They Just Don't Know What's Hit Them

By Sniffles

The behavior of the Congressional Republicans during the President's address last night convinces us cats that the GOP is a long, long way from figuring out how to handle this new guy named Barack Obama.

The evening was only a few minutes old before the President got in his first zinger — and a wordless one at that. He gave a long and affectionate hug to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just back from pancreatic cancer surgery. Take that, Jim Bunning.

And then for nearly an hour, any time the sourpusses on the Republican side of the aisle tried to tweak or snub or diss the President with murmurs, hisses, defiant applause (for small business assistance) or a petulant lack of applause (for capping greenhouse gases), Mr. Obama turned on them with a smile, thrust in a smooth, slender rapier, and twisted.

"I knew we could come to consensus on something," he joked, as the GOP members leaped to hail his refusal to saddle future generations with debt. And then he went on to talk about the huge deficit — the one he inherited from them. In the words of Henry Higgins, "How frightful. How delightful."

We detected some GOP rumblings, grumblings, head shakings, maybe even a few boos. But by the end of the evening, after the President took the country by storm with his speech, the Republican Party was lying on the floor, gasping for breath. And we haven't even gotten to Bobby Jindal yet.

Sean Penn was right — America has elected an elegant man.

Dangerously elegant.