First rule when dealing with the devil…
But the “moderate” Republicans fully intended to blackmail the Democrats with the debt ceiling, even if they meant to “compromise” on some horrible, economy-killing austerity package. The “moderates” have been radical about everything by international standards, even before they took over Congress, before the “Tea Party” caucus was elected, back when that radicalism was expressed by filibustering everything from budgets to the lunch bill.
The 2008-2010 “democratic governance” period was made into an utter mockery; the Dems were painfully, painfully conciliatory in the face of a universal, cynical filibuster campaign and didn’t manage to pass anything that wasn’t part of the 1990s Republican platform. And now it’s looked back on by the GOP as some sort of communist insurgency that has to be rolled back. To an actual plain, straightforward liberal - of the sort LBJ might have recognized - it’s all just painfully, horribly surreal. The Democrats ruined their chance of making a positive difference by not steamrolling the filibuster out of existence when they had the chance. I think an almost entirely uncompromising approach is the… least hopeless course now, too.
That’s been the case for a good while, at least since Clinton was elected in '92. I’d never seen such fear and loathing of a politician as I saw starting in January of '93. The American Spectator started running AM radio ads on Inauguration Day shouting “America Under Siege: Day 1!” It’s like the Democrats didn’t have the right to hold the Presidency, ever, that any Democrat in that office is automatically a usurper.
No doubt you’ve heard of the K Street Project, right?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Street_Project
And make no mistake: the long term project of the American Right is to roll back not only Medicare and the New Deal, but the reforms of the Progressive Era as well (you know, unemployment compensation, workers’ comp, wage and hour laws of all kinds). They will not be satisfied until the legal regime of the 1890’s is restored.
Wow a political party wants its people to be in power and to have its ideas be implemented … What an amazing never before thought of idea you have there.
Pogo
1665
How fucking dare you insulting Lum’s thought when you frequently come around and cry like a little baby when someone does it to you.
I don’t use this acronym much at all… but LOL, seriously.
jeffd
1666
Warning: posting from the beach via iPhone. Doesn’t lend itself to long analysis. Sorry in advance.
Why liberals hate the Reagan/O’Neill love fest, shirt version: it’s mostly horseshit.
Longer version: it largely ignores modern reality. Specifically:
- liberals care about good policy outcomes, conservatives don’t. As a result liberal opposition is amenable to compromises that involve policy concessions. Conservators aren’t.
- Modern GOP is intractable in a way that is almost unique in US history. Closest analog is pre-secession Southern Democrats. Literally the only compromise they’ll accept is one in which the POTUS and VPOTUS resign.
Additional frustration point: almost all the Reagan/O’Neill fetishists put the burden of further compromise on the President. This is centrist insanity at its worst.
I was wondering about that. Has there ever been an instance of this level of political paralysis in this country? It’s insane. I really didn’t think the Tea Party could be this dangerous. They shouldn’t be. They still don’t have that much power.
Every poll I’ve seen has shown that the majority of Americans are fine with raising taxes in order to fix the deficit. The Tea Party and their views is a small minority of America, and yet their representatives keep acting like they have a mandate of some sort. We need an election in the worst way, and those of us who are aware of what is happening here need to make sure everyone we know is also aware.
The Republicans actually lost seats in this last election, and I think they now realize it. The Tea Party candidates aren’t Republicans. They are a lunatic fringe, and they won’t work with the rest of the party. We effectively have three parties right now, and one of them has the sole purpose of ending our government. The irony is that they see themselves as the patriots, as the liberators of the U.S. In fact, they are destroying it.
jeffd
1668
Oh and re McConnell only wanting to negotiate with the President: I suspect that’s pure politics. McConnell knows that these negotiations are likely to fail and he wants to pin that failure on the President. At this point the GOP is just trying to hurt the President, and to hell with the consequences for the rest of the nation.
JeffL
1669
House just killed Reid bill, required 2/3, lost by a good majority. McConnel and Boehner are supposed to have a press conference right now, still waiting. Obama has called Reid and Pelosi to the White House.
Reason liberals hate O’Neil having the occasional friendly drink with Reagan: liberals demonize Reagan and don’t want to believe a good liberal could have a relationship with him.
Jesus Christ, remember 5 minutes ago when we went over this? It’s a good thing when politicians get along, you and Chris Matthews just have a very unrealistic view of how constructive the O’Neill/Reagan “frenemies hashing things out for the common good” relationship was supposed to have been.
That sounded like a Brett quote.
As it made perfect sense to anyone with an ounce of intelligence I can understand why you would make that last point.
JeffL
1672
Press conference now:
Boehner: House sent a reasonable bill to the Senate, and the President and Senate killed it, we give up, and will now wait for the President and Senate to tell us their plan to get out of this.
McConnel: Reid sent a bill to the House that had no support. We are confident an agreement of some kind will be reached.
More of the same old same old: Boehner, we had an agreement last week that both houses would have passed, and the President refused to approve it.
McConnell: We are not going to default, we have reasonable people who want this done.
Boehner: We had a reasonable agreement last week, the President killed it, time for him to tell us what he will do to get us out of this cul de sac.
McConnell: Now we are waiting for the President to tell us what he WILL sign.
The end.
Clear strategy, it is all on the President, he derailed an agreement both sides had last Sunday, we are trying to pass something, he just tells us what he will veto.
Blech…
jeffd
1673
Its not Reagan/O’Neill we “hate”. Its people like you constantly bringing it up while displaying total ignorance of the qualitative differences in politics that have developed over the past 30 years that we find infuriating.
JeffL
1674
Nah, I was responding to jeffd’s simplistic “Here’s why liberals hate the idea that O’Neil and Reagan could get along.” post. ;)
Chris Matthews, BTW, was not only there (and we weren’t) because he was the guy guiding O’Neil’s strategy and in the room, and as I said, a couple of really good O’Neil books that give all the details. And I just refer back to what I said previously (I.e. I was poking at jeffd.)
jeffd
1675
Shorter GOP: if the POTUS would just give us everything we want, we wouldn’t be in this position.
Quaro
1676
Yeah, amending the Constitutation is SO reasonable to put in a housekeeping bill.
JeffL
1677
LOL! jeffd, first, yeah you do hate it. Secondly I was just poking at ya. If you really think that I am ignorant of how things have changed after I myself posted that the whole point of my original comment was lamenting how much things have changed, I’ll just mark it up to you reading this at the beach on your iphone.;)
What was the reasonable agreement that Boehner is claiming they had? The one with $800M in revenue increases that Obama then wanted to add another $400M to? Is he trying to say that would fly? That his own party would vote for a bill that had $800M in revenue increases?
jeffd
1679
You got me! I really cant stand the fact that two old washington types had the occasional drink together. When I explain what I really don’t like, I’m just lying.
Or, as the kids say: roll eyes.
Lum
1680
There is a vast difference between wanting your people to be in power and believing the other side has no right to be in power.
If you can’t understand that, there may be some interesting history books in your future.
