Incoming!

When the memoir of former U.S. Representative Ray LaHood (R-IL), President Obama's first transportation secretary, weas published a year ago, he claimed that the alleged decision by the White House to pass economic stimulus legislation without Republican votes was the "beginning of the end of bipartisanship."

That's a little odd,  given that then-House Minority Leader John Boehner on January 17, 2009 had told his caucus to condemn the incoming President's stimulus bill on television, social media and the House floor as "another run-of-the-mill, undisciplined, cumbersome, wasteful Washington spending bill … I hope everyone here will join me in voting no!”

If anything, Boehner was late to the dance, having missed the meeting of over 15 Republicans, most of them Representatives and Senators, on Inauguration night, in which the partisans agreed to "show united and unyielding opposition to the president's economic policies" and "begin attacking vulnerable Democrats on the airwaves."

Even some of them were late, given that Vice President Biden stated that during the transition, he

spoke to seven different Republican Senators, who said, `Joe, I’m not going to be able to help you on anything,’ he recalls. His informants said [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell had demanded unified resistance. “The way it was characterized to me was: `For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’” Biden says.








If Hillary Clinton is elected, she'll have the advantage of being warned even before she is chosen by the American people. The Associated Press reports

"I would say yes, high crime or misdemeanor," GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said this week in an interview with the Beloit Daily News, arguing that with her handling of emails Clinton had crossed the constitutionally established threshold for impeachment proceedings.

GOP Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, in an interview Wednesday on Fox News Channel, suggested that the Clinton email investigation might lead toward indictment. "At that point in time under the Constitution, the House of Representatives would engage in an impeachment trial," McCaul said.

Those comments follow recent remarks by GOP Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Richard Burr of North Carolina and John McCain of Arizona suggesting that they will oppose any and all Supreme Court nominations Clinton might make.

McCain walked his comment back, saying any nominee would be considered. But Burr told GOP volunteers, in private remarks leaked to CNN, that he would aim to keep the existing vacancy on the Supreme Court open throughout Clinton's term.

There no longer is any need to speak in hushed terms, to hold conversations in dark alleys, or to pretend (although McCain evidently is still doing so). It's upfront now.  Hillary Clinton, witness to the last eight years, has been forewarned, and how she confronts this challenge from the Party of victory first, ideology second, and country a distant third will be a major factor in determining the success of her presidency.







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Easily Offended

Senator Mike Lee cannot take a joke.

There was a "joking yet blunt attitude" taken by John Boehner and David M. Kennedy of Stanford University at an event hosted Wednesday by Stanford in Government and the Stanford Speakers Bureau. Asked his opinion of Ted Cruz, the former House Speaker responded "Lucifer in the flesh. I have Democrat friends and Republican friends, I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."

Surely Boehner, who said also "you can call me boner, beaner, jackass, happy to answer to almost anything," was not being serious. Ted Cruz is not a female dog.

Still, Lee called in to the Mark Levin radio show Thursday evening and let loose as he raged

I hear John Boeher heaping praise on Bernie Sanders, heaping praise on Hillary Clinton, heaping praise on Donald Trump.

And yet for Ted Cruz? What's he call him? He calls him the devil! He calls him Satan, he calls him Lucifer. Why? The question is why? Why does he do this? Well, there's an answer. Ted Cruz actually challenges the system - the very same system that Donald Trump claims to rail against!

This is an insightful moment. First of all, I'm appalled that John Boehner would do this.
I have bit my tongue for years. I've held my tongue for years on John Boehner even when I disagreed with him. Because I respected him as a person and respected with his office enough to not call him out on it personally.

I expressed disagreement with his policies, but I've never ridiculed him personally. The fact that he has done this is appalling and he should be ashamed of himself and I demand that he apologize!

...This is a wake-up call for people who are supporting Donald Trump thinking that he's the guy who is going to rail against the establishment. He's NOT! He is the establishment. He's the golfing buddy - the texting buddy of John Boehner. The same guy who praises Hillary Clinton -- who praises Bernie Sanders. So if you're out there thinking that Donald Trump is somehow going to be the guy who takes down the establishment, think again because quite the opposite is true.  

Give that man some cheese with his whine!  Manchego and a passable Merlot will do. He will just hold his breath till he turns blue if Boehner doesn't apologize. He's a sensitive soul, that Mike Lee, at least when it comes to his friend and favorite presidential candidate, who led the government shutdown in 2013 over the Affordable Care Act. But the Utah Republican should realize, as the Atlantic's Molly Ball has written

Another criticism of Cruz is that his antics are disruptive and damaging to the Republican Party. The shutdown nearly led to a national default, terrifying the business community. It led to the lowest approval ratings for the GOP in decades. Even the Kochs came out against such tactics. Groups like the Chamber of Commerce generally support a conservative platform, but not at the price of government ceasing to function. “It’s not what he’s trying to accomplish or what he says he’s trying to accomplish that bothers people,” former McConnell chief of staff Josh Holmes told The Washington Post. “It’s that he’s consistently sacrificed the mutual goals of many for his personal enhancement.”

