David Corn, at Mother Jones, on “How Pelosi Saved Boehner’s You-Know-What“:
When the voting began on the controversial—and ugly—debt ceiling bill in the House of Representatives on Monday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Democratic leader, did not know how many votes House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had for the measure that had been crafted by President Barack Obama and the Republicans. Boehner had not reached out to her to make certain that the crucial legislation designed to prevent a potentially disastrous US default would be approved. When Boehner “went to the table”—brought the bill to a vote—he “had no idea” how many votes he had, Pelosi says.
__
The speaker, as it turned out, did not have enough Republican votes to pass the bill—only 174—and he had made no arrangement to guarantee its success. When there were minutes left for the vote, and it became apparent that Boehner would fall far short of the 216 votes necessary for passage, Pelosi’s Democrats began voting in favor of the measure. “We were not going to let it go down,” she told a small group of journalists on Wednesday morning.
__
In past years, a House speaker and the leader of the opposition would probably confer before such a crucial vote and figure out how to move the legislation through the chamber. (Boehner and Pelosi both were supporting this bill, albeit Pelosi quite reluctantly.)… Yet when the final dramatic vote arrived, Pelosi was surprised that Boehner was so short of the magic 216. “When they didn’t come to us for votes,” Pelosi recalls, “we thought they had the votes on their own.”
__
But Boehner didn’t. So the Democrats, having waited to see how many Republicans would back the measure, started filling in the gap. Pelosi didn’t have to send any signal. Her Democrats, she says, are a “sophisticated” group, and they could see that without Democratic support the bill would fail…
__
So to prevent default, Pelosi held her nose and halfheartedly encouraged fellow Democrats to vote for legislation that she insists will “deter economic growth.” This fight, she adds, was not propelled by Republican concern for deficit reduction; it was “about destroying the public space”—that is, the tea party’s desire to weaken government. And this battle, she concedes, has reinforced the Republicans’ economic message: “Debt is everything.” It has demonstrated that the tea party has succeeded, as she puts it, in changing the “arena.”…
To channel my inner Betty Friedan: Isn’t it just like a man to blithely assume that, however careless your behavior, some woman will come along to clean up after you?
I bet Pelosi wishes that she’d brought his oversized ceremonial gavel down on Orange John’s… hand. With force. And brio.
balconesfault
And yet, the corporate media will continue to allow Pelosi to be framed as a radical liberal … while painting Boehner as a commonsense conservative.
scav
Only commies plan ahead — even for five minutes, let alone 5 years. True patriots trust in divine providence and run with scissors without a net while kicking black cats into ladders all the way.
WereBear
We are supposed to have grownups in the finance industry? Isn’t there someone out there actually realizing how close they have come to the edge? Maybe put a foot on the brake?
I know. I amuse myself.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Hot enough for ya?
Gwiwer
It’s just further confirmation of the really scary fact that Republicans are excellent at campaigning, but entirely inept at governing. They know how to win elections, but are absolutely clueless on what to do after that. This country is seriously in trouble. :(
scav
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): temp finally managed to drop below 70F for what seems decades and I’m about to self-destruct because I can’t manage to sleep despite the fact. sleep-deprived-rant /off. still at that very blue/grey hints of pink/orange dawn stage. good clouds toward the lake.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@scav: BELOW 70! Ha.
AAA Bonds
Tiny violins for your favorite rich Congressperson!
scav
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): well, my mother rants that it never gets above 70 in July, so I’m immune to comparisons. Temperatures are inexplicable.
AAA Bonds
The class war: choose a side.
Spiffy McBang
“Isn’t it just like a man to blithely assume that, however careless your behavior, some woman will come along to clean up after you?”
Considering he probably hoped God would come up with the votes, this would have been an improvement.
AAA Bonds
Net worth of that poor little grandma is $58 million.
Mattsky
What brilliant spin from Nancy. You folks bought into the hope and change thing too. Lincoln was right, you can fool some of the people all of the the times.
LaBriola
The Annoying Orange: Hey Global Economy!
Global Economy: What?
The Annoying Orange: Knife!
Amir_Khalid
So Böhner did blunder his way to victory, just as I thought he might. Coming from him, this kind of obliviousness and incompetence isn’t even surprising anymore. He’s in over his head as Speaker, and deserves to be booted from the job.
As it is, doesn’t he now owe Nancy Pelosi big time for pulling his oddly-tinted hide out of the fire? Or will he expect her to intuit what he wishes from here on out, and do it without even being asked? If the latter, I think she’ll feel duty bound to teach him a lesson — one he won’t remember fondly.
