President to Move Jobs Speech at Request of Boehner

Rush, Hannity and even O'Reilly I think were today castigating Obama for announcing that his speech would be held on the same night as the Republican debate.

But as you see in Update 6 below, from blog.chron.com (Houston Chronicle), the President sent his request to Boehner who made no demur! It was only after the speech date and time were announced publically that Boehner started to raise a fuss.

Of course one wonders why Obama or his handlers even wanted that date in the first place. They must have known when the Republican debate was taking place - why even try to schedule the speech on that day?

Here's the initial report:

THE EARLIER ANNOUNCEMENT: President Barack Obama will make his long-awaited speech about jobs Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress at the same time that the Republican presidential candidates are scheduled to debate at the Reagan Presidential Library in California.

While the debate isn’t the first Republican debate of the cycle, it is the first since Gov. Rick Perry entered the presidential contest, and polls have shown him taking a commanding lead in the race for the GOP nomination. Political observers have said that the debate could provide crucial insights into how Mitt Romney’s and Michelle Bachmann’s campaigns plan to deal with Perry’s surging candidacy.

In his letter to House Speaker John Boehner requesting the joint meeting of both houses of Congress, Obama wrote that he will unveil a series “bipartisan proposals” that Congress can take up immediately to “rebuild the American economy.”

However, with a presidential address to a joint session of Congress scheduled on the same night, at the same time, it’s likely that any press generated from the debate would be drowned out by the developments in Washington.

CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reports that White House spokesman Jay Carney said that the debate was “not enough of a reason” to change the timing of the president’s speech.

Politico’s Glenn Thrush reports that Carney said that the NBC News/Politico debate was “one debate of many” and that it didn’t influence the scheduling of the speech.

Still, longtime Washington writers said that scheduling the speech on top of the debate could be politically advantageous for the president and that it could even lead to a better debate that features fewer canned answers.

Slate’s John Dickerson tweeted that the scheduling makes sense “if you want the election to be a choice and not a referendum.” He also tweeted “if your pose is I’m Mr. reasonable president offering ideas supported by both parties [extra loud] denunciations @ GOP debate is maybe a strong foil.”

Karen Tumulty, a longtime political reporter with The Washington Post, tweeted, “Downside for GOP candidates: Prez speech will scramble their debate prep. Upside for the rest of us: Maybe fewer canned lines.”

The thing is, apparently the President asked about this date, and at the time, Boehner made no objection to it. It was only after the date was announced to all, that he started protesting.

Because:

UPDATE 3: CBS News reporter Mark Knoller tweets that a White House official says that Boenher’s office was consulted before the announcement and that no objection or concern was raised.

It’s the latest volley in a back and forth between the White House and the House Speaker John Boehner’s office over if the usual procedure for a joint address to Congress had been followed.

and

UPDATE 4: And now we have the pushback to the pushback - Politico’s Mike Allen tweets “Boehner office says White House ignored protocol: ‘No one in the Speaker’s office…signed off on the date the White House announced today’”

NBC’s Domenico Montanaro sums up the argument between the White House and the Speaker’s Office this way: “We apparently have a semantic argument between “signed off” and “raised an objection” bw WH and Boehner’s office[.]”

and

UPDATE 5: Let’s call this the pushback to the pushback to the pushback (and Washington wonders why the general public gets fed up with them) – CBS News’ Jill Jackson quotes a senior Democratic aide who told reporters “the childish behavior coming out of the Speaker’s office today is truly historic.”

and
UPDATE 6: NBC reports: Boehner’s office confirms they did not raise objection when the White House floated the date, but in released letter released “after we had time to examine what they were proposing.” Boehner’s office insists this was about logistics, not personal.
and
UPDATE 7: The standoff between the Speakers Office and the White House ends with the President agreeing to address a joint session of Congress on Thursday evening.

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