Budget talks: This is getting nasty

But none of the suggested compromises - and there were many - was ever acted upon. Which is what governing is. The implementation of practical compromise. Instead, at the 11th hour, we ran the government and Wall Street and Main Street up on the rocks in service of ideological purity alone.

Which goes back to my original point. No one on the Tea Party side of this was the least bit interested in actually governing. It wasn't even 'political' in the classic sense of the word. It was a test of radical faith. Of scriptural purity. Like the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks and the Bukharinites and the Stalinists all fighting it out in the Soviet Union of the 20s.

 

Mark Halperin did not know how right he was on June 30 when he said Obama acted like a dick at his June 29 press conference.

That was the day when he layed down the gauntlet to Republicans and set hard and fast August 2 deadline.

Obama approach that day sealed what has transpired since.

 

Or the Tea Party made that day inevitable with its months-long intransigence.

In either case, the Radical Right got what it thought it wanted.

Now what?

 

Wouldn't the main targets have been fellow Republicans?

I don't see any real evidence of this. For all the talk of this dividing the Republican Party, I don't see anyone calling for McConnell or Boehner's head.

 

I'd like to seed some type of renewed groundswell around Simpson-Bowles. That's where centrist America is right now. Obama should have gotten behind it in December and done a full-on road show to sell it, but apparently he was too concerned about the reaction of idealogues in his own party. Frankly, it was an easy move, right out of the Triangulation Handbook. Clinton would have seized on the opportunity.

 

Which was a deficit reduction?

 

Hell, at this point it looks like Obama should have taken a harder stance.

At least if the debt limit expired, he would have been able to blame the current mess -- down grade and market meltdown -- on Republicans/Tea Party.

 

If my budget saw me going more and more into debt each year, I know I would have to do two things.

1. Stop spending so much money
2. Make more money (increase revenue)

Which plan had both aspects?

We have to raise taxes to get out of this mess. Raise taxes and spend less on services.

If that means throwing up a flag and saying we are out of money for this Middle East war, then so be it.

If that means me paying more for certain things, so be it.

 

I'm not an Obama fan by any stretch, but how he's handled the last few weeks actually has me convinced for the first time that he has an upward battle to get re-elected. I know there are some who say they've seen that coming for awhile, but I definitely didn't.

I thought he would crush whoever he ran against and I don't feel that way anymore.

By the way, I am not, by any stretch, saying that "This is all Obama's fault." but how he's handling it is not inspiring confidence in anyone, even his most loyal supporters.

 

Why bother?

The Tea Party got everything it wanted.

Now begins their 16-month period of complete legislative inactivity.

 

Obama flicked it off like it was a peace of gum on his shoe. It might have been the biggest mistake he has made in office.

 

Thank you for saying it.

It is just as hard for Democrats to deal with the ideologues in their party as it is for Republicans.