President Obama should have read the White house manual the first day he became President, it would have avoided some unpleasant experiences for him.

For instance on page 27B:

Take note: Don't plant vegetable in the White house garden. Tainted soil was imported that contained lots of heavy metals. It will make those veggies unhealthy for those that eat them and when you donate them to the local food bank it will create negative publicity for you.

Page 15:

When you have Whitehouse parties inviting all of your friends and friends of friends, make sure your gatekeeper thoroughly checks the guest list to keep gate crashers away. The resulting embarrassment to your security detail and evident lack of precaution will show the incompetency of your party planner, who usually happens to be your political confidante.

Page 10

Certain doors in the Whitehouse are always locked, don't look like a fool walking down the hallway trying many locked doors. Remember there are always press cameras recording your every move.....You wouldn't want to look like Bush fumbling at locked doors.

But Page 1, first paragraph, first sentence, first rule:

Always pay the guys with the guns!

The very main rule that leaders from the beginning of time learned: Pay your centurions, your soldiers, your Praetorian guard, your armies...first. Keep them happy, they are the ones defending the borders, fighting our enemies in distant lands....and keeping you in power.

As Washington fights to get LAST YEARS BUDGET PASSED, the rhetoric and silliness gets ratcheted up as the deadline looms and possible government shutdown seems inevitable.

The same tried and true doomsday sound bytes emanate from the left: Republicans want to starve old people. Children will be shoeless, homeless and uneducated. Women will have NO healthcare. Civil Rights will be a thing of the past. The Ku Klux Klan will be burning down black churches....and oh yes, there really is a monster hiding in your closet.

In the past these scare tactics usually created a firestorm of paranoia in the lefts base and spurred the main stream media to bring out their fear mongering cannons to brand the right as heartless, soulless ghouls, only interested in filling their pockets with gold.

The truth is that America is getting hardened to these scare tactics and have seen them before.
Americans know that there has to be some sanity restored to the budget and it will be painful to do it.

The Republicans offered a stop gap budget resolution to Obama and the Senate, to avoid a government shutdown. It would extend a continual resolution to fund the government for one more week and most importantly, it would guarantee uninterrupted pay for our military personnel for the rest of the year.

Obama said he will not agree to this measure and would rather let the government shut down and this means no pay for the military, rather than compromise. Obama is putting pressure on the Republicans to cave in on the budget. Is it because he doesn't want to have to cancel a planned trip to Williamsburg?

As we are hours away from a looming government shut down, Obama will be heading towards waters that have proven to be treacherous for leaders of the past.