Kthug on Republicans in Congress:
There’s actually a simple way to resolve the debt ceiling crisis: non-crazy Republican leaders could support something like the Reid plan — which is, let’s be clear, a huge victory for the right and defeat for progressives — and pass it with limited GOP support and overwhelming Democratic support. Situation resolved.
This would, however, probably be the end of these Republicans’ political careers. And the answer is, so?
If you believe that default will quite possibly be a catastrophe — and leading Republicans probably do believe that — their unwillingness to take the action I’ve just described means that they are risking America’s future rather than pay a price in their personal political careers. That’s cowardice on an epic scale, even if it’s the kind of behavior we take for granted nowadays.
And so it is with almost everything in our national political system. When a journalist stops saying “both sides do it” and speaks the truth, that journalist is ostracized as a dirty fucking hippie. I’ve said this a million times, I know, but it’s striking to me that, even though the public (and even to some extent the establishment) turned overwhelmingly against the Iraq War, pro-war journalists — Bobo, Friedman, and yes, fan faves like Matt Yglesias, Jon Chait, and Josh Marshall — saw their stars rise while Phil Donohue and Ashleigh Banfield were fired for criticizing the war. That doesn’t make all the pro-war journalists assholes or sociopaths, but it does show what the smart move was for journalists at the time.
Likewise, today, the smart move for “left-leaning” and non-partisan commentators is to say “both sides do it blah blah blah”, while the smart move for conservative commentators is to say it’s all Obama’s fault.
That’s the stark reality. We live in a society where, at the upper echelons, a sociopathic regard for career above all else is the norm. Republicans will continue to vote like lunatics to avoid teatard primary challengers while pundits will continue to say “both sides are wrong”, because that’s what’s best for their careers.
Mike Goetz
Somebody is going to lose their job over this. That much is inevitable.
pixelpusher
When all the 401Ks in the land start tanking, I think we’ll hear a different tune.
Yutsano
It’s not exactly easy to grift outside of the hallowed halls of Congress. Not to mention more than a few of them don’t have their wingnut sinecures established yet.
Zifnab
This was a manufactured crisis. The Republicans choose to make the debt ceiling fight a separate issue from the budget fight. And the budget fight already showed a great number of cracks in the GOP establishment.
Why Boehner wanted to double down is beyond me. But it’s clear he thought a big crisis over the debt could be placed squarely on the head of the Commander-in-Chief and win big gains for Republicans in 2012.
This whole song and dance was about growing the GOP majority. Why on earth would any Republican sacrifice his seat for the good of the country, when it would clearly not serve the primary goal of growing the GOP majority?
Punchy
Kinda hard to pay rent and groceries with “ethics”, “honesty”, and “morality”.
Samara Morgan
DougJ, perhaps you can be the One.
Can you admit that the GOP base is wholly white (nonhispanic cauc) conservative christians?
and conservative leadership is being held in babylonian captivity to a RELIGIOUS PARTY in the land of separation of church and state.
You see, that is the media problem– if the media points that out christians will unsubscribe, and they will get called christian haters.
Can you dooo eet?
Southern Beale
So what have we learned, kids?
I wish I knew what to do ….
ppcli
[just posted this on what I now realize is a moribund thread. Sorry for the reposting]
Just to add: The obsession with spurious illusion of “balance” is destructive, that’s true. But it’s really a symptom of a deeper, even more destructive problem, which is the refusal to just present basic, uncontroversial facts. For example, the pie graph that shows how money is spent (Half of it for non-discretionary spending, 50% of the remaining non-discretionary half for military spending, etc.) should be posted every single f**king time someone acts as if you could eliminate the deficit by keeping taxes fixed and just eliminating foreign aid, support for NPR and Planned Parenthood, and genetic research on drosophphila melangaster. [Fruit flies? Haw, haw. What could you ever learn from that?]
Or, since people are apparently addicted to homey analogies to household finance, it should be required by law that anyone who makes claims that are so blindly oblivious to simple accounting facts should be compared to someone who says “Hmm…. my salary was cut by a third, and my household budget had 50% of my old salary called for by taxes, the mortgage, car payments and credit-card debt service, plus child-support payments I’m legally obligated to continue. No wiggle room there. 10% was for utilities, cable TV, phone, water, sewage, etc. And I spent another 25% on purchases of guns and ammunition, plus gun club fees, hunting trips, NRA dues, and so on. How to get by? I know! Every Sunday after Church I get ice-cream cones for me and the kids at Dairy Queen. I’ll just stop doing that, and everything will be fine!
jo6pac
We need to change the word sociopaths to cyclepaths when talking about the beltway and friends because we all know the definition of insane.
