After reading Jonathan Weisman and Ashley Parker’s article in the New York Times, I can’t stop laughing at John Boehner.
The overarching problem for the man at the center of the budget fight, say allies and opponents, is that he and his leadership team have no real idea how to resolve the fiscal showdown.
They are only trying to survive another day, Republican strategists say, hoping to maintain unity as long as possible so that when the Republican position collapses, they can capitulate on two issues at once — financing the government and raising the debt ceiling — and head off any internal party backlash.
Everything else is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
How Democrats Got a Spine
Democrats don’t worry about that. They worry about a “grand bargain” that would ask them to bail out the GOP again and vote for Social Security cuts. But in 2011, conservatives blew up a deal and spared the Democrats that vote. In 2013, conservatives turned the focus to Obamacare, which the party’s never going to undo.
“Dealing with terrorists has taught us some things,” said Washington Rep. Jim McDermott after voting no on one of Thursday’s GOP bills. “You can’t deal with ’em. This mess was created by the Republicans for one purpose, and they lost. People in my district are calling in for Obamacare–affordable health care–in large numbers. These guys have lost, and they can’t figure out how to admit it.” Why would House Democrats give away what the Supreme Court and the 2012 electorate didn’t? “You can’t say, OK, you get half of Obamacare–this isn’t a Solomonic decision,” McDermott said. “So we sit here until they figure out they fuckin’ lost.”
Yes, the Republican position has already collapsed. So the blather continues. The day they give up their economic hostage-taking and GET NOTHING will be the first toss of dirt into the grave they dug for themselves.
A trenchant thought from”Never Ben Better” at SteveM’s place: “This is not to say that Southern revanchism is not a powerful element of the current standoff; it most certainly is. Rather, it illustrates the larger point that the GOP in its current incarnation, in throwing this massive tantrum, is refusing to accept the political and demographic changes sweeping them toward oblivion — they cannot, they just can’t bring themselves to admit THEY LOST. To do so is to deny the entire structure of the bizarre reality they’ve built around themselves for decades. This shutdown is the Confederate flag emblazoned on the pickup truck of their very souls.
Hell, to surrender to Obama at this point would be to cut their Truck Nutz off.”
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2013/10/so-thats-how-milk-got-into-coconut.html
Awesome.
* blush * Thank you. Yes, that’s my other ID, Never Ben Better — it’s what Blogger knows me by, and it’s too much of a pain to log in and out of various IDs just to be Janicket there.
While I’m here, may I recommend one of Jim Wright’s magnificent jeremiads at Stonekettle Station?
http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/10/dont-cry-for-me-john-boehner.html
Keep reading back in his blog; he’s got a whole series of ’em taking the current insanity apart.
I may turn “This shutdown is the Confederate flag emblazoned on the pickup truck of their very souls.” into a bumper sticker. Bless you for that one.
I dunno about all the happy talk. They might capitulate, but the pox-on-both-houses reporting seems to be having an effect where I am at. I actually think the Republicans are doing a pretty good job at driving media coverage and flashing sparkly objects in front of reporters now. Conversations at work seemed to drift from TP nutballs on Monday to why aren’t the Dems talking Friday. That stupid WH staffer quote did not help things either.
I hope we not only get the government open, avoid catastrophe with the debt ceiling, but the Dems get a bump. Right now, it’s tough to see the latter happening.
Well, one battle at a time. Time will tell of course, but whenever the current situation is resolved the Republicans will still have plenty of time to act like intransigent assholes before the 2014 elections.
They are, after all, on the wrong side of every conceivable issue–abortion, gun control, immigration, you name it. So, supposing they do capitulate here, there could be two ways forward. The capitulation could be so total that the Democrats are finally able to advance some popular legislation that actually improves conditions in the country, or the Republicans could be even more intransigent and obstructionist than ever. Either outcome would give the Democrats at least an opportunity to make some real gains in the 2014 elections.
What stupid WH staffer quote? And when? Something I missed altogether, apparently.
The longer the GOP goes, the more there needs to be a punitive price for their stupidity. And that price should be stimulative of the economy they have been trying to tank and saleable in solid Republican districts. I can think of three things that meet that description:
Social Security payment increases much above the CPI.
Minimum wage raised to $15 an hour with closure of loopholes for restaurant and agricultural workers.
Financial transaction tax to pay off the debt.
Also, immediate repeal of the sequester. (Followed by budget negotiations in conference committee based on the budgets passed by House and Senate.)
OT, but I’m left wondering what the on the street reaction would be to Boehner et al right now in DC. I assume that unlike maybe elsewhere, that DC citizens would know who Boehner is from sight?
Anyway, This restaurant is giving a 10% discount to workers in DC who have been furloughed. President Obama decided to take a walk from the White House to that restaurant to buy some lunch and thank the establishment. It’s also a good bit of political theater. Obama does seem like an approachable pol that people seem to like when they meet. And contrary to what certain people like to say about Obama and aloofness he always seems pretty at ease around the “common” folk outside the beltway bubble. He seems to have a comfort that GWB just didnt seem to have outside his beltway circle.
Anyway, here is the WH video if the “excursion”…
President Obama takes a walk
Well, we all hope you are right.
But the rwnm propaganda war blaming the Dems for not surrendering to stop the terrible harm has not relented in the least.
And there are far too many right wingers choosing what’s on the TVs in the waiting rooms of America.
Fox News is yammering everywhere.
The capitulation was the Democrats.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/01/the-republicans-already-won-on-the-cr-in-
one-graph/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein&clsrd
The Republicans are just using the Tea Party crazies to see what else they can get without antagonizing the voters too much. I expect the next debt ceiling to be after the 2014 election.
I’m not exactly laughing at John Boehner any more, because his one goal (it’s not a strategy) is to take one bullet instead of two. That will be better for everybody. I was impressed by the argument thast if he folds too early now, the crazies will just be that much more crazy when it comes to the debt ceiling.
For me,though, the funniest lines in the whole thing were these:
” Even Republican allies say whatever strategy exists seems to be dictated not by the speaker, but by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the hard-line Republican who helped start the “Defund Obamacare” movement.
” Asked what the House was doing, Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and a Boehner loyalist, said: “You really have to call Cruz, I’m not even joking about that. That’s really what you have to do, because he’s the one that set up the strategy, he’s the one that got us into this mess, and so we’ve got to know what the next move is.”
The crazies think Cruz has a strategy. Boehner’s guys think he’s got something up his sleeve but he’s just not telling them what it is. But Cruz has no fucking strategy.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/ted-cruz-blasted-by-angry-gop-colleagues-government-shutdown-9
7753.html