Lawrence O’Donnell thinks that President Obama has been masterfully playing Republicans in the debt ceiling talks (h/t c u n d gulag):
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Is President Obama proving his political genius by floating a plan for a $4 trillion deficit cut deal to lift the debt ceiling, offering entitlement cuts that will enrage parts of his base knowing he’ll never face their wrath, because far-right Republicans will never take the deal? It could be. House Speaker John Boehner rejected Obama’s “grand bargain” Sunday and Monday, because his members won’t consider anything to raise revenue, not even closing loopholes for corporate private jets or a tax giveaway for hedge fund managers. Insiders say this lets Obama look like “the only grownup,” the man who was willing to snub key parts of his base for the greater good of the country, while Republicans bowed to their Tea Party and corporate masters. Everyone knows Republicans don’t care about the deficit. They’ve already voted for the budget-busting Ryan plan, whose tax cuts increase the deficit.. This is all about greed masquerading as supply side economics that have been discredited by the experiments of the last 30 years.
Walsh is wrong that “everyone knows” Republicans don’t care about the deficit, because rank-and-file teabaggers are way too stupid and/or brainwashed to understand what’s going on here, and plenty of independents still aren’t paying close enough attention. But “everyone” who is a player in this little drama knows it, I suspect.
I hope Obama’s positioning himself as ready for big compromise, secure Republicans will never agree to a deal that raises revenue. But there’s no proof either way. The president’s willingness to throw Social Security and Medicare into the mix has always worried me, even if it’s just political theatre. Every time this president accepts the way Republicans frame fiscal and economic issues, he moves the debate in this country farther to the right.
I’ve been wondering myself is some of the President’s positions have been more about political theater than actual offers. If it is political theater, it’s a big gamble. If the Republicans actually took him up on the deal, it’s possible Dems would vote against it and keep it from passing in the Senate.
But Eric Cantor is saying that merely voting to increase the debt ceiling is a concession in itself, and the only concession Republicans are willing to make. The game of chicken continues.
I watched some of O’Donnell last night, man he’s almost unwatchable, ego much? He drones on and on as if he is personally advising the President, he wouldn’t make a pimple on Olbermanns left cheek! I’m sure the wing-nuts at Comcast love having him on against Bill-O, his ratings are non-existent typically less than half of Maddow’s?
I don’t think Obama is playing a game, I think he is actually negotiating in good faith, that’s why the repugs are so confused? I’m sure they figured he’d have caved in by now, I sure did. I loved the line about “time to eat our peas†classic, I bet the teabaggers love being referred to as children!
com·pro·mise
   [kom-pruh-mahyz] Show IPA noun, verb, -mised, -mis·ing.
–noun
1.
a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc.,[b] by reciprocal modification of demands. [/b]
This is something Americans understand – even moderates who can’t spell it. That the president appears willing to compromise and the Tea Party REFUSES to compromise will get him reelected. Can it discredit an astroturf movement whose masters are aristocrats and whose troops are idiots. Can exposing the unwillingness to compromise alone return the Congress to sober men of principle, even opposing principle, who understand compromise?
You seem to have achieved a lifelike snapshot of our times.
We are definitely at the point where a variety of things have completely eclipsed what little “civil discourse” ever existed in American politics. I know that historically politics has always been a dirty game back to the beginning. So, we are all to take some comfort in the historical reality that the lies and misinformation are just ‘business as usual”. We spend so much time trying determine the reality behind the appearance, that sooner or later we all fall in exhaustion and our neurons turn to “Silly Putty”. — Well okay, speaking for myself.
I tune into NPR and I still just find a couple of clowns from AEI and the Cato Institute repeating their boilerplate and the whole debate and discussion of policy never advances an Angstrom Unit. A couple of well paid flim-flam men repeat the same bogus critiques or assertions they have always made. They might change the words around a bit, just for jollies, but, I expect that if you got close enough to either think tanker, they would have a string with a plastic ring on it sticking out of the back of their neck, like the “Pee Wee” Herman doll my Godson had as a kid. Except the doll seemed to have a wider range of experience and usually made more sense.
So here we are sifting the ashes of the policy debate searching for some clue to help us decipher appearances. Ironically this usually bumps up the distraction, fear and confusion which obscures reality even more. We are always a few steps removed from actually confronting the issue in question, and the issue in question often bears heavily and directly on our lives and our future. But, that seems to be our only choice. So, bring it on.
