Introducing Boehner to the New World Order

Obama calls the GOP’s bluff

By Eugene Robinson, Published: July 4

Here’s how to negotiate, GOP-style:

Oh, are we getting caricatured? How droll! I’ll do you next! This is going to be so much fun!

Begin by making outrageous demands.

Turn the tide on a half century of obviously unsustainable government spending? The horrors!

Bully your opponents

Apparently, to liberals, “bullying” is the equivalent of “refusing to vote for.” I mean, I get that they’re pussies, but that’s in Pee Wee Herman territory. Minus the creepiness.

into giving you almost all of what you want.

Which, keep in mind, hasn’t happened in the history of Republican negotiations with Democrats.

Rather than accept the deal, add a host of radical new demands.

I think you’re missing the point. The “no new taxes” thing wasn’t a new demand. It was a precondition of negotiation. It’s like saying that the Israelis are stubbornly sticking to guns in the negotiations with Palestine over their right to exist as a Jewish state. Why is this, as Eric Cantor said, a “nonstarter?” Because tax increases were never on the bargaining table—and for good reason.

Observe casually that you wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to the hostage

Whoa…suddenly the GOP only negotiates kidnappings? That’s…whatchacallit? Demagoguery? How’s that “new tone” of civility working out for the Post?

you’ve taken — the nation’s well-being.

Polish off some Krugman articles from the government shutdown fight a couple month ago. I’m pretty sure this is out-and-out plagiarism.

To the extent possible, look and sound like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.”

Cute touch, but liberal op-ed writers have already ruined Jack Nicholson for me. (http://embracethedivide.blogspot.com/2011/03/ruining-jack-nicholson.html)

Now it’s my turn. Here’s how to write a column for mass consumption for a liberal audience: begin by making an outrageous statement. It’s best if it’s accusatory—something along the lines of Republicans are kidnappers or Republicans are a cult (not coincidentally, this one is on the Times’ Opinion Page today) or Republicans have made a macabre sport out of drop-kicking minority children with autism into steaming vats of acid. Don’t let the twirpishness of your accusations dull your outrage a lack of rhetorical decorum because Ann Coulter called liberals whatever Ann Coulter recently called liberals. Bludgeon the reader with asinine comparisons of the legislative process to horrific crimes. And, for good measure, throw in a pop-culture reference to show that you’re actually quite good-natured and relatable. If you’re done in the first paragraph, all the better. You can spend the next couple hundred words just riffing on the same tired theme.

This strategy has worked so well for Republicans

Boehner got his ass kicked last time we went down this road over the budget impasse.

that it’s no surprise they’re using it again,

Y’know, because last time there was a negotiation, the Republicans garnered so many sizeable concessions.

this time in the unnecessary fight over what should be a routine increase in the debt ceiling.

Yes, this ought to just be some trifling little procedural vote. It’s not like the government is plotting to squander trillions of our hard-earned money and trash our future generations’ credit scores.

This time, however, something different is happening: President Obama seems to be channeling Robert De Niro in “Taxi Driver.”

...A murderous psychotic? MSNBC just suspended a guy for saying that the President was “kind of a dick.”

At a news conference last Wednesday, Obama’s response to the GOP was, essentially, “You talkin’ to me?”

The GOP response: Maybe you would have heard us if you’d skipped this week’s round of golf.

Obama’s in-your-face attitude seems to have thrown Republicans off their stride.

Well, it’s totally reasonable to write this entire article based on the apparent perception that Republicans are “off their stride.”

They thought all they had to do was convince everyone they were crazy enough to force an unthinkable default on the nation’s financial obligations.

Seriously…we won’t default. Geithner will be forced to realign federal spending priorities and certain programs will face de facto cuts, but we won’t default. Maybe the pressure of having to make a payroll will force the federal government to sympathize with small businesses.

Now they have to wonder if Obama is crazy enough to let them.

It’s like this is Eugene’s first experience with negotiation. Everyone knows that walking away from the table is a powerful negotiating technique.

He probably isn’t.

I wouldn’t put it past him. Republicans have always had an inkling that Obama’s economic failings couldn’t possibly be the product of mere incompetence. We’ll see.

But the White House has kept up the pressure, asserting that the real deadline for action by Congress to avoid a default isn’t Aug. 2, as the Treasury Department said, but July 22; it takes time to write the needed legislation, officials explained. Tick, tick, tick . . .

It takes 11 days to write legislation that, ostensibly, every think-tank in DC is already writing? Do we need any more proof that the bureaucrats aren’t nimble enough to manage our economy?

“Malia and Sasha generally finish their homework a day ahead of time,” Obama said, gratuitously — but effectively — comparing his daughters’ industry with congressional sloth.

Aw…he used his daughters as political props…is it too late to get that World’s Greatest Daddy mug for the spot on the mantle next to the Nobel Peace Prize?

“It is impressive. They don’t wait until the night before. They’re not pulling all-nighters. They’re 13 and 10.

Being 13 and 10 might have something to do with why they’re not pulling all-nighters. That and a lack of access to Red Bull and/or mild amphetamines.

Congress can do the same thing. If you know you’ve got to do something, just do it.”

Adorable. He’s right, after all. Deciding the economic priorities of the last best hope for mankind by getting some 300 ego-driven politicians on-board in the start of an election cycle is roughly the equivalent of completing a page-long essay on Johnny Tremain or filling out our times tables for the number eight.

Obama’s pushing and poking are aimed at Republicans who control the House, and what he wants them to “just do” is abandon the uncompromising position that any debt-ceiling deal has to include big, painful budget cuts but not a single cent of new tax revenue.