General Stuck
Yes, but it matters what battle you pick. And the wingers used to be smarter about that, and with some actual well thought out tactics. Everyone will still play the game as they have, if for no other reason out of some kind of evolved habit.
But consistently choosing the wrong fight in the wrong place at the wrong time, will create doubt in the voters mind about competency and true intent. You can argue about the tactics Obama does of engagement and seeming alignment with meeting the GOP charges against him, with more “liberal” versions of their wingnuttery, but he has used the bully pulpit this time for effect. And managed to turn the public tide in his favor, in spite of the media and wingers best efforts.
But of course, the real danger the tea tards permeate, goes beyond mere politics, into putting the country and world economy in real peril. I don’t know what you can do about that, with a “both sides do it” mentality. But I do not believe non engagement with these crazy motherfuckers by Obama will improve our chance of survival. I think you have to smartly fight them, to expose them.
Han's Big Snark Solo
Well duh. These Republicans are the same people who held unemployment insurance hostage to an extension of the Bush Tax cuts. They demonize the unemployed all the time. They want to increase taxes and Medicare costs on the poor and middle class (lucky duckies one and all) so they can give rich people big tax cuts.
Of course they would do anything to avoid losing their jobs. Their sense of self worth is entirely dependent upon their wealth. “Good” people earn more, the wealthy deserve their wealth and redistribution is evil. If they were to lose their jobs they would no longer qualify as “good” people.
The Republicans are the party of greed.
fasteddie9318
That’s fan fave Josh Marshall, the one who now is insisting that the financial MOTU are going to rein in the teahadists because, um, they will, and they’ll do it by, uh, sending them a strongly worded letter or something?
ETA: FFSMS, chan is back again?
Samara Morgan
C’mon DougJ.
Cole can never be the One, but you can.
:)
gex
@5 – and you don’t have to pay rent or buy groceries in the rubble left behind. You just need more guns and ammo than anyone around you.
ETA: And the teabaggers are probably pretty well set for that scenario.
The Dangerman
I don’t see how one can say “both sides do it” when I don’t recall the last time someone from the Left threatened to blow things up unless we change the Constitution (see Lee, Mike).
Now, I don’t know what Lee plans to do, but I assume he can place one of those special “holds” that Senators have, in which, case, I hope they have tar and feathers handy.
Samara Morgan
nope.
The Republicans are a religious party– NHC conservative CHRISTIANS.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
I still love TPM. Marshall annoys me sometimes, but it’s the best place to read about Washington, IMHO, because there’s so much original reporting in addition to mostly smart commentary.
eemom
in a not unrelated point, yesterday I heard a brief clip of an interview with the new Rahm, whose name I’ve forgotten. Jay Carney had said something about the WH working on a “plan B” if Congress fails to pass something. So the interviewer asked new Rahm about that, and he kind of giggled as he answered, oh, yeah, everybody’s talking about a lot of things, but there’s no magical “plan B” that I know of.
That giggle made me absolutely sick.
All of the public voices on this clusterfuck — ALL of them — emanate from the throats of people who will NOT be devastated if the lunatics win and the economy crashes. For whom this is all just a lions vs. Christians-esque spectator sport.
Samara Morgan
@eddie
i are back.
:)
see a pattern yet cudlips?
LIBERTARIANS
cleek
let’s try something:
There’s actually a simple way to resolve the debt ceiling crisis: Democratic leaders could support something like the Boehner plan — which is, let’s be clear, a huge victory for the right and defeat for progressives — and pass it with limited Dem support and overwhelming GOP support. Situation resolved.
works that way, too.
nobody is gong to put their political career on the line for this.
arguingwithsignposts
@The Dangerman:
IANAL, but Mike Lee seems to be advocating sedition, and it would be nice if some congressperson would call him out on that bullshit.
BGinCHI
Spot on, Doug, but even numbnuts Friedman gets it in his column today (via Benen):
fasteddie9318
They’re still in my news feed, but more for Kurtz and for their reporting than for Marshall’s commentary.
gex
@21 – it is never sedition if it comes from the right. By definition. I’m not sure how that works exactly, but that seems to be the way of it.
Kind of like how the people who “love America” the most can sit and complain about all the things they hate about America and still be the ones who love America the most.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
The Boehner plan requires we do another debt lift soon, though, right?
I don’t think it’s a good option at all.
