I have to compliment the beautiful construction of Ezra Klein’s lede:
It always feels different in the room. In the room, everyone wants a deal. They want their name on legislation, in history books. They want to do the big things and make the hard choices. Then they leave the room and they learn their supporters don’t want the choices made if they’re going to be hard. They learn their colleagues know their names won’t be in the history books, and so they’re more concerned with making sure their names are on their desks in the next congress.
He’s talking about John Boehner, not Barack Obama. Yet, in the very next sentence, Klein acknowledges, “But you can’t get a deal unless you can get the votes. And what’s been clear for some time is Speaker John Boehner cannot get the votes.” He then cites as evidence Boehner’s letter to his caucus explaining why he cut off negotiations with the president. In that letter, the Speaker ignored the substance of the negotiations.
It’s as if the president walked away from the table and sent out a letter saying that Boehner wouldn’t agree to single-payer health care, and so the negotiations are over.
I’d add to that something that Susan Crabtree observed yesterday morning:
You know the dizzying array of debt talk drama has gone beyond the state of ridiculous when an announcement from Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) about striking a deal with President Obama is his idea of a joke.
Boehner began a conference meeting Friday morning by deadpanning that Republicans, the White House and Democrats had reached a deal, according to a lawmaker in the room. The response from his conference was nervous silence before Boehner eased the tension by letting them know he was only joking.
Some people seem to be in some doubt about whether the president seriously thought a deal was possible. To be sure, the White House is incredibly committed to trying to convince you that they were “this close” to making a deal. But they knew better.The White House was 100% convinced that the Republicans would raise the debt ceiling. They were also about 98% convinced that Boehner couldn’t deliver a deal acceptable to House Democrats, House senators, or even to themselves.
I don’t know what Boehner may have thought was possible or what he truly wanted. Alcoholics don’t think straight and are hard to decipher. But I don’t think he wanted to be in the history books as making a deal with the Kenyan, Muslim, socialist president. He certainly wanted to leave the impression with his caucus that he was only humoring the president.
The president, on the other hand, wants to leave the impression that he was “left at the altar” just when the deal was down to some rather petty and insignificant differences.
Let me be straight with you. Both sides are full of shit. Boehner and Cantor made it clear months ago that they wouldn’t sign off on an acceptable deal. They didn’t dupe the White House. They played a game together of appearing to negotiate.
Meanwhile, Senator McConnell prepared for a solution to the crisis within the Republican caucus. And that’s what this is. It’s not a true debt crisis. It’s a crisis in the Republican caucus. This whole dance has been for their benefit.
greatly increased the size of the Republican caucus in 2010 there would be no crisis at all.
Did you lift a finger to help your local democrats in 2010? Didn’t think so. Blame yourself.
I went out and worked to get out the vote in SD for Steph Herseth-Sandlin, even though it stuck in my craw to help her blue-doggy campaign. We had a real failure of enthusiasm, and she lost a close one. Why did she lose? Students and some on the res did not come out to vote. The “bipartisanshit” shit does not fly. People want an actual democrat to run under the D name.
I gave money and time in 2008 to Obama. What will I do next year? I haven’t given a dime so far to OFA or Obama. I’m waiting for the Democratic policies that he ran on to be promoted.
Fuck all those people whose lack of enthusiasm meant that Boehner was Speaker instead of Pelosi. A more liberal Dem might have gotten some of those lazy-asses out of bed, but would have lost bigtime in currently RW SD.
You obviously know nothing about SD. There are 3 sections – the indians & 4 urban areas who vote D, the rest of the state that votes R. I go to many D events here in SD. Not a single D I ever talked to was happy with SH-S. On election day, there was election material not distributed sitting in the hall. Conclusion: SH-S pissed off so many D workers that they did not work to get her elected. She lost by the enthusiasm gap. The Rs voted, the Ds did not. She lost by 7K votes, not huge even in SD. Sioux Falls could have made up 7K votes.
SH-S was a terrible Rep, that’s for sure. But in a state where EVERY statewide elected officer is a right wing nutball, where the legislature is 2x Republican and where McCain won easily, Democratic enthusiasm may not be the problem
My local Democrats did very well.
ALL Democrats would have done better with a Democratic president.
This has to be one of the more absurd comments about this mess that I have read anywhere.
I get the sense if you woke up with a zit on the end of your nose you would find a way to blame Obama.
I’d go to Obama ’cause he could cure it with the laying on of hands.
