Save the date! Jobs speech vs. Republican debate

Listen to Dave’s commentary: Save the date!

Yesterday the White House announced the president would be giving a jobs speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, and had NO idea that Wednesday was also the time of the next Republican Presidential Debate.

CBS’s Bob Schieffer doesn’t buy that:

“It’s going to take a lot to convince me that the president’s people did not know that there was a Republican date on the night the president wanted to make that speech. If they didn’t know, then I think it might be time for the president to get some new people.”

Nonsense, says White House spokesman Jay Carney:

“Some of the notions out there that we were asking for the president to speak on the same night of the debate was somehow designed to thwart the debate is preposterous. First of all, you can’t swing a cat and not hit a primary debate in September.”

He’s actually got a point there. Republicans will debate September 7th , September 12th, and September 22nd — most debates in a single month between now and next November.

But House Speaker John Boehner, asked that the date be changed to Thursday, and the White House compromised and changed the date to Thursday. Boenher also asked that the president deliver it without a teleprompter, in rhyme, while spinning a football on his finger. But the president said no way would he give up the teleprompter.

Actually, the speaker was doing him a favor, because another jobs speech would have no CHANCE against a Republican debate, especially when there are only three of them this month.

Whereas the only thing on TV Thursday night is the NFL opener between New Orleans and Super Bowl champ Green Bay; and the Arizona-Oklahoma State game… and if the president wears a blazer, and spins the football and uses a lot of whooshing sounds people might think it’s the pre-game.