Lit3Bolt
Media consumption is a business DougJ. None of the journalists you cited are doing journalism out of some noble calling (if it could even be called that). Instead, each is jockeying to be the Next High Broder, wanting a cushy job at a website or newspaper where they simply have to shit out an 800 word rotten egg of reactionary conventional wisdom once every week and then gets invited onto TV to rub elbows with Senators and Generals.
Therefore, “both sides do it” is a teasing strategy to carefully parcel out praise for Republicans today, Democrats tomorrow, and treating the affirmations they give to politicians and pundits as if they’re Godiva chocolates. That way it leaves partisans on the right, left and middle hungry for more, each craving a pat on the head for having their own worldviews taken “seriously” by such a mighty intellectual such as David Broder.
Martin
Yeah, they’re all Jewish.
I’m seeing a different pattern.
The Moar You Know
Samara Morgan: The fourth time I get thrown out of a bar I’m usually able to figure out that I’m not wanted there.
Back on topic: The Japanese, as a society, are obsessed with personal honor in a way that Americans were never able to comprehend, much less emulate.
If, after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant disasters, the entire upper management of TEPCO had all killed themselves, or at the least grabbed a shovel and gone to the pits and dug out the shattered concrete until they died, that would be within the norms of expected behavior for that society.
None of them did, not a fucking one. Took them a few weeks to even go on the television and mumble a weak-ass apology along the lines of “mistakes were made”.
If the Japanese won’t even step up to the plate anymore, what hope have we?
If Krugman is thinking that any US Congressperson is going to stand up and take a principled vote that would save the nation but just as certainly cost them their career, he is operating in a reality that has nothing to do with the one we all have to live in. That just isn’t going to happen.
MBunge
The true sociopathic careerist aren’t the politicians, however. It’s media types like Brian Williams.
Mike
fasteddie9318
Maybe, but that mission is taking so long that the country won’t survive it. So far, the Tea Party’s suicide mission has the Republicans in control of the House, looking at a 50-50 chance of taking the Senate, and within easy shouting distance of the White House. Now, the teahadis could screw that all up by nominating a sure presidential loser like Bachmann or senate losers akin to Angle and O’Donnell, but so far the Republican Party’s mission of destruction has been pretty good for the Republican Party. If they’re heading toward political suicide, I wish they’d get it the fuck over with while there’s still some semblance of a country to salvage.
slag
So true! Everybody knows that, when a “USA USA USA!” chant rolls around, it’s really just short for “P-PP P-PP P-PP!”.
cleek
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ:
and the Reid plan requires that we do another one later. neither are really good plans, and the GOP wins more either way.
my point is that immediate crisis could be resolved by 3PM today if X congressmen of any party were willing to sacrifice their careers for it. i’m glad they aren’t, of course, because of the things that the GOP plan entails.
political cowardice is sometimes the mirror image of “taking a stand”. it’s courageous when our guys stand up for SS, but some wingnuts see it is being afraid to do the right thing.
fasteddie9318
It would be a fine option if the Republicans hadn’t just irreparably broken the debt ceiling process. Obama’s argument about Reagan lifting the ceiling 18 times actually shows that short term increases are workable in a constructive political climate, but thanks to the GOP we’re operating in a wholly toxic political climate instead.
Steve M.
The question is why centrism is still the only acceptable career move even as Republican extremists lead us to catastrophe — a catastrophe by the political culture’s own definition.
I don’t blame people for protecting their careers by engaging in groupthink so much as I blame the people who sustain the groupthink even past the point where it threatens their own self-interest. Could it be that the Village agrees with the teabaggers that a debt crisis will be no big whoop (perhaps because, like Wall Streeters, the maintainers of the groupthink believe they’ll be exempt from real pain)? Or are habits just really hard to break, even in the face of Apocalypse?
Poopyman
@arguingwithsignposts:
Yeah, I can think of two that would do that; Alan Grayson and/or Anthony Weiner.
What? What’s the problem?
Omnes Omnibus
@ cleek: I think for the sacrifice to have meaning, it must for something worthwhile. Sacrificing one’s career to pass the Boehner plan just doesn’t fit.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Average low-info viewers sitting on their sofas at home have to take some blame for this state of affairs as well, because most of the power our sociopathic media overlords wield is by way of influence on their viewers. Collectively the viewers at home could end the careers of almost every one of our mass-media sociopaths if they really wanted to. All it takes is using the OFF button on the remote. Apparently that is too much effort, because it hasn’t happened yet.
jwb
Ol’ Dirty DougJ: It’s not only bad because it requires us to go through this again; the analogy is also flawed because it doesn’t look like Boehner’s plan has overwhelming GOP support. Until Boehner gets something out of the House, the symmetry is not there even to contemplate.
gex
@34 – well, most of them are innumerate enough and shallow enough to not understand the severity the crisis would cause. We’re still in the realm of being able to explain it with stupid without having to resort to evil.