Excellent negotiating tactic: forget your principles, forget your constituency, forget the country’s long-term viability and just do what the President tell you to. Nike’s iconic slogan of proactive freedom is usurped with the jingle-friendly twang of authoritarian propaganda.

The president demands that Congress also eliminate “tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires . . . oil companies and hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners.” Without these modest increases in revenue, he says, the government will have to cut funding for medical research, food inspection and the National Weather Service.

Much has been made of how essential these services are, but I’m alright with cutting literally all of these functions of the federal government. The pharmaceutical industry, private non-profits and local universities’ meteorology programs would probably pick up their respective slack almost instantaneously.

Also, presumably, whatever federal support goes to puppies and apple pie.

In other words, the whole argument is clearly, demonstrably bullshit. Democrats simply want to maintain the principle that raising taxes increases revenue—which it doesn’t.

In truth, some non-millionaires who never fly on corporate jets would also lose tax breaks under the president’s proposal.

So he bullshitted us.

And it’s hard to believe that the first thing the government would do, if Congress provides no new revenue, is stop testing ground beef for bacteria.

So he’s continuing to bullshit us. Was any part of this steaming pile not bullshit?

But Obama is right that the cuts would be draconian —

Ah. So he’s right that it would be bad, so he’s justified in his deceit because of rhetorical license.

and he’s right to insist that House Republicans face reality.

His imposed view of reality. Why is it any less absurd for the President to demand token tax increases to satisfy his base than it is for Republicans to demand no tax increases to satisfy their base?

My view, for what it’s worth, is that now is the wrong time for spending cuts or tax increases —

And yet you’re supporting a President that advocates both. Brilliant.

that it’s ridiculous to do anything that might slow the lumbering economic recovery,

Lumbering makes it sound forceful and slow. That’s not what’s going on at all. Meandering, lazy, tepid, demure, snoozing, timid, and flat would all be better descriptors. For that matter, so would fluffy, yellow, and turduckin. That’s right. That choice of adjective was so attrocious, that a better word would have been a nonexistent noun pupularized by John Madden to describe what happens when you decide that your Thanksgiving meats would be a lot better if they were cooked like a Russian Doll.

even marginally. But if there have to be cuts, then Republicans must be forced to move off the no-new-revenue line they have drawn in the sand.

I have yet to see a compelling argument for should. The only thing I’ve seen is a meager argument that Republicans are winning the negotiation.

Even if they move just an inch, the nation’s prospects become much brighter. This fight is that important.

Christ. Are tax increases really that important to these people?

Every independent,

Doesn’t exist.

bipartisan,

Definitely doesn’t exist, and if it does, it’s not worth a damn anyways.

blue-ribbon panel

Read: “the smartest people in the room.”

that has looked at the deficit problem has reached the same conclusion: The gap between spending and revenue is much too big to be closed by budget cuts alone.

Which means that they looked at it practically—that is to say, they looked at what is politically plausible. Either that or they didn’t actually look at historical revenues as a percentage of GDP.

With fervent conviction but zero evidence, Tea Party Republicans believe otherwise — and Establishment Republicans, who know better, are afraid to contradict them.

This is asinine. There’s plenty of evidence that the gap between spending and revenue can be closed by budget cuts alone. Here’s a hint: you start by cutting the budget and you don’t stop until it equals revenue. Ta da!!!

Magic!

The difficult work of putting the federal government on sound fiscal footing can’t begin as long as a majority in the House rejects simple arithmetic on ideological grounds.

Might want to join Sasha and Malia for a couple days, Eugene. Clearly they’ll be able to straighten you out on your arithmetic.

“I’ve met with the leaders multiple times,” Obama said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “At a certain point, they need to do their job.” The job he means is welcoming fantasy-loving Republicans to the real world, and it has to be done.

Now, I understand why—given historical precedent—one would assume that the Republican Party’s leadership would be expected to bring the right side of the base in line to court the independents.

Look no further than John McCain and Ron Paul. Both are barometers of the political atmosphere of the American political right. John McCain, once the antithesis of mainstream, is now seen as a curmudgeonly fool who never got over the desire to be liked by the “right sorts of people.” Ron Paul, on the other hand, once the crazy uncle living in the attic, has seen all of his core issues (except perhaps the Federal Reserve) come to the fore of the American right’s resurgence. The world has moved towards Ron Paul in the last three years. (Disclosure: I did not and will not vote for Ron Paul in a Republican primary or general election.)

Indeed, it is our duty to inculcate a sense of this new world order into old-timers like Boehner. We will welcome them from their disoriented fantasies of grandeur to the limitless promise of limited government. That is the real world.

The stakes are perilously high, but Obama does have a doomsday option: If all else fails, he can assert that a section of the 14th Amendment — “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law . . . shall not be questioned” — makes the debt limit unconstitutional and instructs him to take any measures necessary to avoid default.

Clearly, the President’s got enough problems with the courts. They keep overriding the drilling moratorium. Obamacare will be ruled unconstitutional. The assertion that our military incursion into Libya somehow doesn’t qualify as “hostility” is simply laughable. Does he really want to add to that the argument that the Executive has the authority to issue debt in direct contradiction to laws as they are passed when the 14^th Amendment specifically cedes power to the Legislature? Maybe, but he’ll have a hard time running as the Constitutional scholar.

Maybe that’s why, in this stare-down, the president doesn’t seem inclined to blink.

Or maybe he’s a zombie. Wait, do zombies blink?