——
“You can’t make any sense of American political discourse if you give everyone credit for really wanting what they claim to want. My sense is that there are very few true deficit hawks; the vast majority of those who claim that title are really just using the deficit to pursue the goal of a more unequal society.”
— Paul Krugman
As I said before, I hope putting Medicare and SS on the table is an example of that 11th Dimensional chess Obama’s supposedly capable of. I’d feel a lot more confident if he’d shown me some great skill at 2 Dimensional chess, never mind 3.
In fight after fight he has conceded any position of strengh before the battle’s even begun. If he was a Jedi chess master, we’d have Medicare for all, or single payer right now, instead of a health care start-up whose first benefits didn’t really start until recently. Among other examples, like having trial for terror suspect in US Federal Courts, etc.,
Now, maybe this is the greatest, as O’Donnell puts is, “Rope-a-dope” in recent political memory. And O’Donnell sites some good for why he thinks that is.
What I’d like the President to have done instead of playing with Medicare and Social Security, and he can still do it, is to say, “Fine, if you don’t pass this before July XX, I will start cutting budgets. Now, the military is too important, so I’ll hold off on that. And I’ll start those cuts with contractors – but not right now. Because there IS an obvious place to start. And that is the states that receive more back in Federal money than they put in. Those are the states that are on US Federal Government Welfare Entitlement Programs. So, we’ll cut aid to them first, since they are one of the biggest drags on the economy and the deficit. Here are the states in alphabetical order:
AL
AK
AZ
etc.,”
And he can run through the red states, since almost no blue state are on that list, but if they are, well, fair’s fair.
Let the Repbulicans scream all they want. The fact is that the red states take home from the US government far more than they put in in taxes – and probably most voters in those states don’t know it, or don’t care. Politicians screaming would only point out the hypocrisy of the politicians and the populations of those states.
Go for the throat across the board on all of the Republicans favorites. Let them all scream. Let the rightie media scream. Maybe some parts of the rest of the MSM might learn something about the unequal distribution of government wealth in this country – and how those states doing the most bitching, are also the ones who need that money the most, lest their LOCAL and STATE taxes go up. “T”axed “E”nough “A”lready? Well, just wait until you have to make up THAT difference within you own state.
Look, he’s a Democrat, and he’s black, so either one of them means that he’s going to take the most shit in this fight. Why not earn the vilification while you make your point – stop running your own states as welfare states, and then come back to me about the debt and deficit. Until then, pass this, or STFU and pay the consequences BEFORE the nations does on, or near, August 2nd.
Now, that may not be 11th, or even 3rd, Dimensional chess – but it seems to me to be a pretty good example of plain old good country chess.
goatherd,
As for whatConservative “think” tanks like AEI, Cato, Heritage, and the magazines, et all, have to say is not much different from what it was over the past 30 years.
If you go to their offices, I’m sure there’s a huge refrigerator somewhere with all of the approved words and talking point phrases that the Wingnut Welfare recipient writers/pundits can peel off and choose to use in articles, or for TV and radio appearances.
I’ve been saying for a long time that the only original idea that Conservatives have had was tax cuts, and that was a long, long time ago.
I want to amend that. They have recently added a codicil to that idea – “Nice country you gotcheer. Shame to lose it ’cause youse don wanna cut no more taxes…”
If increasing the debt ceiling is the only concession the R’s are willing to make, then let them put up a clean bill and pass it. Then they can preserve their spending accusations for campaign fodder.
If Obama is offering to put Medicare on a VA style prescription bid/negotiation program to reduce costs, fine. And just how many circular home hovercrafts are we paying for? ZERO cost? NO deductible? I bet the folks at many government agencies have some savings ideas. So some “cuts” are possible without harm. But that is not the issue to Republicans. The real issue is how to service their overlords sufficiently before leaving office to guarantee a fat board of directors or lobbying or lawyering deal.
