The Walkerville Weekly Reader

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Walkerville, VA
Monday, December 9, 2024
Carolyn Purcell, Editor

President compromises on bridge construction

President Obama navigates White House argument between engineers and staff. “Half a bridge is better than none,” says President.

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“Why,” asked the President, “do my bridges keep collapsing?”

Navigating competing philosophies is always difficult for a President. For a President, like President Barack Obama, who prides himself on crafting compromises with opponents, inflexibility is perhaps the only mortal sin. President Obama has long criticized Republicans in Congress, for example, for not compromising and passing his laws.

But a recent controversy in the White House has tested our modern Solomon’s abilities, when top White House policy advisors disagreed with high-ranking Army Engineers over a bridge in the Middle East.

Policy advisors told him, we do not build bridges in Iraq. Army Engineers said, yes, we have specialists in building bridges, they’re experienced in the Middle East, and we should build this bridge.

President Obama demonstrated his logical primacy with a simple compromise. According to the President, “we will satisfy both sides of the debate. We will build half a bridge.”

Critics scoffed at the proposal. Republicans, in particular, mocked the President on Twitter. But an informal poll of policy experts in national newsrooms showed clear support for the President’s happy medium. “The President showed once again why he’s earned the nickname King Solomon,” said Professor Barbara Boopstein, a Walden College foreign policy expert. “He has, once again, split the baby.”

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