Although it is evil of them to insist on maintaining this level of stupidity.
Robert Green
careering, by PiL. explains it all, and is one of the best songs ever to boot, unless you are one of those “melody” fascists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfSyHnJtQAo
LongHairedWeirdo
And this is why people who complain about Democratic leadership not stepping up to the plate are missing the bigger point. You don’t want or need an elected official to move the narrative, and if one tried, well, right now,
a) they’re a Republican, and they’ll get a pass, or
b) they’re a Democrat, and it’ll become proof that “both sides do it.”
The impetus for a change in the narrative *must* come from the grass roots.
The advantage the Republicans have is that they’ve developed a set of ideas that they can always fall back on.
Gun rights.
Lower taxes, even if they’re already at historic lows and we’re facing a long, hard slog to get out from the burden.
Less government regulation (while people die from food-borne illnesses that we can’t even track!).
Christianity, but always, always, always, frame it as freedom of religion, and persecution.
I also love how “smaller government” was so *slickly* moved from “less government regulation” to “less government spending”. It was a nasty, ugly, filthy-dishonest move, but, I have to admit it… it was slick. It was like a guy pretending to have cancer to get sympathy sex, and then turning around and claiming to have horrible hallucinations, and getting laid again from someone he’s played the cancer game on.
Liberals will never have the same kind of lock-step agreement, but they do need to develop the same kind of caring, and responsiveness, to push a liberal narrative.
Of course, that would be hard. It would require effort. And it takes years for that to bear fruit. It’s a lot easier to say it’s all Obama’s fault because he sold us out, and all those stupid Obots who refuse to denounce him – because, hey, how bad could another George W. be?
Ol' Dirty DougJ
I think that’s a big difference. I buy into the idea that the market is important here and I don’t see how a short term lift reassures anyone.
Samara Morgan
@Moar
b-b-b-but i CANT stop! they keep letting me back in. :)
Samara Morgan
@martin
relly? i didnt know that.
:)
eemom
good point. No one is going to write a ballad to celebrate a guy who threw himself on his sword for an orange clown who can’t even grasp the difference between plus and minus.
EGrise
Was Josh Marshall really in favor of the Iraq war, or did he just not criticize it? Genuinely curious.
Omnes Omnibus
@ eemom:
Well, not a good ballad, anyway.
James E. Powell
@pixelpusher:
But our experience of the last three decades or so is that when the middle class feels money pressure, they vote Republican, the more right-wing, the better.
Davis X. Machina
@James E. Powell: What ‘middle class’? It exists for statistical purposes, if it exists at all.
There’s no class-consciousness in America except for the tenth income decile. They stick together like glue and fight like meth-smoking wolverines.
The rest of us? The most valuable statistical indicators of how people vote is a.) how often they go to church and b.) what race they are and c.) their age.
Class? We don’t do class.
James E. Powell
@Davis X. Machina:
You’re right. The term ‘middle class’ has been debased by overuse. I don’t have the data handy, but I recall polls in which people making from $25K to $250K, or thereabouts, all identified themselves as ‘middle class.’
Maybe I should say ‘white, suburban homeowners.’ Those are the people who swing the swing states. And when they get scared, they jump to the right.
Davis X. Machina
@EGrise: He was a big fan of George Packer and Kenneth Pollack — he does have a weakness for The Great and Good.
He laid out his position here, in November of 2002. “The Reluctant Hawk” is the title of the piece.
Davis X. Machina
@EGrise: He was a big fan of George Packer and >Kenneth Pollack — he does have a weakness for The Great and Good.
He laid out his position here, in November of 2002. “The Reluctant Hawk” is the title of the piece.
(Dupe, with link over the limit removed to satisfy the WP filter…)
eemom
@ Omnes
hey, how are you doing these days?
Omnes Omnibus
@ eemom:
Doing okay. Moving to a new, smaller place in Madison this weekend. Have a line on a position doing immigration work for the UW. Saw a very good production of “The Taming of the Shrew” over the weekend. TY for asking.
eemom
@ Omnes
YW. Glad to hear it. That sounds like a cool job.
El Cruzado
Remember that the one thing that tends to be a career-ender in their world is to be right too soon.
