I wanted to write a note thanking the GOP nutters who step in like Captain Planet whenever we need a bad situation to blow up in John Boehner’s face. Then I scanned my RSS reader and found that Charles Pierce and Krugthulu! Aieeeee! Phthagn! already said it better. Pierce:
He offered himself up as Speaker knowing full well that, in 2010, the country had elected itself a Congress straight out of the more fantastical chapters of Gulliver’s Travels. He had to have watched what happened thereafter, when the president put a deal on the table in 2011 that made him look like Dwight Eisenhower on a bad day, and Boehner couldn’t sell it to the vandals in his caucus. He had to have watched as a vulnerable Democratic president got re-elected with ease, and brought a more liberal Democratic senatorial majority along with him, largely because the Republican presidential primary field was such a carnival of the politically insane that it even made an useless windsock like Willard Romney look like the wildest hair across Barry Goldwater’s ass. Boehner had to know that there is no deal he could have brought back to his caucus — no bargain, grand or otherwise, that he could sell — because he no longer even is the putative leader of an actual political party.
Very nice. Alsotoo, that NIH budget cut means that I might soon need that unemployment insurance that the sequestration bill also cuts. Yay democracy.
JCT
I’m right with you on those NIH cuts — so much for that fundable score I received in October. This is nuts.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, NIH is actually performing a useful public service, and by gosh, we can’t have THAT.
What we DO need is more hookers and blow for Defense contractor executives, by gum!
Maude
We need more funding for the NIH. If it’s good for people, the Republicans don’t like it.
Brachiator
It seems like only yesterday when we were assured that the Tea Party was nothing to be concerned about.
But the Tea Party, and the money guys behind the scene, have become the enforcers of GOP purity. They don’t care what the president wants, they don’t care what the Democrats in Congress want, they don’t even care what their own base might want.
They don’t even seem to be concerned about raising taxes, which is what will happen if the Bush tax cuts expire. No, these goons are all about cutting government spending (on “entitlements” and other useless stuff that is not military spending) and doing everything they can to prevent Obama from governing.
Meanwhile, the liberal purists insist that the only reason bad stuff happens is because Obama does not follow chapter and verse from the FDR Silver Progressive Lining Playbook.
Aries Moon
Boehner’s plan B was so puzzling to me. WHAT IF… Boehner intentionally lifted the skirt of the House GOP with that vote in order to reveal the exact level of crazy he’s been tasked to manage? Kind of like a backhanded “Don’t blame me, look at the cast of asshats we’ve got to work with over here!”
Mister Harvest
I’m not sure how I feel about reading David Frum and nodding, yes, precisely:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/21/the-anti-plan-b-gop-they-only-look-crazy.html
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Aries Moon: Not Boehner’s. Cantor’s. Please realize who’s actually in charge over there. Boehner’s the PR flack, nothing more. Cantor is the one actually driving the clown car. I think it’s an arrangement they both like so don’t count on Boehner going away anytime soon.
MattF
@Mister Harvest: You beat me to it. Frum’s analysis is the best I’ve seen. And may I point out that Mr. Frum is no librul?
Joel
@JCT: Thank Zoroaster that I have funding through 2014. Small comfort in these times.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Mister Harvest: Frum does indeed nail it, but should have understood (as Obama certainly did) that the deal that put all this into play – the debt ceiling deal – could have had only one possible ending and this was it, precisely because of the “prisoner’s dilemma” issue that Frum so adroitly notes. The Republicans were going to have to reach a compromise with Obama, in fact they desperately need to. But as individuals, they can’t make those votes.
So now they have nothing and Obama can beat them daily with tax cut legislation until they’re forced to cave.
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
Fix’d, only because I still can’t believe the media let that scandal sink without a trace. But, hey, it happened under whatshisname, that other guy, so no point in looking into it.
Linda Featheringill
I think that Boehner might actually keep his office, but then I’m not a pundit or a “real” American either.
And I couldn’t begin to explain Cantor’s game. An enigma within a mystery.
Brachiator
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Or, Boehner is hoping that Obama will negotiate with himself and will be so eager to forge a “bipartisan” consensus that he will offer more concessions so that he can be seen as “reaching out” to the GOP.