Pat
There has always been Democratic enablers to GOP craziness, else the country would not be in the shits its in today. Their cause is one and the same in the end and has been quite evident from HCR in 2009 to the present. They saved their own asses and that’s all they “saved”.
And now it time to take a month off because they are all so AWESOME!
4tehlulz
And in a month, progressives will forget that NANCY SMASH had such a pivotal role in passing this bill.
scav
clouds moving rapidly north to south along the lakefront and the sky behind has changed to a mix of tangerine, pale green and faint yellow. Intriguing to know some still place more faith in net worth than actions: echos of original sin. blah blah. as though life came equipped with guarantees of how things would work out.
Sly
I think its somewhat significant to see one of the least effective Speakers of the House in modern history immediately follow one of the most. You can say all you want about the House Republican Caucus being ungovernable, but the fact that John Boehner doesn’t know what he’s doing counts a whole lot more.
@Mattsky:
Lincoln would have actually had to have said that in order for him to be right in saying it.
Southern Beale
NBC News reporting on some mystery corporation that donated $1 million to Mitt Romney’s campaign, then dissolved …
Somehow working stiffs are supposed to make up for all this shadowy corporate money on the other side of the aisle. Right.
Anya
@Southern Beale: That’s probably Romney financing his own campaign.
kansi
@Anya: Agree, but disturbing nonetheless.
RE: Boehner. I don’t think he was ever worried about passage, knowing he could count on the sane members of the House, i.e. Democrats. Wasn’t he the one who was quoted as predicting Dems would “fold like a cheap suit?”
bkny
boehner — utter incompetence or party assholery?
Matt
Boner had *every* reason to believe this would happen – after all, Democrats have been saving Republican’s crazy asses from themselves for DECADES. Every time they get into power, conservatives do their best to fuck the whole thing up until they lose power again, then Democrats come in and take the grown-up steps and try to put things back together (all while every remaining GOPer screams about “OMG soshalism!”).
See also craven-ass R’s championing stimulus-funded projects in their districts after voting against stimulus, etc.
Amir_Khalid
What if, because of Böhner’s failure to work with Pelosi the minority leader, the bill had not passed? Aside from Earth going into financial meltdown, would he have been censured for his inaction, or suffered any consequences at all?
Samara Morgan
it will suppress economic growth.
but its better than default, which would have crashed the global economy.
remember, the teabaggers were perfectly willing to do that, even desiring it.
Do you know why people read kumbayah-we-are-all-the-same crapology like Sully and de Bore?
because we are afraid.
we don’t really want to believe that a good sized faction on the other side is Team Reaver.
superdestroyer
Rep. Pelosi should be overjoyed about the debt agreement. It gives Democrats almost everything they want (it lacks tax increases). The debt bill made no spending cuts in the first two years and pushes off any hard choices until after the next election.
If Nancy Pelosi or Steny Hoyer are Speaker of the House in Jan 2013, none of the promised spending cuts will ever occur and the U.S. will soon owe $20 trillion dollars in debt and more than $11 trillion in privately held debt.
In the long run, the Democrats are going to get what they want: high taxes, high spending, and a smaller private sector. The Republicans will get nothing that they want.
dr. bloor
So, the Democrats are such a “sophisticated” bunch they gave the Chief Oompa Loompa and the Teahadists forty votes without extracting a nickel in revenue increases or unemployment benefit extensions?
Am I missing something here?
cckids
@Matt:
Fixed it.
SiubhanDuinne
@AAA Bonds:
Don’t understand your point. What does Nancy Pelosi’s net worth have to do with anything, let alone anything being discussed here?
JPL
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
The thunder and lightening kept me awake overnight but there was only about 1/4 inch of rain. It’s still overcast and that is keeping to temp. down, although it is once again suppose to be in the mid to high nineties. ugh
klondike
Why is this considered somehow virtuous of Pelosi? Your metaphor is completely inapt. This isn’t your husband making a mess and assuming you’ll clean it up. This is a deadly adversary assuming that he’s tougher than you are, taking wild chances based on that assumption … and winning.
Triassic Sands
@Gwiwer:
It just looks like they’re clueless.
Actually, the GOP is far more competent than Obama and the Democrats. The Republicans want to wreck the country and they are succeeding and doing so when they only control one house. Just wait till they control both houses and the White House — oh, wait, we’ve already seen how well that arrangement works.
Republicans want to prove that government is the problem — and it always is when they’re in charge — and make a small group of people incredibly rich. Unlike Democrats, they are accomplishing their goals superbly. They know exactly what to do after they win elections — it’s just that what they want to do isn’t anything that any sane person who cares about the well-being of the country and its citizens would ever want.
