US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

"we" = Cokie and her Sunday brunch guests.

pawlenty vs obama seems like a good bet to me

Just to clarify, I checked the clip and he said "we know with reasonable certainty..." He didn't mention anything about brunch, though.

It's racist against poor people. That's the kind of racism that isn't allowed to be discussed and it's people like David Gregory in comments like this that helps keep that off the table.

Will has had a boner for Mitch Daniels for years now; it seems unrequited.

Or if you can't get with Will, Sullivan soldiers on: "I'm left with Bachmann and Palin. It's their game of chicken now." (It's not really clear if he means the nomination, or just Evangelical Christian support.)

since i've whined about obama's tendency to give away things and get nothing in return for them, totally unprompted, i'll let joe romm do it for me this time:

Even worse, Obama is not merely adopting the GOP rhetoric — but getting nothing whatsoever in return for it. Obama says we should “eliminate the taxpayer subsidies we give to oil and gas companies.” Well, if you are planning to cave on drilling, how about at least getting the subsidy elimination as part of the deal?

morbz and greenwald may be right: this is what he wants.

If the president and his allies operate on the principle that failure to raise the debt ceiling is an unthinkable outcome, to be avoided at all cost, then they have ceded all power to those willing to bring that outcome about. In effect, they will have ripped up the Constitution and given control over America’s government to a party that only controls one house of Congress, but claims to be willing to bring down the economy unless it gets what it wants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/opinion/16krugman.html?_r=1&hp

krugman breathing heat this morning

At some point — and sooner rather than later — the president has to draw a line. Otherwise, he might as well move out of the White House, and hand the keys over to the Tea Party.

At some point — and sooner rather than later — the president has to draw a line.

lol

on 'meet the press' or whatever he was more blunt, urging default over cutting social security, medicare, etc

But the president can’t call the extortionists’ bluff unless he’s willing to confront them, and accept the associated risks.

oh well, then

Uh:

CROWLEY: And I think I can get a yes or no from you on this. No tax increases will you accept at all in either the short, the medium or the long term, and that includes close tax loopholes?

MCCONNELL: Well, there aren’t going to be any tax increases. You know, that was settled by last November’s election. The president knows that.

that's when I reach for my revolver

this debt ceiling nonsense is the worst kind of kabuki.

otm.

It's time for Obama to conclude that being tough on domestic issues will win over independents....But I'm not counting on it.

What is the consensus that not limiting the debt ceiling would collapse the US economy? It seems like a number of armchair economists are saying i would definitely happen, but even entertaining the possibility is telling. What would be the Republican gain from doing this? Destroying the value of all their funds? Proving in a single swoop that political gain is more important than the welfare of American people?

I can't take them seriously, and any Dem who purports to do so is basically using EVIL REPUBLICANS as a body shield while caving in to their plutocratic ideals.

yeah i wish they'd just start reaganing, call the gop's bluff, and explain why the debt's mostly republican tax cuts, medicare part d, refusal to let the government bargain for medication prices, iraqistan, and the fallout of the bush/cheney deregulation recession. except they've been doing that now for two and a half years, and who won the last election? "citizens united." it's a little scary when you think about it. reminds me of how effectively they swift-boated a decorated war hero in favor of a national guard pilot

It's time for Obama to conclude that "being tough" (in lib-fantasy terms) on domestic issues is incompatible with raising a billion campaign dollars

public financing of campaigns would be ideal. until then

Really? Perhaps outside the Beltway, Obama would get just as many donors through showing he's fully capable of holding asshole GOP feet to the fire. I'd send money if there was proof of that.

well you have to have a lot of money see.

suzy, that's a nice thought, but it's never been done before, and our owners prefer to be as unoriginal as possible.

Speak for yourself: I don't have an owner.

oh, you kid

Do you think Obama's Wall Street backers want him to give the Republicans what they want in order to get the Republicans to play nice re the debt limit? I thought even the Chamber of Commerce is not in favor of playing around with the debt limit?

Again, i think the debt limit bluff is a huge bluff that has benefits for both sides. Since basically both sides are beholden to Wall Street interests the debt limit bluff:

-proves to R voters that Republicans are serious about cutting spending
-proves to D voters that Republicans are recklessly political and we can't afford to let them win in 2012
-proves to I voters that Obama is the big adult in the room and he and his party will gladly rise above partisan nonsense to compromise on the points where both party's interests lie (psst: plutocratic interests)

The Senate is likely to vote Wednesday on the Democrats’ bill to eliminate $20 billion in unnecessary tax perks for the five largest oil companies.

That's from a Public Citizen e-mail. Contact your senator...

Jane Mayer on the Obama administration's crackdown on whistle blowers.

New Kansas restrictions on abortion coverage may result in legal challenges.