There’s no question that seniors could be given decent prescription drug benefits at much less cost than taxpayers are paying now, meaning that Medicare Part D provides an opportunity for relatively painless cost cutting. But that’s the one part of Medicare the Right seems unwilling to change. See, for example, testimony before Congress from some think tank hack arguing that Medicare Part D as it is provides a model that will save taxpayer money. I’m serious. The argument (that I’ve seen in several places lately) is that since Medicare Part D costs less than the CBO originally projected, that means it “saves” money. And yes, there is a logical flaw in that argument that you could float an aircraft carrier through, but I guess it works on the rubes.
I think ( opinion) that packing the GOP with rabid idealogues was the plan. The assumption was and is that moderates who can’t vote in the GOP primary because they are registered independent will vote for TP lunatics because they are NOT voting for a democrat.
The strategy breaks down when the perception of the independent voter shifts. If/when the stench of the tea party hits the noses of the independent voter, the moderate will vote D to reject the extremism. The problem is that the moderate still watches Fox, still listens to Rush. Somehow, we have to get the message to the moderate. The next election MUST repudiate the Tea Party, and that won’t happen with a get-put-the-vote strategy among liberals.
FDR & Churchill forged an alliance with Stalin, knowing full well how evil Stalin was, because Hitler was the worse threat, and a common threat. Moderates won’t trust or like us liberals any more than FDR liked Ol’ Joe. But they might make a temporary truce to reject the Tea Party.
Not enough people understand that the previous version of the Tea Party, the john birch society was discredited by William F. Buckley Jr. Now is the time for real conservatives to stand with democrats, to restore balance in government.
goatherd – Recall Rothschild’s introduction of banking methods into America…”…that great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that Capital derives from the (banking) system, will bear its burden without complaint, and, perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.”
At this point in ‘negotiations’ it’s painfully clear that the parties involved have reached the point of who can put together the best snow job. How easy would it be for Obama, fore instance, to make up a little anecdote – “I just want one Republican to justify cutting into the $14,000/year income of the 65-year old woman as the best way of reducing the deficit instead of cutting into the $3 billion/year income of the hedge-funder. And then I want that Republican to tell us how many people the hedger directly employs.”
Oy, don’t read this if that video of O’Donnell gave you any hope:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-why-liberals-should-thank-eric-cantor/2011/07/12/gIQAiV4RAI_blog.html
Ezra says Liberals need to send Cantor a fruit basket for storming out.
The only ray of hope that I see is that Ezra is not always right, if that’s anything to hang your hat on…
Or, maybe Jedi Obama knew that Cantor would storm out, like O’Donnell says.
I just don’t know what to think anymore…
cund – Cantor is like the kid who snivels if you don’t let me win, I’m going to take my marbles and go home – and they’re his marbles. I thought no one could top Tom Delay for nasty and insufferable, but Republicans have managed to top him with Cantor.
COND – I think it’s likely Obama knew democrats would not accept real cuts to entitlements. *Real* means reductions in benefits. Anybody (any sane person) would consider cost savings that won’t impact real benefits. My opinion is that Obama was willing to dangle that bait to get the GOP to the table knowing that Pelosi democrats would refuse.
If a deal emerged that did not include draconian cuts, the House democrats can run as hero who saved Senior entitlements from the Tea Party. This is not a bad deal for Obama in his second term, if Obama gains moderate votes and looses face with liberals, but regains the House a retains the Senate.
A pivot to the left ultimately weakens de
Argh – damn tablet. A pivot to the left by the president now weakens our chances to remake the House. Ask a pilot – to go UP, you point the nose of the plane DOWN. If you point the nose UP, without adding power, the plane slows, which reduces lift. The swing votes are in the center. The critical election in 2012 is not for POTUS – it’s the HOUSE!
Doug,
Trying to regain the House, while not impossible, is going to be a tough road. Maybe this debt ceiling nonsense will make it easier. I still would like to have Obama as President for two reasons (at least):
1. Veto power.
2. SCOTUS nominations if there are vacancies.
And yeah, I know, no flaming Liberal will be allowed to even be mentioned, let alone considered. But anyone he puts on there will be light years ahead of Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Scalia. Hell, another Kennedy would be preferable to those Four Muskateers for corporatism and our new royalty.
And don’t forget, with the redistricting that’s going on right now, it’s going to be even tougher for Democrats next year.
“goatherd – Recall Rothschild’s introduction of banking methods into America…â€â€¦that great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that Capital derives from the (banking) system, will bear its burden without complaint, and, perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.â€
Gosh Felicity, that must have slipped my mind, but speaking as one mentally incapable of comprehending.., Well, quite a few things, it makes a lot of damn sense!
