Have you ever been thrown in a sack with a hungry and half-mad badger and then been told to take the wheel and drive the car? No? Well, then you’re not Barack Obama and you haven’t met David Ignatius.
Some of us can recall the helpless feeling of being in a vehicle driven by someone who is intoxicated. If you’re like me, you don’t want to cause a scene unless the driving is really erratic. But there comes a moment when you need to say: Stop the car. You’re going to hurt someone. Hand over the keys.
We have a political system that is the equivalent of a drunk driver. The primary culprits are the House Republicans. They are so intoxicated with their own ideology that they are ready to drive the nation’s car off the road. I don’t know if the sequestration that’s set to begin Friday will produce a little crisis or a big one; the sad fact is that the Republicans don’t know, either, yet they’re still willing to put the country at risk to make a political point.
I’m no fan of the way President Obama has handled the fiscal crisis. As I’ve written often, he needs to provide the presidential leadership that guides Congress and the country toward fiscal stability. In my analogy, he should take the steering wheel firmly in hand and drive the car toward the destination where most maps show we need to be heading: namely, a balanced program of cuts in Social Security and Medicare and modest increases in revenue.
You folks want to take this one?
I mean, where to start, right? Why does Social Security ALWAYS have to be part of this conversation? In any case, what the hell does Ignatius think Obama has been saying for the last three damn years? What did he say when the Republicans refused to pay our debts? What did he say all throughout the campaign? What did he say when we reached the Fiscal Cliff? What did he say in the State of the Union? What did he say today, yesterday, and the day before that?
He said that we need a balanced program of cuts (including to Medicare) and modest increases in revenue. The White House has already talked about making the cost of living adjustment for Social Security less generous. If you don’t believe me, do a LexisNexis search for “chained CPI.” You’ll discover that it is a cut to Social Security. You’ll also discover that progressives positively hate the idea. How many times does the president have to propose exactly what every pundit over 40 in DC thinks he should propose before he can take credit for driving the car?
But he’s not allowed to drive the car alone. The inebriated sot, John Boehner, must introduce all bills creating revenue, and he’s chained down in the driver’s seat by rabid badgers, weasels, and wolverines who are tearing at his flesh and leaving no part of his reputation or legacy unmutilated.
How far do we have to go with this imagery? Boehner and his merry band of mustelids have already crashed this car into embankments, cement walls, and valley floors. In any sane world, the people would have taken the keys away long ago.
In any sane world, David Ignatius wouldn’t still be demonstrating what a tosser he is in the pages of the Washington Post.
