Earlier today President Obama sent a letter to Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asking them to hold a joint session of the House and Senate for a prime time speech on September 7th. Obama planned on convening both houses of Congress to once again talk about job creation--just like he has been doing ever since he was elected.
Supposedly unbeknownst to the President and staff was that the next Republican debate, hosted by the Reagan Foundation, was also planned at the exact same time. Spokesman Jay Carney stated that the speech was not intended to overshadow the Republican debate and welcomed NBC and Politico--who are both sponsoring the debate--to reschedule it for another time.
John Boehner, citing that House session that night was scheduled for 6:30, publicly pushed back in a letter sent to President Obama. He instead invited Obama to move the speech to the next night, which would conflict with the opening kick-off of the NFL season.
Even at the height of his power, I can't even imagine Newt Gringrich asserting this kind of authority against Bill Clinton (or for that matter Clinton being so obtuse as to do anything remotely like this).
This move by Boehner shows the weak position of Obama, and it will be very interesting to see how this all unfolds.
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