As it stands, Obama’s offer to make it so that those making more than $400,000 (instead of $250,000) pay higher marginal tax rates appears to be an attempt to get the GOP to accept something to save face. But polls indicate that the public has moved beyond “get something, anything, done” and actively support the plan originally outlined by the president.
Instead of seeking consensus and bipartisan agreement for the sake of placating the GOP, Obama should be saying “give me what I ask for, it is the best policy, and one supported by the American people.”
MikeBoyScout
I hate to burst any bubbles, but…
the next 2 years are going to make the last 2 years of Republican mis-governance look like a holiday. These nutjobs need to be defeated and the gerrymandering that occurred in 2011 makes it tougher.
We’re going to need to fight and GOTV much harder in 2014.
Mike Lamb
I caught a bit of wingnut radio last night driving home from work here in Phoenix. For some reason, they think that going over the fiscal speed bump will provide the GOP with leverage and that it was great that the GOP caucus pantsed Boehner again.
“Leverage…you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Also, with all of the teatardedness floating around, how come there have been no calls to primary Boehner? He’s clearly not “leading” in any direction that the GOP wants to follow.
Lee
If anyone can do it Nancy Pelosi can… Think she could peal off 34 Republicans in order to get elected as speaker?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@MikeBoyScout:
Quoted for Truth.
Kind of the GOP to be so helpful with this, and so early on.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Brachiator: Do you honestly think that Obama made those offers “in good faith”? Do you think he is so stupid as to believe that the GOP would have taken him up on it? Christ, he could have offered them reinstatement of slavery and a twenty-year tax holiday and they’d have turned him down.
Kabuki. He can take that and say “hey, I went out of my comfort zone and tried and they still wouldn’t play ball”. He comes out of this a total winner. Total. All aces and a king. The GOP now has NOTHING that they can offer or negotiate with, and everyone save for a few dead-enders know it. He’ll get his legislation, his way, with middle class tax cuts for $250k and under, and no Social Security cuts, and he’ll get them after at least two months of getting the GOP permanently on record as being against tax cuts for everyone except millionaires.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
RE: What we DO need is more hookers and blow for
Defense contractorMinerals Management Service executives, by gum!Hookers and blow, in the defense industry (much like in the entertainment industry) are seen as ordinary and customary business expenses.
burnspbesq
It’s good that Plan B cratered, but it doesn’t solve the larger issue.
It’s kind of a fundamental principle of deal-making that if the decision-maker on the other side isn’t in the room, you’re negotiating with yourself, and when you negotiate with yourself, you always end up giving away too much.
The great paradox of the day is that Obama seems incapable of understanding that Boehner isn’t the decision-maker on the other side of this negotiation (it’s not even clear that he’s an influencer). Until we get the real decision-maker(s) on the Republican side (whoever he, she, or they may be) in the room, Obama is going to continue to get played.
This needs to stop, and it needs to stop right the fuck now.
JustAnotherBob
Assume we go over the cliff, rather hit the bump and start down slope. It’s going to get felt in Republican gerrymandered districts along with everywhere else. Jobs, unemployment checks, rising taxes, etc.
Republicans can try to blame it on PBO, but they have gone on record as being willing to let the mess happen in order to keep those making over a million dollar a year in taxable income from paying small additional money.
I think they have a problem. I think Bohner pissed in their soup and they unzipped his fly for him….
shortstop
@burnspbesq:
What is your specific suggestion for doing that?
mdblanche
@JCT: It looks like my neighbor is now in the same boat.
@Maude: Wait, wait. I thought our progressive betters had told us what we really need is to go over the fiscal cliff and call anyone who looks like he wants to stop it a traitor. I’m sure my neighbor is cursing the House Republicans today. If the poutrage crew had had their way she’d be cursing the president instead. They really need to get over themselves and accept that it’s not the purpose of every presidential statement to tell them what they want to hear.
Liberty60
The co-worker across the table from me wondered what made me guffaw out loud. I told him it was just some really good porn.
Which is true, in a sense.