Your Ezra Klein link is actually a link to this post.
Thanks for the tip. It should be fixed now.
If they’re 100% sure, then I want it raised cleanly.
What may have started out is as you say, for the benefit of these Rep’s and the debt was never a crisis when standing on its own, but the Rep sausage making has certainly underscored the sheer necessity to regain the House in ’12 and boot Obama back in with a large majority as well as the Senate. Then the test will be on the table. Can the Dem leadership indeed be progressive?
Got any ideas about how the debt ceiling crisis wins Mississippi or Oklahoma? There are Medicaid-dependent nursing homes all over the rural areas of those states.
I’m an Oklahoma voter, although to be honest I can’t really explain why. In over 20 years worth of elections, my vote has never counted once for anything. That’s some serious Kool-Aid Country. John Boehner could invade Tulsa with an army of mercenaries and execute an entire white suburb and the GOP would still win the next round of elections by double digits.
Let me guess. Every country radio station runs right-wing talk 24/7/365. And the city stations that are fundamentalist religious, music or sports do the same.
Do you have a way of estimating how much the right wing is spending on all that Kool Aid?
What would happen if there were silence? Or some nice old-style country music?
Keep voting. It lets them know they haven’t succeeded yet.
Small consolation that maintaining these idiots in place has got to be costing the Koch brothers. And if they thought that once their money bought seats, that they could rest on their laurels the sudden decline of the ebolatparty, the mismanagement of actually getting more of their agenda into law because of the sheer ineptitude of their candidates has gotta pinch
Kabuki Dance, nahh, I like Dance of the 7 veils just as well.
The phrase “the Republicans” is kinda vague, considering that that includes 281 self-important, ideologically crazy assholes.
What you are arguing is that only 39 Republican Senators and 32 Republican House members would vote to raise the debt ceiling.
The problem with that is that in order to get House Democrats on board, Republicans have to offer items Democrats can vote for. And by your logic, Boehner will lose more Republicans than he will gain Democrats with each sweetener added.
I still predict statemate. As I’ve called it before, it’s a “guns of August” meltdown in negotiations.
Unless Democrats sacrifice items dear to the heart of the very independents that their “being adults” is intended to attract.
And if the drama plays out as the classic kabuki you outline, there will be hell to pay on the FY 2012 appropriations bills. Each one an agonizing fight well into 2012.
Don’t think that I believe that blowing pass the debt ceiling will be shock treatment on the Republican Party. My guess is that they will become even more extreme, given their media cheerleaders.
If the White House is 100% certain of anything in this political climate, they have a case of hubris that could be catastrophic. And if they are just doing what any administration does — muddling through — asserting 100% certainty is a plain out lie.
Invitations to blogger conferences with the White House can make folks subtly start leaving their objectivity behind. That is a danger that you need to start watching for, BooMan. I’m not saying you’ve crossed that line yet, but hyperbole like 100% certain is worrisome.
TarheelDem, you have used the phrase “guns of August” several times. Is there a quick explanation of what that is? I have googled multiple times, but am unable to find a quick summary and I’m not up for wading through the long descriptions of the book.
I would also like to say how much I appreciate the depth of knowledge and the perspective you bring to this site. I come here as much for your comments as I do the Booman posts.
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As events unfolded, it led to a stalemate and costly trench warfare.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."None of the diplomats before World War I (unlike World War II) wanted war, but the way the negotiations proceeded after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand spun out of control and led to one of the most brutal wars in history. War happened because war was an unthinkable outcome among civilized Europeans engaged in power politics.
How brutal a failure negotiations would be in this case depends on how prepared President Obama is should they fail.
Barbara Tuchman coined the phrase in her classic history of the breakdown of negotiations.
I really appreciate the summary, though I have to say my anxiety level just went up a bit. I wonder if the statement of 100% certainty on Obama’s part is an attempt to keep the market calm, combined with Obama’s knowledge of what his next steps will be if the republicans truly are willing to blow the whole thing up.
I read Obama’s earlier comments on the 14th amendment as saying he wasn’t going to put on his constitutional scholar hat at that particular point in time, reminding us at the same time that he IS a constitutional scholar and that he may put on that hat at a later date.
I think Obama has a plan for the worst-case scenario. This is, after all, the candidate who had the delegate plan, knowing what he had to get in each and every state in order to win.
I also think Obama is getting pretty pissed off that the republicans are being so irresponsible, irresponsible enough that Obama realizes he may actually have to implement that worst-case plan.