Being right too late is easily surmountable and even expected, but too soon and you’ll never make it. The market of ideas can stay irrational a lot longer than a honest pundit can stay employed.
askew
Ok – Steve Benen is reporting via Politico that they think there are enough GOP votes to now pass the Boehner plan. That’s discouraging news. I was hoping enough tea partiers would vote no leaving the Reid plan as the last one standing. Now we have to rely on Reid holding the Senate Dems in line to vote no on the Boehner plan. That worries me.
danimal
The big difference between the Reid plan and Boehner plan is that Reid reduces the baseline for Iraq and Afghanistan war funding to reflect planned withdrawals. Everyone is assuming these are ‘fake’ cuts or simply budgetary gimmicks.
Liberals-defunding wars should be a huge priority. Think of this money as a slush fund for future military endeavors. Think like a bureaucrat for a minute. If the money is sitting there in budget projections, it will be used. Future war supporters will take the projected Iraq/Afghan line items, replace them with the ‘war du jour’ and then claim the conflict is paid for.
Granted, in times of true emergency, this is irrelevant. But for discretionary wars like the ones we’ve been entangled with lately, we should make funding the war a real part of the debate and discussion.
There is a reason the GOP is pushing back on the Reid budget.
dollared
We should be very careful not to feel powerless here. We’ve never tried to actually fight back against both-sides-ism using the right’s tactics.
-systematically working the refs at the centers of journalism.
-having hired flacks push specific, well organized talking points and precanned media products.
-establishing a quick, loud response system pushing thousands of letters, faxes and phone calls at journalist, editors, producers and media managers.
-Specific outreach to groups that could form the shock troops of this kind of system – for example, retired union workers and retired teachers could form a backbone analogous to the religious right’s function in right wing politics. The left has really missed the boat on retirees. Yes, they are mostly old and white, but they can figure this out if we only try.
Media Matters is useful, but it needs a noise machine partner. AARP should be it, but alas the Sanity Caucus would have to form its own group. Move-on is the closest thing we have, but the incredible splintering of lefty groups is a huge problem.
Bottom line is that the left has never systematically tried to work the refs. It can be done. We might not reach nirvana, but we might make the world slightly more sane.
Brachiator
Wasn’t there a recent post here about employers not wanting to hire someone who was unemployed?
Yeah, pundits are going to look out for their own careers. The would be principled fools to do otherwise, especially since intellectual cowardice will always earn them a place on a Fox News show.
And whether Republican office holders fear or embrace the Tea Party is immaterial. The result is the same either way.
jl
@46 EGrise
Josh Marshall was supportive in the run up. But I remember that he came down marginally against it on the eve of the Iraq invasion.
So, I think it is wrong to say Marshall supported the Iraq invasion when it began. But he was supporting it for a long time during the debate when public opinion was being formed.
OzoneR
Probably means that some altered version of the Boehner bill will be the one.
Bender
If true (if)…That’s going to be a tough sell for the DNC Buttboy Media.
You guys have painted yourselves into a small corner here. Only Boehner’s incompetence has kept you in the game so far.
Bender
Kruggie’s premise is silly, but he’s such a moron that he thinks it’s brilliant.
And the Democrats’ decision not to pass the Boehner bill is different because…?
Shut up, that’s why!
Krugs insults your intelligence with drivel like this. If in Economics, he is Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls, then when it comes to Politics, he’s Michael Jordan, Birmingham Barons. Very minor league…
Thymezone
Let me see if I have this right, Doug. A few crazies are trying to screw the country, and the only thing that might save us — which alas, we don’t have — is a few talking heads wearing makeup on tv or writing for NYT and a couple of weighty blogs, telling the mass of people the right things to think, instead of telling them the wrong things to think.
Either way, crazies destroy or talking heads convince, you are describing an experiment in democracy that must have failed at least 100 years ago.
It’s really an inspirational message, I must say, and I appreciate your sharing it with us today.
I don’t know which part I like best …. the victory of the few crazies, or the sullen stupidity of the middle class masses who turn on their tvs only to find that the tv doesn’t tell them the right things to think. If only the wags would stop with the “both sides do it” then all of sudden we’d all be free of oppression.
Seriously, I don’t think even Michelle Fucking Bachmann could say shit that crazy, but … give her time, maybe she will.
les
@Bender:
Uh, gee, because the bills are different, with different requirements and different outcomes and different intents, and the Boehner bill is markedly worse for ordinary citizens, the national economy, political discourse and the markets? Gee, Bender, you tell me–are you that stupid, or are you insane?
EGrise
Ah, thanks everyone.