Hey, indeedy. Steve Benen and Jon Chait have a laugh at Michael Gerson’s expense. Because, Gerson actually wrote this:
Gerson sees this [budget] standoff as confirmation of Obama’s cynicism. Obama, he writes, “knows that Republicans are forced by the momentum of their ideology to take positions on spending that he can easily demagogue.” They’re forced by ideology. There’s nothing they can do about it! The ideology has momentum. Republicans are merely along for the ride.
“The momentum of their ideology” will now join “catapulting the propaganda” in the pantheon of awesomely-coined terms Republicans use to explain their own evil/insanity. Just like defining themselves outside the “reality-based community,” the phrase does more work than originally intended.
But, you know what? What have I been telling you for years now? The Republicans’ strength in unity becomes a weakness when it comes time to get flexible. If I know that you will never fold a pair of jacks, eventually I will own all your money. It’s really that simple. The GOP telegraphs their positions, digs in, and never suspects the flanking maneuver. That’s on defense. On offense, they walk straight forward without ever sending out forward observers to look out for ambushes. If you know exactly what they will or won’t do (at least on a few crucial issues) you can set them up months or even years in advance. And they are so propelled by the momentum of their ideology, that it’s almost not fair to mow them down. Almost.
‘Momentum’ of Ideology..
LOL
all they have to do is be sane.
but, they won’t be sane.
so, ‘ f’em.
But they can’t help it — the poor dears. Surely Obama should take pity on them and agree to cut grandmas Social Security and Medicare. It’s only fair.
Speaking of “momentum of ideology”, it appears that the Hastert Rule has sunk a little further down in the waste basket.
This is actually big news. As Booman pointed out, breaking the Hastert Rule was one of Obama’s big goals in the tax fight. Once it’s broken once, why not twice? Once broken twice, why not thrice and so on and on and on.
yep.
I am anxious to see the reaction among the Tea Party caucus to this second failure to achieve their goal.
No, you guys don’t understand. The Hastert Rule is still in force, it’s just not operative.
It’s promising, but I’m not sure it’s really breaking the Hastert rule. The Republicans did vote for the rules and to bring the bill to the floor. So, apparently, they were OK with the way the votes came out, even those who opposed final passage. I suspect it’s just Kabuki. That’s still good, as there’s probably a majority within the Republican caucus who would favor a similar outcome for the debt ceiling, but not as good as Boehner telling the Tea party to get stuffed.
Well, the problem here is that there were enough Republicans who would have signed a discharge petition to force the bill to the floor if Boehner tried to stick to Hastert Rule, that Boehner is kind of off the hook. That’s why the Rules Committee allowed it and severely limited the poison-pill amendments.
Still, it split the caucus very badly and caused some bad feelings as well as across-the-aisle regional solidarity.
It’s another notch.
Be nice if they would bring a clean debt ceiling bill to the floor for a vote. Unfortunately no Republicans will sign a discharge petition unless their state was leveled by a global warming event. It takes a Sandy. That should be their motto.
“It takes a razed village”?
I may use that.
Goddamned fucking clowns.
(shrug) they’re confederates. pickett’s charges are the only thing they know how to do.
more akin to the redcoats v the minutemen, imho.
“And so … they think to catch the sleeping wolf?–ha! ha! ha! —Brave, brave fools that they are!– they will go headlong into his den; but many a sun shall rise, and many a moon wane, before they shall come out into the
free air again.” Edward Trevor Anwyl,Reginald Trevor, or, The Welsh Loyalists (1829).
“forced by the momentum of their ideology”
I once had a cat, a big male tiger cat, who bolted out the front door and ran under the neighbor’s car while the wife and I were walking out the front door to catch a plane.
I went inside, got a can of Fancy Feast, and went and crouched down a couple feet away from the car. I opened the can – fssstcrack – and waved the Fancy Feast at the cat. The cat looked me in the eye, looked at the Fancy Feast, and let out the most piteous wail I’d ever heard from him. And then he came crawling out, at which point I grabbed him and put him back the house.
I gather that being forced by the momentum of one’s ideology is sort of like that.
I do hope you gave him at least a taste of the Fancy! But otherwise a great analogy.
Anything with a cat, and the rec numbers go through the roof!
Of course I gave him the Feast. What am I, Hitler?
Well, of course you gave him the Feast — how else were you going to get back out the door without him charging past you again?
Cat Handling 101 — distract with food to achieve escape.
Not to mention the momemtum of their ignorance.
oh dear, ideology trumps their mantra of personal responsibility…ayn rand’s spinning in her grave.
Sure, they’re almost as hypocritical as she was.
But Ayn Rand knew personal material benefit trumped them both. Afterall she used her maiden name to collect Social Security.
And wrote most of her illogical drivel hyped up on meth pills.
Where’s the pic of the Statue of Liberty doing a facepalm?
I suppose it could be the fear of the local crazies they’ve created that might come to destroy the Village that creates the “momentum”.
OT, but wow, dude now the NRA is bringing the President’s daughters into this…SMDH http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/15/a-new-low-nra-targets-obamas-kids-in-scathing-new-ad/ …
Yes my childs life is just as important. Except thousands of heavily armed wackos don’t hate me. Not that many anyway. How can they can use secret service protection for the president’s children as a reason for them to have assault weapons and extended clips??? The NRA makes no sense.
Ummm
“How they can use secret service….” Not “How can they can use secret service…”
R Rep’s are responding accordingly. Chuck Todd just played a clip of one responding who broke out in laughter on camera saying “Can you imagine, they using children with the Pres today, haha…”
Obviously we’re going to be in for a major round of making fools of themselves which is just frosting on a very overbaked cake of stupid momentum of their ideology.
Who was the genius that first came up with the idea of using the debt ceiling as a political weapon? Does anybody out there know? Was it Pat Toomey or somebody else?
I’m getting the feeling it was Ken Blackwell — this from 2010:
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/12/29/bring-the-debt-ceiling-into-ba
That guy is quite a piece of work, isn’t he?
There was this guy at a poker table I was at that bet on every hand through the river. This did not go unnoticed by the rest of the table. He won what looked like more than his share of hands, but eventually he walked away from the table with an empty stack.
He is the GOP.
It makes perfect sense to me – because after all, who do they really represent? Miserable haters and fools all.
Lemmings have been known to develop a momentum of their own from time to time, hopefully it will work out in a similar way for the GOP.
‘The Axis of Evil’. How did that play out? Or is still operative? Guess so.
As I recall, Jim Jones also had a momentum of his ideology.