We are living in interesting times. It’s one thing for the republicans to behave like a 13-year olds playing with matches; it’s another thing for them to be playing with matches at a gas station with gas puddling on the ground. How scary is it that people have elected all these people who are so stupid or zealous or whatever that they can’t even see how dangerous their behavior is.
From my experience with my friends, they are neither stupid or zealous. Those are the ones you see on the telly because they attract “viewer interest”.
There is a generation, who came of age with the election of Ronald Reagan, that thinks that government is the problem and other large institutions aren’t. And some of my friends work in government or other large institutions and their experience of being messed over is pretty much the same regardless of the institution. We have a bunch of dysfunctional institutions around these days.
And then there are the born Republicans from (primarily midwestern) Republican states who have not grasped that the current Republicans are not exactly Dwight Eisenhower, Chuck Percy, or John Lindsay. Not even Everett Dirksen, Charlie Halleck, Barry Goldwater, or Howard Baker. For them it’s just team colors.
And then there are the folks who go to politicized evangelical churches and get the authoritative word from the pastor about Obama the anti-Christ and parrot it as part of their “witness”.
There are the folks who relax listening to Rush, the FoxNews menagerie, or one of the local Rush wannabes. For those folks, it seems like addiction that needs a twelve step program.
And there are the black local politicians on the make, trying to be the next token to join Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele, and Alan West.
And the accountants and tax shelter sales folks, the small business folks, and others who sense a vested interest in not paying any taxes at all, for anything, ever.
If you talked anything but politics with these folks, they are kind, generous, mostly competent, intelligent, sometimes witty.
And then there are the “independents” who are easily swayed, not in thought but behavior, by the bombardment of negative advertising. It causes most to stay home from an election because “They all are corrupt”. But it can have other strange effects. One of my friends confessed to me that they were going to vote for a Democrat but when they were in the voting booth, they had last minute doubts and voted for the Republican instead. But five minutes after voting, on reflection they thought they had made the wrong choice.
Finally, there are the independents who let their friends make their decisions for them. And if most of your friends are Republicans–and especially if they are forceful Republicans–they get swayed.
Around here, the “red state” “blue state”, geography is destiny mythology does not help because some folks think they ought to vote Republican because they are in a Republican precinct.
And Sue Myrick in person, who I knew from church in Charlotte, is not the same firebrand as Sue Myrick in Congress. The candidates turn the crazy on and off as needed.
Point taken. Multiple points.
So if most of the House Republicans are not stupid or zealous, then they must understand what they are doing. How would you explain their apparent willingness to set things in motion that will likely have a disastrous effect on the world economy?
Hubris.
they don’t think about the world economy only their narrow slice of daily experience. Interestingly the quotes I saw from Grover Norquist only mention the USA economy, not the world economy. I’d guess they have some fantasy that there’s an “out there” from which they can fix what goes wrong if they bring about default, a country to invade to steal some resources, or something. It’s like they’re they’re slaughtering all their livestock for food with the unconscious thought that they can always go out in the woods and hunt some game, even though in reality they’ve cut down most of the woods and the game has vanished.
it goes back to the old question, are humans more intelligent than the yeast I just put into my bread?
http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/the-sheepish-revolutionary
I’d more impressed with the 1337 political skillz of our kabuki players if Obama’s master class on winning the issue was actually translating into positive and productve engagement with the political system from the citizens at large instead of escalating cynicism and contempt for all.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/23/unfavorable-ratings-for-both-major-parties-near-
record-highs/
The country doesn’t want to hear that its social security is in jeopardy. It doesn’t matter who’s to blame. They’ll end up blaming one side more, but both sides still take that hit for making this an issue to begin with. These last three months have been nothing but poison.
On that topic I recommend this post from thereisnospoon regarding the recent Pew Polling Report entitled “GOP Makes Big Gains among White Voters — Especially among the Young and Poor”:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/souls-of-white-folk_23.html
The polling gains are scary. Remember in 2008 how young folks were solidly Democratic? No more. From Pew:
While Republican gains in leaned party identification span nearly all subgroups of whites, they are particularly pronounced among the young and poor. A seven-point Democratic advantage among whites under age 30 three years ago has turned into an 11-point GOP advantage today. And a 15-point Democratic advantage among whites earning less than $30,000 annually has swung to a slim four-point Republican edge today.
thereisnospoon identifies two key lessons from this:
Read the post for details. But it’s true.