SiubhanDuinne
Happy 50th birthday to POTUS.
ornery
In other words, they truly, truly could not have done this without the Democratic Party. The hilariously tragic humor is watching so many Dem supporters viewing this as positive.
Sorry but the Dems are why we are doomed, not the Republicans. The Dems are the energy/money/time/emotion-sucking placeholders for an actual representative of We the People.
LOL. I think this is probably Ralph Nader’s fault.
Cat Lady
Given Boner’s propensity for laziness, I hope the bill writers rolled him in the fine print. There’s no way he knows what’s in the bill, and the idiot teatards haven’t read the Constitution, so you know they didn’t read the bill either. It would be awesome if one of the triggers defunded Republican congressional districts if tax revenue falls below X or some such thing. A girl can dream.
hueyplong
Gotta admit, my own little pony-wishing scenario is similar to Cat Lady’s.
Surely at some point being stupid will be something that trips up those guys and hurts only them, instead of the country at large.
bart
I will ignore the offensive “Just Like A Man” remark and simply make the point,
“What else were the Democrats going to do at that point but vote to get it passed?”
Pelosi’s little minions can count just like Boehner’s so the fact they were both surprised at the final hour is a knock on all of them.
Pelosi was caught off guard, she was unprepared and there was no Plan B at the ready. She had no way to swing the Repub’s miscalculation in there favor.
And I am sorry but trying to spin the event by saying your sitting on the sidelines til the last minute saved the country is not swinging their miscalculation into your favor.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@JPL: We got nuttin again! We have “Tomatoes at Terrapin” a fundraiser for the Athens Nurses Clinic this evening and it will be scorchin!
WereBear
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, happy birthday! President Obama needs some of that scotch we were talking about… or some other decompression strategy.
The problem here is; the GOP would push us into default. Then they would bluster as the dominoes fell, then, at whatever point saner heads would scramble and try to fix, they would whine and get in the way.
They will not learn. They will not change. Because they want the world to end.
Over 50% of the Tea Party are Rapture nuts. Chew on that for a minute.
Ben Cisco
@Samara Morgan: Props for the Firefly reference.
JPL
@WereBear: That’s the bigger point. The President is dealing with madmen who don’t believe in safety nets. They believe that Hoover was a good president and his policies were the right one and FDR caused the depression to last longer than it should have.
If he wasn’t able to get the debt ceiling raised, it would have hurt those who are the neediest. When you only have so much money, who do you pay after bond holders and the military?
Anya
I will believe this is a blog for o’bots when I see a happy birthday POTUS threat.
Linda Featheringill
I’m surprised there isn’t more pushback here about “Just like a man.” Peace, guys. We love you anyway.
That kind of “advanced planning” [assuming someone else will pick up the pieces] is typical of people who imbibe too much alcohol, though. Regardless of gender.
Somewhat tangential: Do you suppose Gabby Giffords will become a regular presence in the House when they come back into session?
burnspbesq
@dr. bloor:
No, you’re not “missing” anything. You’re being deliberately obtuse to make an utterly specious point.
Perhaps you’d like to supply a list of all the better alternatives that were available to the House minority.
burnspbesq
@AAA Bonds:
“The class war: choose a side.”
Whatever side isn’t burdened by your stupidity is guaranteed to win.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
@ornery:
That was obvious from day one. It was no secret that enough GOPs stated publicly that they would not increase the debt ceiling under any circumstances. The rest was theater.
burnspbesq
@Linda Featheringill:
“I’m surprised there isn’t more pushback here about “Just like a man.” ”
It’s too stupid to bother dealing with it.
YellowDog
Can Boehner survive? He appears to be in over his head and he may be encouraged to spend more time with his family. Cantor would love to assume the role, and when her presidential campaign crashes and burns, Bachmann would be a candidate (in her own mind). Pelossi is so much smarter than any of them–did she support Boehner to preserve the lesser of the available evils or to foster chaos, or both? It only takes a simple majority to be elected Speaker. In chaos there might be the opportunity to reclaim the job. My sense of the inconceivable has changed in the past few months–I don’t think it means what I think it means.
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
She is obviously a tool of the plutocrats.
Always cutting taxes, deregulating, and privatizing, that bitch.
/sarcasm
Linda Featheringill
@AAA Bonds
I don’t have to choose a side. It was chosen for me, before I was born. And when I became old enough to figure out where the theft and destruction were coming from, when I realized that I truly was a “human resource,” the choice became easy.
cathyx
@Anya: The comments here aren’t enough proof for you?
