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News, commentary, opinion on politics, government, books, social trends, American life, travel, cycling, books, other stuff
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News, commentary, opinion on politics, government, books, social trends, American life, travel, cycling, books, other stuff
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REPUBLICANS SET BACK, HARD, FROM SHUTDOWN
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In the Washington Post (link below)
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By Dan Balz and Scott Clement, Tuesday, October 22, 12:00Â AM E-mail the writers
The budget confrontation that led to a partial government shutdown dealt a major blow to the GOP’s image and has exposed significant divisions between tea party supporters and other Republicans, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The survey highlights just how badly the GOP hard-liners and the leaders who went along with them misjudged the public mood. In the aftermath, eight in 10 Americans say they disapprove of the shutdown. Two in three Republicans or independents who lean Republican share a negative view of the impasse. And even a majority of those who support the tea party movement disapprove.
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From the same Washington Post article:
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The confrontation has had a corrosive effect on attitudes about the direction of the country, the workings of government and the image of elected officials. The percentage of Americans who say the United States is seriously off track rose from 60 percent in July to 68 percent today, the highest in more than a year.
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In The New Yorker magazine
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Senator Ted Cruz can be justly described as a demagogic fool, but lately he’s been on the offensive far more than the White House has.
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In the International New York Times:
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PARIS Not many Americans traveling abroad over the past three weeks could escape some fairly unpleasant reactions to the government shutdown in the United States.
In the beginning, people seemed bemused, or sometimes smug: “Are you not the nation that is forever teaching the world how to behave itself?” Brinkmanship over the budget is not new, nor are Republican assaults on Barack Obama. So, many people simply sought an explanation from visiting Americans: how is it that a small band of zealous politicians can bring government to a halt? Can people really be that passionately opposed to the idea of bringing health benefits to millions who don’t have them? (10.19.13)
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TerryReport commentary
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Later:
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RIGHT WING COLUMNIST ROSS DOUTHAT SAID THE FOLLOWING IN THE NY TIMES:
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It was an irresponsible, dysfunctional and deeply pointless act, carried out by a party that on the evidence of the last few weeks shouldn’t be trusted with the management of a banana stand, let alone the House of Representatives.
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There was no argument for the shutdown itself that a person unblindered by political fantasies should be obliged to respect, no plausible alternative world in which it could have led to any outcome besides self-inflicted political damage followed by legislative defeat, and no epitaph that should be written for its instigators’ planning and execution except: “These guys deserved to lose.”
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Call it the “Animal House” shutdown.
At the end of that seminal American comedy about a rowdy fraternity, the charismatic Otter makes an impassioned speech to his fellows about their enemies on campus:
“We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part!”
To which his friend Bluto replies, “We’re just the guys to do it.”
Congratulations, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, the two conservative senators who conceived the shutdown strategy. You are now the Otter and Bluto of American politics.
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As The TerryReport has been saying for a long time, House Speaker John Boehner is not really in charge of his caucus of Republicans. Now, it seems the major media are finally catching on to this fact, despite the big show that goes on constantly on Capitol Hill and contrary to the trappings of the office, which Boehner, for the moment, still holds. Here is a clip from the WashPost with a link:
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House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) started Tuesday with a last-ditch attempt to exert control over his restive caucus, proposing a new plan to open the government and raise the debt ceiling in an effort to give Republicans a bit of leverage.
But as evening fell over the Capitol, it was increasingly clear who had control over the House GOP: no one.
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No subscription required.
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Earth to major media reporters: Boehner lost his “control” a long time ago. Why does it take so very long to catch on to this fact? He’s like the people who pretended to be in charge of Iran after the revolution way back in the 1970s, when the kids in the streets, the real revolutionaries, were actually running the show. Anyway you look at it, he’s not in charge, he’s just in charge of acting like it, hoping his troops will grow up and, maybe, settle down. This is embarrassing for Boehner, for Congress and for the Republican party. Still, the band plays on.....
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PAUL KRUGMAN EXPLAINS IT, IN THE NY TIMES (link below)
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Op-Ed Columnist 
The Dixiecrat Solution
Published: October 13, 2013
So you have this neighbor who has been making your life hell. First he tied you up with a spurious lawsuit; you’re both suffering from huge legal bills. Then he threatened bodily harm to your family. Now, however, he says he’s willing to compromise: He’ll call off the lawsuit, which is to his advantage as well as yours. But in return you must give him your car. Oh, and he’ll stop threatening your family, but only for a week, after which the threats will resume.
Not much of an offer, is it? But here’s the kicker: Your neighbor’s relatives, who have been egging him on, are furious that he didn’t also demand that you kill your dog.
And now you understand the current state of budget negotiations
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CLICK HERE to go to the Krugman column
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Here’s a story CNN is running on its website about the meetings between House Republicans and President Obama Thursday (10.10.13). The story is as off the mark, wrong headed as you can get. It attempts to blame “both sides” for the impasse in DC. Both sides drew “lines in the sand” and both sides talk “vociferously” at each other.
What a bunch of crap (sorry, but I have to say it straight out). This is not a “both sides” problem.
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Washington (CNN) -- Progress.
It's been seemingly nonexistent in Washington for weeks, as Republicans and Democrats squabbled about funding the government and whether to raise its borrowing limit. Both sides drew their lines in the sand and talked vociferously at each other, but not to each other.
On Thursday, 10 days into the government's partial shutdown, the tide appeared to turn. House Republicans offered a plan to temporarily stave off the threat of a first-ever U.S. debt default. President Barack Obama listened to them. Both sides agreed to keep on talking.
Said Rep. Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican: "We're all working together now."
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Turn these issues around. What if Obama told the Republicans in Congress he was not going to sign any bill, ever, that had one Republicans change or program in it if they did not overturn the continuance of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy? Would that, then, become a “both sides” problem?
The other fault, a big one, in the CNN story is that in trying to be fair and “objective” by blaming both sides, it actually distorts instead of telling the truth about what is happening.
I am pretty sure the reporter who wrote this story thought he or she was doing a good job and treating everyone fairly, but, instead, it represents not an informed point of view, but something that could be written by someone ten minutes off the bus in DC. The story reflects naive prejudice rather than fact. This story is like a child overhearing their parents fighting and saying “both sides were yelling at each other” when, in fact, the argument was started by one parent having an affair outside the marriage.
It is highly distressing to see this conflict marketed through media as a both sides problem. The Republicans are the ones who have refused to allow the government to operate unless they get their way. What they want exactly is rather opaque. First, they wanted Obamacare defunded. That’s not going to happen as long as Obama is drawing breath and as long as he intends to have a presidency. After that, they wanted to defund the government itself, but Boehner said, privately, that he would not allow that to happen. Now, it seems, they want some sort of grand “negotiation” to reopen the government and fund it (separate issues), but only a negotiation on the issues they consider important, forget about the Democrat’s issues, or those of the President, like raising taxes on the wealthy. No, those items will not be on the agenda.
Even though the entire country is losing through this process, and many people are hurting directly, the Republicans are winning small victories. First, look at all the attention they get. Even though millions are turning against them, the attention makes them look important and keeps them in the news, day and night. Normally, no one cares when John Boehner walks to his office. Now, 30 cameras, at least, are trained on him and the other totems of the House Republicans.
The other victory, an ever bigger one, is the Republicans are calling the tune in Washington, DC. It might be a sour tune, it might even be one that gets many Republicans in Congress defeated in 2014, but, nonetheless, they are calling the tune. No one is talking about anything that Obama wants done. Even the twin raids on terrorists in Africa last week (was that last week?) could not really break through the noise (no pictures, too).
10.11.13 (10:03 am)
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