Yeah, like some of you, I think about negotiating prescription prices for Medicare part D and similar practical cost cutting and it gives me a bit of hope, and then I remember who we are dealing with.
Cundgulag –“The only original idea conservatives had was tax cuts.” — I remember seeing a clip of Markos Moulitas where someone suggested tax cuts, (the universal solution to all problems) and he replied, “If men from Mars landed on the White House lawn and got out of their flying saucer, you run up to them and offer them a tax cut.”
I don’t think it takes any 11th Dimensional Jedi chess skill to see this. Repugs have vowed, no, to use their language, covenanted, to never ever raise a tax or anything that looks like a tax. Therefore, Obama could put ANYTHING on the table if he insisted that there be at least one penny of a tax increase on those making over 1 Trillion dollars. The Repugs won’t bite. He could have offered his and Biden’s resignation so that we could all say President Boehner and VP Cantor, if they would only raise one cent of tax. They aren’t going to take it. My guess is their making plans for what life with severely restricted federal spending is going to look like with the economy. Hopefully, finally, the voters will make them pay.
Remember when Gingrich shut down the government, twice. That was over a budget deal. It’s been well argued that Clinton’s re-election in ’96 was partly due to Gingrich’s grandstanding shut-down.
I’m wondering if Obama is somehow forcing the Republicans into a grandstand play that may ultimately play a roll in his re-election. O’Donnell’s take on this latest round of negotiations may be right on.
Mitch “Yertly the Anti-gay Gay Turtle” McConnell might have just blinked:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/the-big-blink-mcconnell-proposes-giving-obama-authority-to-raise-debt-limit-alone.php?ref=fpa
This just came out, so we’ll see where this goes.
If you read that link that Maha provided…$20,000 leagues under the state. You get the sense that any of the entitlements that Obama is willing to bargain away will only act as a tax increase for the wealthy.. If he raises the withholding limit on Social Security which is now at a $106,000. cut off..It’s not going to effect me, or the majority of Americans..I think the median income is around $43,000. So only the well to do will be affected. There are tons of subsidies and tax credits that only those in the upper crust or those who have learned how to game the system can afford to take advantage of.. Why is Bachmann’s farm getting a subsidy? The system is fraught with generational big money parasites…and it’s time to clean it out. The Repugs only want to attack the most vulnerable in society to increase the profits of their benefactors ..
It reminds me of a saying I once heard from some movie star..” Be careful of what you wish for…because you might get it”.. I think that sums up Obama’s gambit for the Repugs…It’s great to see Boehner backpedaling..That’s when he realized he’d been had. “The Grand Bargain” 🙂
True. One of the biggesst traps that people (even the smartest people) find themselves in is thinking that most people are like them.
I remain disappointed at the Obama administration’s failure to use him as teacher-in-chief and for others in the administration to continue hammering home the reasons why failure to raise the debt limit is bad and what the consequences can be. The GOP ploy just might work to the extent that raising the debt limit is perceived as continued use of the “national credit card”.
If the GOP get their wish there will be runaway inflation that will cost Obama the election. During the Carter administration we defaulted for a single day and it affected interest rates.
Sadly, most do not understand any of this. Nor do they understand the consequences of drastic cutting during a depression. If the current GOP trickery works it will be because of a failure of Obama to use the bully pulpit.
Hours after the recent Obama speech in which the pranied Boehner, Boehner was trashing him in an interview. Nobody lines up behind a wimp so I hope Obama has something up his sleeve.
Regrettably, I must vote “Dope”. Obama is going the way of Carter.
It seems like they just don’t want to raise the debt limit, no matter what Obama offers them. maybe they realize, that if they can cause enough havoc financially taking away medicare and ss, will be as easy as taking candy from ababy, but I’m under the belief that if they don’t raise the debt limit, social security and medicare will be the leat of our problems.
Doug Hughes says, “The assumption was and is that moderates who can’t vote in the GOP primary because they are registered independent will vote for TP lunatics because they are NOT voting for a democrat.”
I didn’t get much sleep last night. I don’t think I truly understand Doug’s statement. However, for the record, I am registered as an Independent; but, I always vote Democratic. I’d shoot myself in the voting booth if I voted Republican. Forgive me if I am not making sense, trouble on the homefront is using all my thinking energies.