So maybe Boehner wasn't entirely joking. Bill Maher (video below from a different occasion), who prefers to consider the Texas senator "evil," explains "There’s a reason why everyone hates Ted Cruz. There’s a reason why the big question about Ted Cruz is always, 'When he shaves in the morning, how does he avoid spitting in the mirror?'”













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False Witness

The New York Times Jackie Calmes reports

In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has been aggressively seeking Christian conservatives’ support in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, asked the state’s health department to investigate Planned Parenthood and “this alleged evil and illegal activity.” He also petitioned the F.B.I. to assist, given the “alleged criminal activity.”

Another Republican candidate, former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, in a statement called the video “a disturbing reminder of the organization’s penchant for profiting off the tragedy of a destroyed human life,” and said it was vindication for his signing of legislation to defund Planned Parenthood in Texas.

His successor, Greg Abbott, who is also a Republican, later wrote on Twitter that “Texas will look into these organ harvesting claims.”

Messrs. Jindal, Perry, and Abbot may want to recall the Ninth Commandment when considering this

release of a video that surreptitiously captured an official from the group explaining how it provides fetal parts to medical researchers.

The video, from a little-known activist group called the Center for Medical Progress, appeared to have been shot in a California restaurant in July 2014. It shows a doctor from Planned Parenthood, over a lunch with red wine, answering questions from two people off-camera posing as potential purchasers of tissue from aborted fetuses. The doctor discusses with them, sometimes flippantly, the body parts most in demand.

While the video, which was circulated on the Internet, alleges that Planned Parenthood is guilty of the crime of selling fetal remains, the official tells her questioners more than once that the cost, $30 to $100, is reimbursement for clinics’ expenses.

Transferring fetal tissue is clearly legal if it does not profit the seller. A disappointed communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention examines relevant law and concedes

Tissue donated after an abortion for research purposes appears to be completely legal under federal law (and) tissue and organs from aborted fetuses may be used for therapeutic purposes provided the material was freely donated by women following their decision to terminate (because of 42 U.S. Code 289g it is illegal for a clinic to ask for approval prior to the abortion).

Clearly, nothing Planned Parenthood did was illegal; almost as clearly, nothing was unethical. Nonetheless, Cecile Richards has honorably, though (strategically) foolishly, apologized (video below) for the "staff member's tone and statements." (Anti-choice activists will not be so gracious.)









As Media Matters explains, the video making the rounds is a bit under 90 minutes, while the entire video (eventually released) shot by the Center for Medical Progress is at least two-and-a-half hours.  Only in that is Dr. Deborah Nucatella, Planned Parenthood's Staff Director for Medical Services, seen emphasizing "No. Nothing, no affiliate should be doing anything that's not like, reasonable and customary. This is not- nobody should be "selling" tissue. That's just not the goal here."

Representatives of The Center for Medical Progress posed as a fetal tissue procurement company. The Center is peddling an aborted and heavily edited short video claiming Planned Parenthood is "selling aborted baby parts."   However, federal law "prohibits the purchase of human organs, including any organs derived from a fetus, for the purposes of human transplantation. Because the fetal tissue is likely to be used for research purposes rather than be transplanted into a living human, this law most likely does not apply."

The Ninth Commandment warns "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," which

calls for sanctity of truth in all area of life, even though the vocabulary primarily reflects the legal process in Israel....

Included in the command is a call to abstain from all lying, deceit,slander, gossip, backbiting, vilification, rash depiction of one's neighbors, and the like.  Instead, one must love the truth....

The commission of the Southern Baptist Convention believes Planned Parenthood's practice is "shockingly legal."  But The Center for Medical Progress- whose website itself brazenly bears false witness- impersonates a human biologics company, secretly tapes a doctor, promotes distribution of a deceptive video, and claims that Planned Parenthood is acting illegally.  It disparages the Ninth Commandment, and the likes of Jindall, Perry, Abbot, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Speaker John Boehner happily join the crusade.






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Republican Production

In the course of slapping American policy toward Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a valid point when he noted

As Assad drops bell bombs on his own people, Israeli doctors treat his victims in our hospitals right across the fence in the Golan Heights.

As Christians in the Middle East are beheaded and their ancient communities are decimated, Israel’s Christian community is growing and thriving, the only one such community in the Middle East.

As women in the region are repressed, enslaved, and raped, women in Israel serve as chief justices, CEOs, fighter pilots, two women chief justices in a row.Well, not in a row, but in succession. That’s pretty good.

Two "not in a row, but in succession"- even the grammar was impeccable, unsurprising from someone who went to high school in the greater Philadelphia, Pa. area.

Still, the Miami Herald's Jim Morin succinctly and exquisitely captures the essence of the Netanyahu visit:

No disrespect, indeed.  Netanyahu spoke before a joint session of Congress, as American presidents do, in an effort to derail any deal between the administration of this president and Tehran, and from the same rostrum as presidents do. There, he gave a shout-out to Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the USA, as "a man who knows how to take the heat," stating "I couldn't be prouder to have you representing Israel in Washington." (By contrast, he commended US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro for "the great job you’re doing representing the United States and the State of Israel." The US and Israel?)