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Anya:
Don’t tempt me like that, dear.
Quiddity
Pelosi is the most effective Democrat in Washington, and has been for 4 years.
ppcli
@Sly:
But at least whoever did say it fooled Mattsky all the time.
Jewish Steel
@Sly:
I and I fixie. Irie.
Dennis SGMM
I don’t think that there was enough time for Pelosi to get any quid pro quo from Boehner. I do think that she was blindsided (As Boehner, himself, may have been) by how out of control the Republican caucus has become. It would be good if the media took the good time and trouble to inform people that numbers of Republicans were willing to crash the economy after they were given practically everything they wanted. Experience suggests that the narrative will credit the Republicans with saving the country from the spendthrift Democrats.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Samara Morgan: Ok, this made me laugh:
Ben Cisco With a rather well played Twilight reference. I would actually read the books if Edward had to battle reavers. (Wife and kid who did read them.)
Anya
You must have a story with his dad or something. You know, when Harvard was trying to deport him because he was seducing white women. Where you one of those women? Did you have anything to do with faking the birth certificate?
matt
mistake for Pelosi to do it. She should have made Boehner go on record begging her for the votes.
Bullsmith
Republicans “If you don’t shoot the children, I will!”
Democrats: “Let’s do it together.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Bullsmith: Yep, because the debt ceiling bill ended all New Deal programs and put the US on a $5 a week allowance.
Ash Can
@matt:
No way would Boehner have done that. He would have sat on his hands, relying on blind hope that the wackos were actually right when they insisted that default would be no big deal. Anything but giving even the slightest appearance of conceding any Democrat had the upper hand.
If the House really was “minutes” away from allowing economic Armageddon to take place — and it sure looks like they were — Nancy and the Dems had practically no choice but to step in.
Violet
I love Nancy. I hope she gets her gavel back.
rumpole
I don’t know which is more depressing. I am glad a debt deal was done, but remain absolutely furious.
Had the debt crashed, the blame would have been one way. Only one. If Obama stepped in based on the 14A or his inherent power (e.g., the power to make sure that the laws of the US were faithfully executed–the law requires payment of benefits, salaries, etc) and the loonies impeached him, bye bye loonies. Instead, the teatards have learned that the D’s–all of them–will capitulate, sometimes without even being asked. Put another way, they saved the deal and got nothing for it.
What message would you take away from this if you were the teatards?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
I seriously want to punch this sorry mustachioed white supremacist motherfucker in the neck.
Judas Escargot
@Southern Beale:
Well, they could: Get 10 million people to donate $1 each, and you’ve beaten this one corp 10:1. Nothing scares those elites more.
Of course, I have no idea how one would organize this, nor do I have the charisma to make it happen.
mcd410x
@rumpole:
That they can roll the Democrats any time they want. Not only will Democrats not get anything out of the deal, they will pat themselves on the back for it!
Most Democrats want everyone on the team to play in the game; most Republicans will let players sit on the bench because they want to win the game. Which is why they win these battles.
Judas Escargot
@Samara Morgan:
Firefly, or Fable?
(Oddly enough, either fits).
Anya
@Anya: That was for @Sarah, Proud and Tall:
kc
Why do Democrats continue to enable Republican lunacy? WHY?
Cat Lady
@kc:
Have you ever had to live with a crazy person? Not just annoying, but potentially dangerous, and you can’t get rid of them and you can’t leave? You’d understand the answer to your question.
Mnemosyne
@rumpole:
You have waaaaayy more faith in the American people than I have if you think an impeachment wouldn’t damage the Democrats at all. Not to mention way more faith in the credit markets deciding that political chaos and an impeachment are awesome signs of a country’s stability.
The instant the teatards decided it would be better to let the world economy crash and burn than to let That Man have a political win, there were no good choices. None. You may not like that the House of Representatives holds the country’s checkbook, but short of amending the Constitution to take it away from them, that’s what we’re stuck with.
Mnemosyne
Oh, and silly me, but I don’t think that avoiding international chaos is “getting nothing.” But I think way too many people on the left have bought into the teatard belief that defaulting on the US’s full faith and credit for the first time in our history would be no big deal.
Cris (without an H)
Hey, this is a duplicate thread, John already posted it six hours later.
Paul in KY
Seems ABL’s thread down below is closed for posting. Haven’t read them all, but I expect some dicks showed up & a flame war started.
Even so, I wish she wouldn’t close the comments down. Some of us can help her out with them, but only if we have a chance to post.