Brachiator
@MikeBoyScout:
The GOP were defeated in 2008 and in 2012. But they refuse to take defeat for an answer. It won’t matter whether the Democrats get a majority in both houses of Congress. The GOP will look for ways to obstruct Obama. In response, the Dems need to play hardball, take their proposals to the people, peel off GOP defectors where they can, and make the GOP pay in every way possible for their stupidity.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@burnspbesq: You’re kidding, right? You really think PBO & Co. are really that really obtuse?
Sorry, but I can’t see where you’re coming from with that.
burnspbesq
@shortstop:
Hell if I know. Take him aside, slap him around, and say “wake the fuck up?”
JustAnotherBob
@burnspbesq:
Perhaps you could explain how Obama got played?
And perhaps you could explain how you arrive at your opinion that Obama might be incapable of understanding that Boehner might not have control of his House members?
burnspbesq
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn:
Well, what’s your explanation for what we’ve been watching?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
That’s probably the hope, but IMO Obama’s willingness to cave to Republican demands has been greatly exaggerated by both the left wing and the right wing. Boehner probably also believed the “unskewed” polls that showed Romney in the lead.
burnspbesq
@JustAnotherBob:
Well, (1) we went from $250K to $400K as the threshold for tax rate increases and (2) chained-CPI got on the table, and he got not a damned thing in return.
What alternative theory better explains his behavior?
Brachiator
@shortstop:
RE: The great paradox of the day is that Obama seems incapable of understanding that Boehner isn’t the decision-maker on the other side of this negotiation (it’s not even clear that he’s an influencer). Until we get the real decision-maker(s) on the Republican side (whoever he, she, or they may be) in the room, Obama is going to continue to get played.
People in Washington know who the power brokers are, official and unofficial. It’s a sad, stupid, game, but it is a game that must be played.
Quick example. A commuting buddy reminded me that Eisenhower, who had never served in political office, was astute enough to know that he had to get the help of powerful members of Congress in order to get things done. And so he reached out to Democrats Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn, not to any Republicans, in order to get his agenda moving.
Reagan similarly had to have the help of Tip O’Neill.
If Boehner has really been pushed aside, I would think that Pelosi knows who is the GOP puller of strings.
People note that Obama should read Team of Rivals to get a refresher on wielding power. Or watch the film Lincoln. Probably wouldn’t hurt to watch The Godfather again, either.
eemom
@burnspbesq:
Burnsy! You iz gone firebagger! ; )
Mnemosyne
@burnspbesq:
The funniest part is that you seem to think there’s a real decision-maker on the Republican side who can bring the whole caucus together and make them vote as a bloc.
I submit to you the theory that there is no decision maker. There are a bunch of overlapping independent groups, none of whom agree with anything except that they refuse to do anything the Democrats want them to do.
And I stand by my statement that agreeing to Boehner’s demand for chained-CPI was a ploy, not a genuine offer, which is why Nancy “She-Devil” Pelosi made a public statement in favor of it knowing full well that the Republican response would be, “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It” as soon as she said she favored it.
JustAnotherBob
@burnspbesq:
No. PBO said that he was willing to raise the limit on tax cuts and adjust Social Security increases if the Republicans gave him something he wanted.
The Republicans gave him nothing he wanted.
PBO did not raise the limit nor adjust. Don’t confuse an offer with a done deal.
The Republicans got nothing.
ericblair
@Mister Harvest:
Frum is a relatively sane person who’s in the pundit game for the money and the status. We think most of the pundits are like this, but most are either crazy or so detached from the average American’s life experiences that they have no clue how fucked up their ideas are. Frum does, and he periodically explodes when the stupidity gets too much to tolerate.
I think he’s right, that there is no Grand Old Party anymore,just a collection of nutjobs with a semi-consistent outlook but no willingness to compromise with each other as a team much less with The Soshulist Horde. What might be going on now is an attempt by the Dems to fracture the goopers enough that the Dems could peel off enough of an alliance to get shit done in the House and leave the teabaggers with a minority that can be safely ignored.
So Boehner can continue being humiliated as a dickless wonder within his own party, or cut a deal with the Dems and have some actual control. Individual “defectors” to the Dems would have to calculate how much they’d benefit from being seen by moderates as reasonable versus how badly they’d get shanked by teabaggers who’d try to primary them. If there aren’t enough, we’re in for another really rough time as it will be like trying to negotiate with a zombie invasion and not a political party.