At some point the Democratic leadership will either realize that what they are doing isn’t working, pretty much on any level, or they are going to lose their remaining elected leadership positions. Let’s hope it’s the former.
I’m sure race has nothing to do with it.
High school drop outs are so good on issues of race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation.
If only Obama had used the bully pulpit he would have persuaded people who don’t read or watch boring political stories.
Maybe if we bring back DADT and scrap gay marriage in New York we can get regain low educated demo.
I’m in shock.
Now that I’ve reread the Ezra Klein post, let me comment on 50 basis point.
IIRC, 50 basis point is 0.5% percent. T-bills were going for 3% or so recently; I don’t know what these negotiations have done to that rate. That means that the rate most likely goes to 3.5%, which drives some money into the stock market (it already has begun to some extent). And increases interest rates across the board–car loans, mortgages, probably not the maxed up credit cards.
Consider this. Raising the debt ceiling by enough to create a real stimulus (we are talking economics, not politics here; I know that it’s an impossibility) would likely also raise interest rates on T-bills by 50 basis points.
The difference is that instead of having money to put into the economy to offset the job losses and increase revenue without raising tax rates, what the GOP has done is exert a cost on the economy that has zero return. And according to Standard and Poors, that damage has already been done. In economic terms, the GOP has already imposed a tax on the American people by requiring the payment of higher interest rates for the money that the US borrows. Call it an “uncertainty tax”. It might not be 50 basis points yet, but it is there and will not go away as long as the current crop of Republicans are in Congress. And it will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the short term and billions of dollars in interest in the long term.
Regardless of the outcome, this will be the costliest term of Congress since the 2001-2002 term. In economic and human terms.
And the mood from progressives through independents is “Throw all the bums out.” From the Republicans, it’s “double down on our principles and we will prevail.”
To think a protest vote will turn this around is suicidal thinking. It’s the independents sitting out, not the progressives that will be the problem, just as it was in 2010. They will go for a compromise, and applaud it just because it is a compromise in August. But in November 2012, someone is going to be blamed for the consequences of the compromise and there will be a 15-month multi-billion-dollar media campaign out to convince them that that blame should be placed on President Obama and the Democrats.
It appears that you’re implying the White House presented this “grand bargain” deal knowing it would never pass the House Republicans and therefore it’s all been a game, to what end? A clean deal, no cuts attached, or what? And why piss off a large percentage of your base by throwing Social Security into the mix, I didn’t hear any Republicans ask for that? He’s on the record now whether he gets a deal or not. Sure Boehner can’t deliver the votes but I believe the President hoped he would or that enough Dems would come along for the ride to pass something along the Gang of Six or Bowles/Simpson proposals. Were Dems just pretending to be mad in the meeting Thursday with Lew that we heard so much about? Isn’t time to admit Obama relishes the idea of a grand bargain which cuts entitlements?
That’s such a widespread Progressive theory right now, but it’s total nonsense. The Republicans have always hated SS. Thanks.
I realize they’ve always hated it, but I don’t recall anyone asking for it to be part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling on that side of the aisle. Frankly, they’re crazy for not taking Obama’s deal. I just believe he’s hurting himself more than R’s by either believing in this grand bargain or by pretending to believe in it. If you believe Obama doesn’t want cuts to SS/M/M then you have to be saying he’s not negotiating in good faith. Which is it?
You are wrong!! The President offered to increase the Medicare eligible age to 67. Why? It doesn’t save any money and only hurts the poor and middle class. And how did the repeal of the Greenspan/Ray-gun(passed with Democratic control of at least one house of Congress) changes work out? Not very well, did it?
There is zero evidence of that. All reports trace to a Sam Stein piece in which he said he had 5 sources who disagreed with each other.
I still think it’s unwise to suppose that Obama means anything other than following through on any offer that he makes. Bluffing doesn’t appear to be in his playbook. It’s a soothing affirmation to the left-wing sensibilities to say that both sides are just full of it, but let’s not forget how many of us were perturbed at BHO back early in the primaries for campaigning on the notion that SocSec was broke and in dire need of reform.
I see no reason to believe that this man means anything other than what he says. If he says SocSec and Medicare are on the table, nothing in our experience of his performance to date should convince us that he’s just blowing some orange smoke Boehner’s way.
Bluffing is not in his playbook! Ha ha. Anyone who watches the video of the WH Correspondents dinner and thinks Obama can’t bluff is in delusion.
