President Obama requested to address a joint session of congress to present his jobs proposal.
The problem is that it was requested at the same time as a republican presidential debate.
House leader Boehner rejected Obama's request and suggested it happen the following day.
President Obama accepted Boehner's request.
What is going on here? Most of the time the White House will negotiate with congressional leaders before they make a joint session request.
Due to congressional schedules, it can be difficult to make a joint session fit into everyone's schedules.
It appears this did not happen in this case (though there is some dispute about this).
That is problem one.
Problem two is that the joint session requested would have happened at the same time as a republican presidential debate.
Obviously this means that Obama would be center stage that evening instead of the people running against him next November.
Some on the right saw this as a political gimmick from Obama.
So why did Obama go ahead and request a joint session with those problems so apparent? Obama has been saying that he wanted to present his jobs plan as soon as congress was back in session.
The earliest possible time to have a joint session is the evening requested since the House does not convene until 6:30pm that day.
So from that angle, it makes sense.
But why not wait until the following day or following week? Obama knows that he not only needs to put his proposal out there as soon as possible, but also knows that he needs to reach as many people as possible with his address.
Doing the speech Wednesday night at 8pm ensured he would reach as many people as possible from the east coast to the west coast.
The following evening is the NFL kickoff game.
The sad fact is that more people will be watching that game than the President that night.
That is why Obama is scheduling his speech before kickoff at 7pm.
But that lowers his potential audience because 7pm EST is only 4pm on the west coast, therefore many people will still be working.
Obama wants as big of an audience as possible as soon as possible.
The date he requested meets those requirements, though it does have obvious issues.
In the end Obama accepted Boehner's request to move the speech to Thursday night.
From what I can find through research, this back and forth spectacle on when to have a joint session has never happened in public before.
This shows the sad state of politics today.
If asking to speak to congress causes a back and forth, imagine what will happen when legislation actually begins.
The partisanship is going on strong in Washington making it harder to get things done.
With the super committee responsible for finding cuts in spending and/or tax code changes, things could get really ugly soon.
Some might argue that is a good thing and point to the late 1990s when the GOP controlled congress caused a stall in Clinton's legislative plans.
Those years the economy was doing great.
Today is different though.
When our economy is still in shambles I can't see how gridlock in Washington is a good thing for anyone.