Bonne,
I hope that trouble works itself out to your advantage.
Sometimes it does. 🙂
I happen to LOVE peas, so I’ll eat mine and everyone else’s.(‘ceptin’ if they’re canned)
Beyond that, I think (hope) Obama is playing chicken with the opposition, we’ll soon see.
If they raise Medicare to 68, I’ll be really pissed, and take my toys and move to Mexico…………
Yertle has come back with something.
And, wow, the flying monkey’s at Malkin’s site are having an epic poo-flinging contest – one that makes any Democrat’s knocks on Obama look like 1st grade takedowns that don’t include the kids Mama’s.
Also, too, please check out the graphic of the guy hitting his head up against the wall – it’s priceless. And I mean PRICELESS – in that she spared no expense. I mean that LITERALLY. She spared NO EXPENSE! HA!!!
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/07/12/another-mortifying-mcconnell-head-banging-against-the-wall-moment/
___________________________________________________
Here’s my favorite Malkinshithead’s comment:
On July 12th, 2011 at 4:08 pm, ThunderHawkk said:
Do you see how evil obama is? Can you believe it? Shameless beyond comprehension and evil beyond words.
You can take my social security check and shove it up your butts, libs! I don’t need it so much that I’ll give you that much power over me.
Democrats are EVIL.
________________________________________________________________
Ok,
ThanderHawkkShittHeadd,
You can mail that check back to:
F-U! Check it out yourself.
Or, you can mail it to me.
The bright lights you see in yuur neighborhoods tonight, and the explosions you hear, may not be fireworks left over from the 4th of July, but Conservative’s heads exploding around town.
O’Donnell may have been right after all.
Bonnie..Just want to echo Gulag’s sentiments ..I hope that whatever trouble is coming at you, it passes you as a blessing…I’m a registered Independent also..and I haven’t voted for a single Repug since the Bush administration gave me a formal education in identifying political sycophants.
McConnell is playing hot potato…. He even getting Christ like about it–” Oh Father, If it be your will, take this cup from me”
To clarify- I know not all independents lean right. No offense intended.
Four years ago, when dissatisfaction with the GOP was running high, Lou Dobbs was pushing for repudiation of both parties, and the exodus from the republican ranks did not show in an increase among democrats. It showed in a surge among independents. At that time, the narrow philosophy seemed a self-destructive tactic, but it set up state and federal contests where the GOP candidate is a lunatic who would not have survived a primary contest where sane conservatives also voted.
In the last election, a lot of right-leaning independents voted for the teabagger. IMO, most of those independents would not be happy if they actually KNEW what the House is doing. But Fox & Company are running a phony version which must be overcome. I have no quarrel with independents, left or right leaning. Quite the opposite, those are the voters liberals have to reach in the short term if we are to deliver a crushing blow to the Koch brothers and thier Tea Party in 2012.
Looks like Cantor got caught up in his power trip..He was so engrossed in pummeling Biden that he didn’t realize that Biden was only the fleece. Now they are all clamoring to get back to the negotiating table with Biden. Classical rope- a- dope!
Are you sure? Holy Joe Lieberman, who’s with us on everything but the war, and the right to criticize a Republican President on the war without being a traitor, and health care, and the desirability of Barack Obama as President, and… um. Anyway, Lieberman wouldn’t let a lousy stinking medicare buy in for people 55 and older.
Would chess playing have fixed that?
I’m getting the idea that one of the biggest problems is that the Republicans are playing a masterful game of chess by constantly figuring out *something* to grab headlines, and that liberal folks are constantly reacting, and never actually pushing an agenda. And viewed from that perspective, Obama is playing well.
I’ve talked about how Democrats need cover before, but maybe a better way to put it is that liberal folks need something to be energized about, and have it be something we can push any reasonable Democrat to do. Anything – really, I think there needs to be a proof of concept, just to prove it can be done. Because I know *I* feel pretty helpless watching the Republicans outplay the Democrats with Republican followers drowning out opposition with “four legs good, two legs better!”
Obama needed the activist Left to give him some cover, so to speak, to give him more room to maneuver. But most of the activist Left didn’t do that, and he’s pretty much out there maneuvering on his own.