I ask because Ohioan legislators are ‘fuming‘ over this:
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said in a statement on his Facebook account that he was similarly “disappointed” in the decision to rename the [Alaska] mountain long named after “a proud Ohioan.”
“The naming of the mountain has been a topic of discussion in Congress for many years. This decision by the Administration is yet another example of the President going around Congress,” Portman said.
“I now urge the Administration to work with me to find alternative ways to preserve McKinley’s legacy somewhere else in the national park that once bore his name,” Portman added.
President McKinley was from Ohio, you see. So politicians from Ohio are going to be just a little bit touchy on the subject. Well. Certain politicians. Apparently Ted Strickland doesn’t actually care about his own state’s history…
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: If you think that this is a silly issue, then obviously the easiest way for Ted Strickland to prove that he’s not ducking said issue is to come out and forthrightly say that Barack Obama was perfectly justified in unilaterally changing the name from Mt. McKinley to Denali. I’m not joking. Ohio Republicans aren’t afraid to be publicly upset about this (and, by definition: if the Speaker of the House thinks something is relevant, it automatically becomes so); why can’t Ted Strickland show a little gumption and come our swinging on President Obama’s behalf? – Unless, of course, Strickland’s kind of against the name change, too, but doesn’t want to look like he disagrees with Obama. Which is, admittedly, pretty much how state Democrats cringe and fawn these days every time they’re in a dispute with the national party…
This strikes me as classic obamaism:
1. Compromise means doing what Obama decides
2. Either he intentionally decided to poke the GOP in the eye; or he thought renaming was a cool thing to do and didn’t consider that certain members of the GOP (whom he says he wants to work with) might be ticked off. Is he malicious or just clueless?
Or he figured , hey , what will Boehner do, refuse to golf with me?
I am reasonably certain that Obama never gave one second’s thought as to how this would play in Ohio. I’m also pretty sure that the Ohio GOP is not so much upset with the name change as they are just taking advantage of Obama’s own goal as an opportunity to fire up Ohioans against Democrats.
But hey, Obama doesn’t have to win Ohio in ’16, so why should he care?
Obama no longer has to sustain any elections at all ..
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We’ll see whether he realizes that before or after the bulk of the country.
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Mew
It seems to me (from this post) that Democrats who are not named Barack Obama are, with quiet desperation, waiting out the end of his administration and hoping that Obama will not do anything else that will require them to take a stand on something that Obama wants to do that the Democrat’s constituents are not in favor of.
I wish I could be upset at this agony that these Democrats are going through, but somehow I just can’t.
They’re living in fear, now that Harry Reid can’t protect them from actually having to *vote* on Obama’s ideas …
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Oh, wait …
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Mew
McConnell is more than happy to do that favor for his dear friend.
Is it true that “Denali” means “The High One?” Because I read that “Denali” means “The High One.”
Whoa.
As I understand it, it translates to “that big-@$$ mountain”… roughly speaking 😉 Seriously, it means “the big one”…. which is clear enough in the context of Mt. McKinley, which is so much larger than everything around it
no one cares whats Ted thinks on anything. he will be a hack forever. as far as the mountain, i’m just surprised BHO didn’t decide to name it Mt. Obama.