@burnspbesq:
Any analysis that assumes that Barack Obama is a naive idiot is probably defective. I though we’d already gone through four years of this.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@burnspbesq: That’s been enumerated in this thread and throughout the halls of BJ. PBO’s going through the motions for the cameras and villagers, but implicit in all of it is, to use a phrase from Dunaway’s Joan Crawford, “This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.”
Mnemosyne
@burnspbesq:
Sure he did — he got John Boehner to blow himself up in public like he was Wile E. Coyote.
Sorry, you thought that there was another purpose or any other possible result that could come from negotiations with a speaker with zero control of his caucus? I’m pretty sure Team Obama knew exactly what was going to happen.
Mnemosyne
@burnspbesq:
I would also say, when former Republican insiders like Frum tell you the House caucus is out of control and no one is running the asylum, you should believe them.
JustAnotherBob
@ericblair:
This is where I see us. Boehner seems to have already signaled it’s a path he might be willing to take. He kicked some of the Tea Party Reps to the curb by stripping them of their committee positions. And it would be a reasonable guess that he is royally pissed at many in his party for publicly embarrassing him.
I suspect there are two camps in the Republican House at the moment. The TPers for whom extremism is a virtue and others who can see that the future of the Republican Party is bleak if the party does not restructure itself and gain a large chunk of the voter pool.
I can see Boehner recruiting enough “New Republicans” to join with Democrats to get some stuff passed.
No guarantee, but I don’t see two more years of the Party of No working out well in 2014.
srv
I for one will not join the heap in saying bad things about the Orangered man. He’s lasted a lot longer than many here and elsewhere predicted.
JWL
Look what happened to the once formidable GOP in California. Disabuse yourself of the notion that it’s a “liberal” state. It really isn’t. Ask why it’s been deep blue for twenty years, and look no further than the caliber of people who run the state’s republican party (all of whom would be right at home in Arizona). They are political purists, i.e., political incompetents. Their days of wielding power nationally are over because they can’t elect a dogcatcher to state office anymore. No more Richard Nixons or Gippers to be sprung fully formed on the country. Which, of course, is good news, just like the party’s current disarray in congress. God knows, I’d love to see the bastards go the same way in D.C. as they have here in California. Just might live to see it, too.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
RE: Or, Boehner is hoping that Obama will negotiate with himself and will be so eager to forge a “bipartisan” consensus that he will offer more concessions so that he can be seen as “reaching out” to the GOP.
I actually don’t see Obama caving in to GOP demands. To the contrary, he has ignored their most strident demands, and has been remarkably cool in brushing off the most asinine statements coming from the Republican leadership.
But I get the strong sense that Obama’s natural inclination is to look for consensus, co-operation and compromise. You see this as far back as his Harvard Law Review operating style.
He also defers too much to both the Democrats and the Republicans in the Congress, preferring to offer outlines of tax and economic policy instead of more fully fleshed out legislative guidelines.
But the practical result of this, in 2010, for example, was that the small business and corporate tax law that was part of the year end compromise was largely everything that the GOP had been proposing for the previous two years. Obama got some stimulus and continued support for some of his individual tax credits, but I am not sure if the hodge podge of a little something for everyone was the most effective policy, or the best deal possible.
Obama’s approach upsets some liberals and progressives because they see it as “caving.” But Obama seems unwilling to adjust his operating style, despite the repeated rebuffs and insults that he gets from the GOP, or the tendency of Congressional Democrats to be passive and tentative in offering substantive alternatives to GOP “cut and slash” policy.
Shorter, he looks for compromise and consensus even when he might be able to get a clear and convincing win. However, I note that many Republicans and even some Democrats appear unable to defer to a black president, so I acknowledge that Obama has to deal with more than pure politics.
Obama has got more done than many of his critics give him credit for, but he has a smaller window of opportunity as a second term president to get things done.
