Republicans in Congress need chess lessons

At some point you would think that President Obama’s adversaries in Congress would give up on trying to out-maneuver him.

They can’t, as has been proven over and over during the six years of this administration.

And one reason the president consistently out-wits his opponents is because he obviously is a better chess player than they.

While I don’t know how many congressional leaders actually play the centuries’ old board game, more than half of the U.S. presidents — including the most successful ones — have been players, according to Chess News.

Among the commanders in chief who played the game are Washington, Jefferson, both Adamses, Lincoln, Grant, the two Roosevelts, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton.

Of course, Obama’s name is added to that list as he’s been playing the game since about the age of 9. And if his board game is half as good as his moves in politics, particularly against those challengers on Capitol Hill, he’s a master at it.

It seems that every time Republicans in Congress try to obstruct, intimidate or simply embarrass this president, he has anticipated their moves, lain in wait and strategically prepared to put them in check.

He’s so skilled that he’s able to do it without sacrificing major pieces, or even pawns for that matter.

Take the latest two examples in which GOP lawmakers, gloating over having taken control of both houses of Congress, insisted they would do what could not have been done when Democrats had the majority in the Senate: pass legislation to construct the Keystone XL oil pipeline and block the president’s executive order on immigration preventing the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants.

As anticipated, Republicans did have the votes to pass a pipeline bill and boastfully came before TV cameras to congratulate themselves. But, as promised, Obama vetoed the bill and there are not enough votes in Congress to override the veto.

Check.

The new majority in Congress vowed it would stop the president’s order on immigration by not totally funding the Department of Homeland Security, which would have forced a partial shutdown when appropriations for the agency were set to expire at midnight Friday.

Surely Republicans, having already been blamed for two other government shutdowns, couldn’t bear to be credited for another, especially of an agency responsible for this nation’s security during a time of new terrorists threats. Yet, during a crazy day when Senate Republicans balked and passed a clean long-term funding bill, the House rejected its speaker’s weak plan to approve a three-week extension before finally agreeing to a one-week stopgap.

Thus with an obviously dysfunctional majority party, the president again was able to say, “Check.”

And although a federal district judge in Texas, in a case brought by 26 states, has issued a temporary restraining order against Obama’s immigration edict, it is not a move that hurts the president. Even if such a ruling were upheld by the Supreme Court, Republicans will get the blame for their “anti-immigration” stance, not the president.

Check.

Throughout his presidency, Obama has continued to prevail, all the while making his detractors look like the nongoverning, naysaying detractors they are.

When they were saying he was weak, he announced that Osama bin Laden (and other terrorist leaders) had been killed.

Check.

Whenever they hesitated at helping save this country from a major economic disaster through a series of bailouts and a massive stimulus package, the president forged on — reducing the national deficit, the unemployment rate and the despair that had gripped the country.

Republicans should stop their assault on the president, before they hear Obama say, “Checkmate.”

This story was originally published February 27, 2015 at 7:27 PM with the headline "Republicans in Congress need chess lessons."