Just trolling around the internet killing time before I have to go to sleep, because my Macbook fans don't get enough runtime as it is, the Huffington Post is apparently in the business of making corned beef from Republican suffering.
Witness the absence of a Schadenfreude font in full blossom. "Conservatives Can't Even Grasp Dems' Position"
I do not like them in the House.
Say what you will about Jonathan Chait, the guy knows how to distill complex ideas into phrases. Yesterday's post earned him his dinner, in my estimation, by pointing out just how precarious the Republican position is. He kinda underplays it, the casual reader might just gloss over, but he says a lot in 615 words.
The shutdown news of the day so far is that a White House official boasted to The Wall Street Journal, “We are winning ... It doesn't really matter to us" how long the shutdown lasts "because what matters is the end result.” This is a sort of gaffe, partly true and partly false. The government shutdown has a non-zero-sum result, in that it hurts lots of Americans. It’s also a zero-sum contest between the parties. Now, one of the ways you win the zero-sum contest is by not declaring you’re winning the zero-sum contest and thus opening yourself to the charge of indifference to the negative-sum effects.
I'm not going to do insult to your intelligence here. You know what he's saying. In elementary school we call this set up "Who farted?". Teachers can be pretty juvenile, but it's effective shorthand nonetheless. In the adult world of politics, however, my guess is it's got to be called something else.
Still, it is true that the Obama administration is winning the zero-sum contest.
Stating the obvious here, but very adroitly. It is true, Obama is winning this game. Republicans are piddling in their pants at what they have done. Like my 5th grader with a respect problem who unthinkingly scribbled out the
word RESPECT on my whiteboard, then hung his head as he absorbed the irony of his action, Congressional Republicans are seeing here the magnitude of what they have done. It does not taste well, so they spit it on the floor and pretend it was never in their mouth.
Republicans are looking to make a budget deal now because they want to escape the political nightmare they’ve created for themselves. They blustered into a shutdown that corrodes their party brand and cracks the door to flip the House, which ought to be otherwise impregnable in a low-turnout midterm election. They can’t figure out how to back down without winning concessions the Democrats have no incentive to give them. Then they need to lift the debt ceiling, where they’ve raised even loftier expectations, and where the Democrats are even more determined not to be held hostage. Their only way out is to fold everything into a negotiation, give the Democrats something, and hold up whatever they win as a trophy that made it all worthwhile.
Ahh, trophies! I'll bet they would relish some face save, just a little bit of sugar from the Democrats as they're feeling the vapors. Boehner especially needs a fainting couch. Somehow, I tell myself, it appears unlikely.
Obama’s view, which I share, is that the debt ceiling fight is far more important not only than the specific policies on the table, or even the catastrophic economic consequences of a debt breach. It’s a fight to preserve the Constitutional order.
And that is the meat of it, is it not, that we've been gathering these last few days? That President Obama has taken a position for the sake of our fragile Republic which in and of itself forbids the receiving of trophies by Republicans in this endgame?
I think so!
And conservatives have resolutely refused to grapple with that fact.
Indeed. They have. And their peoples aren't doing a very good job of shielding their emotions, are they? By way of example,
Boehner's rant yesterday about it not being a "damn game"? Just a little too edgy during that event. I could almost feel the flask in his jacket pocket. Let's have a look at his face, shall we, just to refresh?
This isn't some damn game! (Anymore. No, seriously, this shit isn't funny anymore. Hello? Hello?)
This screenshot is from the moment he says "game".
Anyway, the point is you can't always get what you want, even if you want it really bad. You may be willing to do whatever it takes to get what you want, but that doesn't mean someone won't step up and stop you from trying. And that is what they can not put their finger on.
Now, maybe they simply have no principled objection to this method. I’ve seen no conservatives, anywhere, actually question the morality of debt-limit extortion.
Again with the adroitness. I have nothing to add. Without further delay, the coup de grâce
But the bigger problem here is that conservatives are not acknowledging the Democrats’ belief. It’s not a pose. They genuinely think, regardless of the merits of the ransom demand, they can’t give in, both for the national long-term interest and on moral principle. Conservatives are acting like the problem here is that they asked for a bit too much to begin with, and want to start haggling down the price. The price isn’t the issue.
Someone get Jonathan Chait a ham steak. This man has earned his dinner.
Ted Cruz made me hungry.