Also consider: the buzz is that Obama is going to nominate Kerry to be Secretary of State. John McCain and other Republicans are on record as saying that Kerry is the man they want, overstepping their “advise and consent” roles to more actively push for a nominee. And there may be something to the speculation that this may help Scott Brown get back into the Senate.
You have got to wonder why Obama would help the Republicans or let himself appear weak and appeasing. Part of me wants to believe that Obama is looking ahead to bigger battles. But damn, some of his moves, even when they half work out, look perplexing.
Possibly more than you were looking for, but I wanted to go beyond the simplistic “Obama Caves” or “Obama is the Ultimate Strategist.”
JustAnotherBob
Some on the left do not want compromise and consensus.
Unfortunately they failed to take the House in 2010 so they cannot get what they want. Democrats (how unnecessary it should be to repeat) cannot pass legislation without some Republican votes.
PBO, IMO, has a secondary goal of healing the country. Riding roughshod over the opposition, even if he had the power, would work against that goal.
PBO is getting us what we want. Obviously not as fast and as “pure” as some want, but he’s moving the country right along.
Brachiator
@JustAnotherBob:
His primary goal should be to fix the damn economy. People will heal a lot better if they have jobs and are not going broke.
That said, I agree with many of your points.
JustAnotherBob
@Brachiator:
How would you suggest he might ride roughshod over Republicans?
I understand the strategy. What techniques would you suggest?
Nemo_N
Wolf Blitzer opened up this hour with the line “Republicans in disarray”.
Never thought I’d hear that from him.
Maude
@burnspbesq:
I am grateful that I am not a hostage and the hostage negotiator. I’d never make it out alive.
Cat and mouse is also being used. The mouse is Boehner.
Brachiator
@JustAnotherBob:
Surely, we are not going to play that game in which I (or anyone else) have to suggest how Obama should do his presidenting along with commenting on his strategic strengths and weaknesses?
I noted as a matter of historical perspective how Ike and Reagan both relied on canny members of Congress to get their agenda enacted. And this did not always require strong arming anyone. Leaders adapt to their circumstances. One advantage that Obama has, despite all the BS from the GOP, is that the majority of voters, even some who did not vote for him, are willing to support him and are tired not just of gridlock, but of opposition to Obama. This, perhaps, is a starting point.
The bottom line is that Obama has no choice but to become a more assertive leader. The economy is still weak, and it would be pointless to pin every hope on a possible Senate and House majority in 2014, which is not a sure thing by any means.
What have you got?
JustAnotherBob
@Brachiator: I recall neither Ike or Reagan facing a united, batshit crazy opposition.
Our Congress used to contain some people on both sides who were willing to engage in the art of politics. We now have one side that acts like a spoiled toddler.
As long as all Republicans stick together and refuse to do any horse trading, nothing the President is able to do can work, short of letting the Republican House run the country.
PBO can assert his ass off but until the unified Republican front crumbles asserting goes nowhere.
Let the cliff event meet us. Let some people get pissed off because it messes with their lives. Hope that a lot of them are Republicans from districts represented by Republicans. Let them start making noise into the ears of their Republican representatives.
I see no other way to move the ball.
This is why the cliff was invented.
Perhaps there are a few dozen Republican representatives who see this playing out in a bad way for them and will be willing to split away between Christmas and New Years.
Personally, I think Republicans would be better off to scrape together ‘just enough’ votes to let the issue be settled during the holidays. Pick some reps who are from more moderate districts or ready to retire or who would be interested in leaving Congress and making some serious money.
The country has a problem. Letting the Republicans have things their way isn’t an option. We may have a bad two years. Then the country will have the option of having two more or putting some more reasonable people in Congress.
I got nothing else….
Brachiator
@JustAnotherBob:
Yep, “as long as the Republicans stick together…”
There’s the possible weak spot.
Before or after the GOP drives the country off the fiscal cliff.
JustAnotherBob
Interesting NPR interview with one of Boehner’s supporters talking about how things aren’t working in the Republican caucus. Ohio rep.
Take-aways-
“40, 48, 50 chuckleheads” who won’t cooperate.
There are people on the Republican side who would vote with Democrats given the right bill. It would likely be a bill that some Democrats wouldn’t vote for.
Sounds to me that hope is still alive for getting something done before the end of the year.