.
Tom: Not hard to believe. After six years, anybody’s patience would be about to run out.
Biden: He said if they don’t act on immigration reform, then he will.
Tom: I see. Then what?
Biden: They indicated that Rome wasn’t build in a day, or words to that effect. Then there was this sort of awkward moment, so I spoke up and said, “In that case, how much time do you think you would need?”
Tom: Reasonable question.
Biden: Yeah, but they never got a chance to answer it, because no sooner did I finish and start to take another bite of that pumpkin pastry thing than Barack jumped in, madder than a scalded chicken!
Tom: No! What did he say?
Biden: Nothing very salty, but damn tart, make no mistake about it. The reports coming out of Capitol Hill say he “cut me off.”
Tom: So Barack thought you were challenging him?
Biden: Guess so.
Tom: You? Challenging him?
Biden: Yep, that’s me, Joe Biden, the uppity Vice President.
Tom: Yeah, sure, and pigs have wings.
Biden: Saw a flock fly over the Rayburn House Office Building just a minute ago.
Tom: In that case, I wouldn’t want to be one of the guys who has to clean off the roof. I mean, pigeons are one thing…
Biden: And flying pigs are another. So yeah, Tom, that’s what I’d like to know, what the hell is my solution to this? No way do I want to spend the next two years with Barack biting my head off every time I prove I’m not a potted plant. Because Joe Biden is not a potted plant, and if Barack Obama wanted a potted plant for Vice President, then he should have run with a potted plant on his ticket, not me!
Tom: Hmmm. Right. I see your point. Look… have you ever wondered what would happen if the dog caught the car?
Biden: Dog? What, that neutered poodle I was talking about?
Tom: Not that neutered poodle – the dog that always chases cars down the street. Ever wonder what would happen if he caught it?
Biden: Um…. he’d get his teeth stuck in the rear bumper, maybe?
Tom: A dragged down the street with dire consequences.
Biden: Yeah. Poor stupid mutt. Better off not catching the car. Better still if he never chased cars in the first place, I guess.
Tom: And here are the Republicans – the dogs who have been chasing cars for six years. And now, they have finally caught the car. They have their fierce little canines wedged firmly in the bumper as they prepare to bite down with a vise-like grip.
Biden: Okay, I can see it. So what are you getting at?
Tom: Have you ever considered that now that the Republicans have what think they want, what they may really have is exactly enough rope to hang themselves with?
Biden: Oh, yeah, right, I see what you’re saying – all those bills they’re going to pass that they know Barack will veto – we could use what’s in those bills to show everybody what a bunch of [expletive] tools the Republicans in the House and Senate actually are! We can collect all kinds of neat stuff to use against them in the 2016 elections, too, and what’s more, after a while, after they produce enough of that absurd [expletive], we might even be able to use it to shame them into doing what’s right!
Tom: Exactly. And you know what?
Biden: What?
Tom: Pitch that to Barack and I guarantee he’ll be nice to you for the next two years.
Biden: Damn! I bet he will, too! Okay, thanks Tom, I gotta go. Vice Presidential duties and all, you know.
Tom: Sure. No problem. Have a nice day, Mr. Vice President.
Biden: Aw, shucks, hell yeah, I will. ‘Bye.