The debate over whether legislators broke their rules could underpin a legal challenge. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, which performs abortions at its suburban Kansas City-area clinic, is considering a lawsuit.

"Frankly, we will take a good, hard look with attorneys to determine whether to litigate based on the way in which this law was made," said Peter Brownlie, the group's president and chief executive officer. "The purpose is not just to have an orderly process. It's for citizens in the state to know what the hell their legislators are legislating."

Abortion opponents brush aside such complaints.

"Whatever," Mary Kay Culp, executive director of the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life, said after hearing one round of criticism. "Cry me a river."

Oooooooooh can I cut a bitch? Pretty please?

x-post re that long New Yorker article--

Thanks. Have only skimmed this long sad piece but will read it later. I wonder if someone at Obama's Justice Department is pushing these prosecutions of whistleblowers (not to excuse Obama)?

high five suzy my reaction to that shit was just visceral...like, wait, you said what? WHAT? no you didn't, no you didn't, I can't even, no you didn't

JD, let's just say that faced with such a woman, I would not be rendered speechless. People like that say things like that because they are c. 4000 miles from my left hook.

More on Obama's oil "plan", this time from David Roberts:

The downsides of the strategy are obvious:

• There will be more drilling, more spills, and more greenhouse gas emissions. In other words: bad policy.
• Drilling will not -- can not -- lower gas prices, so insofar as this is seen as an Obama promise, the promise will be broken. By ratifying his opponents' lie, he becomes complicit in it.
• By adopting the right's solution, Obama sacrifices the chance to present a clear alternative based on the truth: reducing demand is the only solution to oil addiction and high gas prices. You can't be on the side of the good guys if you're promoting a "what the bad guys said, only a little less" approach.

What are the purported upsides that are meant to offset these downsides?

• Republicans and conservative Dems, seeing that Obama is a reasonable guy willing to meet them halfway, will offer some concessions of their own in the name of a grand bargain.
• The American public will see that Obama is a reasonable guy, not one of these rigid partisans, and they will respond with approval.

The problem is that the downsides are real and the upsides are fantastical. They don't happen. They are precisely what post-truth politics has left behind.

http://dailydish.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e201538e84b1cc970b-550wi

maybe he's dancing

. . . i hope you dance . . .

so what was really happening in that photo? brooks realized he was in a very important photo shoot of newt gingrich descending a staircase, and tried to duck out of the way? fucking undignified.

it's really true ... sometimes pictures can convey the truth (in this case, that Brooks is a simpering toe licker to the GOP) so much more infallibly than mere words.

knew Ben Stein was long gone when he was doing his Darwinism = Nazism bit but re: IMF rape case -

The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn "forced" the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He's a short fat old man. They were in a hotel with people passing by the room constantly, if it's anything like the many hotels I am in. How did he intimidate her in that situation? And if he was so intimidating, why did she immediately feel un-intimidated enough to alert the authorities as to her story?

Ben Stein is a product of Yale Law, in case that's not evident from his line of questioning.

what a horrible little man

Ben Stein has never been a chambermaid, obv, but he doesn't yet grasp this simple fact.

x-post

The American public will see that Obama is a reasonable guy, not one of these rigid partisans, and they will respond with approval. from above re Obama and oil drilling

Greg Sargent in Washington Post online :

It seems clear that Obama and his advisers think laying down a firm marker — playing the game the way Republicans do — makes him sound like just another Washington politician. Saying “no,” as Krugman puts it, risks miring Obama in the same mud as all the rest of the partisan mud-slingers on both sides. The health care wars left Obama splattered with that mud. Signaling openness to compromise at the outset while articulating general principles as opposed to bottom lines — whatever it does for the Dems’ negotiating position — is central to Obama’s political identity and is the best way to recapture the aura that propelled him into the White House in the first place. It might be called “Beer Summit-ism.”

I’m not endorsing this view. I’m just reminding folks that there isn’t any big mystery here. This is who Obama is.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/why-does-obama-deal-with-hostage-takers/2011/03/03/AFkw054G_blog.html

I'm not so sure this strategy is going to work (with winning over independents or with keeping Dems satisfied)

There's way more on (the futility of) Obama's compromising political identity in this great article by Robert Kuttner, including a nice compare/contrast between Obama and Clinton.

Santorum.jpg tells Hugh Hewitt that John McCain doesn't understand how torture works: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/05/17/santorum_mccain_enhanced_interrogation/index.html

Cough, cough.

i like Kuttner generally and for the most part i like this article. but he also repeats the "Obama as 3D chess/rope-a-dope master" trope that some have trotted out at various points during his Presidency to try to explain his tepid moves (even if Kuttner does go on to knock it down later in the article). instead of the Ockham Razor's answer of "the tepid half-steps are EXACTLY what Obama wants."

Occam