I think you must have “bluffing” confused with “being funny.” I give him full credit for having a sense of humor and quite good comedic timing.
No, he means that he did that whole thing knowing that he’d just killed bin-Laden, and he didn’t let on.
That’s still not bluffing. I’d call that “deadpan” with an extra side of irony. Something we apparently consume in this country but don’t manufacture.
Nonetheless, the point stands: why do you think you know what Obama wants or what Obama is doing when people sitting right next to him couldn’t tell what he really thought of Seth Meyers’ Bin Laden joke?
Bluffing is defined as “to deceive someone as to one intentions”; “a type of deception”.
Obama has specifically said he’s against regime change in Libya. When he says that, is he deceiving people of his true intentions or is telling the truth?
FTR, this has been my view of the endgame since the start of this nonsense, although I thought the range would be $1.5-2 billion; with Pelosi’s new rollout, who knows:
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2011/7/23/123441/808
I’m blown away by this.
I had no idea talkleft still existed.
Yeah it’s just Jeralyn and Armando. Armando’s also been far better to read than when he had his Kos front-page. And Jeralyn continues to focus on prison and drugs, which is a niche that’s often ignored by the left.
Just like dday and FDL, I cannot stand most of the commenters on Talk Left.
he’s a big dishonest troll who constantly dissembled during the 2012 campaign to cater to the PUMA readership. He went right down the PUMA path including defending palin, accusing critics of sexism, which was high comedy. Here he was wondering why people were freaking out over palin. http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/8/30/234729/646
and from the link you provide, he’s still trolling and playing to what remaining PUMAs he has left.
Well quite frankly, I think Palin was attacked in many sexist manners throughout the campaign, and I defended her, too (and I will continue to defend her when she’s attacked in a sexist manner).
I don’t see it as trolling, Sex Kitten. I see the same things he sees. We’ll see who is right, and I beg for both BTD and myself to both be wrong about the cuts and the debt ceiling. If there’s a clean vote, I’ll say I was wrong. I don’t believe I am, though.
“I think Palin was attacked in many sexist manners throughout the campaign”
name five.
Adele Stan
Echidne
Shakesville: Melissa McEwan
Jezebel
Tiny Revolution
It’s a similar way that Hillary was treated. Stick to her stupidity, ill-informed and anti-woman views…but leave the sexist tropes out of it.
FTR, just in case you accuse me of a Hillary person or a PUMA…I supported Mike Gravel in the primaries, and then switched to Obama after New Hampshire.
This is why i asked for examples. examples are crisp. While these blog posts are droning and poorly written.
There is one clear example: people questioning whether a new mother should be campaigning.
Geeks drooling over her looks is less clear example. Geeks drooled over Edwards’ handsome looks. The behavior wasn’t gender specific. Plus, Palin trades on her sex appeal.
The David Letterman stuff is ridiculous.
Calling a woman ballzy is also unclear. It would be better to say gutzy, but even feminists use “ballsy”.
And there will always be cheap shots and creeps like Tweety and O’Reilly, after all this is a big world.
But bottom line: there were no concerted, sustained line of attacks based on gender, like Obama faced on race, with the campaigns to say he was muslim, a terrorist, and foreign born. Hell, Palin herself started the terrorist meme.
That’s not the bottom line. You’ve moved the goal posts. You said she didn’t face sexism in the media and in the campaign. In a patriarchal society, that is inevitability for nearly all women candidates, especially at the presidential level. And I don’t give a fuck if it’s Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin: sexism should be called out regardless.
Joan Walsh, Digby, MM, and Atrios all called out Newsweek on their cover page, too:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/gamming-up-works-by-digby-joan-walsh.html
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200911170027
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2009/11/slutty-schoolgirl-really.html
Nobody held a gun to her head and told her reach down and touch her feet and let people see her cleavage. She wasn’t some 19 year old struggling model trying to pay rent. She was a millionaire governor with a degree in communications.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a81/kos102/2009/Other/Palin-Bends-Over.jpg
So Digby and Atrios think Newsweek was sexist. Fine. Funny how they didn’t object when their good buddy Markos used a Palin crotch shot on the front page of DKos.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/08/12/892202/-My-favorite-Sarah-Palin-moment
So who’s the sexist: women who purposefully and intentionally trade of their sensuality or the people who publish the photos.
http://angelinajoliesource.com/photogallery/magazinecovers/Angelina.Jolie.MagazineCover.001.jpg
.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."