Media Does Its Best to Blame Boehner for Yesterday's Obama Screw-up

How difficult is it to get a timeline right?  Pretty difficult, I guess, based on several different reports I've watched or read about yesterday's petty political maneuver by Obama to try and upstage the GOP California debate.   The official media line is John Boehner played politics with Obama's speech, not the other way around.

Here's the actual sequence of events:

• Obama notifies Boehner that he wants to speak to a joint session on September 7th at 8pm, the exact date and time of the first GOP debate that will include new frontrunner Rick Perry.  The debate has been scheduled for months.
• The left rejoices at Obama's political play, even though one of his supporters describes it as a "dickish move".
• The right is outraged and begins expressing it through Twitter, email and phone calls to the Speaker's office.
• The media, including the debate organizers NBC and Politico, assume the Sep. 7th speech is a done deal and announce they'll push back the start time of the debate until Obama's speech is finished.
• Boehner surprises just about everybody and sends Obama an invitation to speak on Sep. 8 instead, denying the Sep. 7th request based on security and other organizational requirements.  Of course, the debate and conservative outrage played a bigger role than any other issues.
• The left goes nuts and insists that deference be given to Obama's request because "he's the president!!", even though they never would have accorded George W. Bush the same deference.  It's apparently a complete surprise to the left that the president does not have the power to mandate Congress' schedule.
• Although some sort of negotiation reportedly takes place, Obama must agree to the Sep. 8th date because he has no real power in the negotiation.   He can accept the Sep. 8th date or suggest something else, but he won't get Sep. 7th.  This will put his speech on the same night as the first game of the new NFL season.

Pretty simple, huh?  And yet the media spin today is that Obama wanted to speak on Sep. 7th to avoid the NFL game and evil John Boehner made him go up against the Green Bay Packers.  They're treating the GOP debate as an afterthought in the whole process.  I shouldn't be surprised.

Obama showed yesterday he's not a leader, but just a petty partisan political operative who doesn't play the game all that well.  He assumed that because historical precedence says the president gets his joint session speeches whenever he wants it that he could strong arm Boehner and the GOP.  He was wrong and ended up being embarrassed.  He also appeared weak to his supporters, and that could be the most damaging part of this whole thing.

To quote one of his own statements from a previous incident, he "acted stupidly".

By the way, WTMJ, the NBC affiliate in Milwaukee, has announced that if it has to choose between Obama's speech and the Packers game, they're going with the game.  I think even the most hardened Wisconsin Union Thugs would agree with that decision.