Yet, Netanyahu has an election to win and calculates that pressing Israel's interests (as he sees them) in such an august setting in the capital of Israel's most powerful and steadfast ally is likely to help him squeeze through.

John Boehner and his merry band of obstructionists, however, have no such excuse.Notwithstanding Netanyahu's strategic gamble and  the ironic phrase coming from the Israeli prime minister in Morin's cartoon, this nearly unprecedented event was driven not by Bibi but by House Repubs.  Tuesday afternoon, Vox's Zack Beauchamp explained

On January 8, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reached out to Ron Dermer, Israel's Ambassador to the US (and a former Republican operative), to discuss having Netanyahu speak in Congress. The Israelis and Republicans worked out the details of the event without notifying the White House, to "make sure," in Boehner's words, "that there was no interference" from the administration.

That process went on for two weeks. The afternoon of January 20, Boehner's office "informed Ambassador Dermer of our intent to issue the invitation." Dermer "accepted and acknowledged [their] intent to do so."

Sometime between then and the morning of January 21, the Speaker's office told the Obama administration of the plan. That morning, Boehner issued a formal invitation to Netanyahu. The Prime Minister accepted, and here we are.

The details of the timing are important. Dermer knew about the invitation before Obama did, and, according to Boehner's office, accepted that the invitation was coming. But Netanyahu did not formally accept until after the White House had been informed.

Evidently, this was largely a deal between the Speaker of the GOP House and Dermer, who

was widely seen in Israel as having steered Netanyahu toward showing almost overt support for Republican candidate Mitt Romney in his failed 2012 electoral bid to unseat President Barack Obama, with whom Netanyahu had had frosty ties.

Israeli media reported that Dermer, though officially welcomed by the Obama administration, had had ties with the U.S. leader’s Republican rivals.

During the campaign for the November election, Netanyahu had a high-profile meeting with Romney when he visited Israel, in contrast with past Israeli practice of avoiding publicity that may be seen as expressing support for any U.S. candidate.

The Haaretz newspaper wrote on its website that Dermer was seen as a “clear supporter of the Republican party”, whose family has had close ties with the party. State-owned Channel One television said he was seen as someone who supported Romney.

Admittedly, Bibi Netanyahu was, and is, more than a pawn.  Nonetheless, this whole escapade has been a political gambit spawned by two GOP heavy hitters (approved by the P.M.)  more interested in political advantage than in heading off acquisition of a nuclear weapon by Iran.  In approximately two weeks Israeli voters will have an opportunity to prove they won't be played.

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Ignorance Is Bliss, Or At Least Convenient

In May, House Majority Leader John Boehner was asked by  a reporter "Are there steps you would support to take action against climate change, and do you think it's a problem?" Boehner stated "Listen, I'm not qualified to debate the science over climate change" before he explained that we shouldn't do anything about it.

Queried the same month about climate change, fraudster Rick Scott, en route to being re-elected governor of Florida, said "I'm not a scientist." Twice.  On her way in October to being elected to the U.S. Senate, ultra-right winger Jodi Ernst of Iowa maintained “I don’t know the science behind climate change. I can’t say one way or another what is the direct impact, whether it’s man-made or not."

Asked at an interview on October 2 about climate change, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell responded "We can debate this forever.   George Will had a column in the last year or so pointing out that in the 70s, we were concerned the ice age was coming. I'm not a scientist. I'm interested in protecting Kentucky's economy." The same month, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal at a breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor was asked by Howard Fineman about climate change and responded "I’d leave it to the scientists to decide how much, what it means, and what the consequences are…. Let the scientists debate and figure that out."

You might notice a pattern here.  While a few concede the existence of climate change (but generally claiming ignorance of its cause) and some deny it, Boehner, Scott, McConnell, and Jindal are among those Republicans who have gotten the memo and now skirt the issue of global warming by denying they are scientists.

They may even have noticed another pattern, though few Republicans will acknowledge it.   Meteorologist Eric Holthaus reports that we of the planet recently have experienced the warmest April on record, the warmest May on record, the warmest June on record, and the warmest September on record. Not surprisingly, then, April to September was the warmest six-month  period  and November, 2013-October, 2014 the warmest twelve-month period on record.  Moreover, these trends occurred in the absence of an El Nino, whose arrival tends to result in record-setting warmth because it warms the Pacific Ocean, the world's largest ocean (image below, from NASA, of October climate anomaly vs. 1951-1986).

Six months ago, Holthaus noted human beings "started burning fossil fuels in large quantities about 250 years ago." Yet, there has "been more greenhouse gas emissions in the last 40 years than over the previous 200" years..    That's a pattern even more disturbing than grown men and women putting their hands over their ears, closing their eyes and minds, and doing whatever they have to to pretend they aren't marching to the tune of the fossil fuel industry.

The possibilities are endless. Pressed on their view of agricultural subsidies for the genetically modified crops of corn and soy, Republicans can say "I'm not a farmer."  On cutting taxes for the wealthy, they can claim "I'm not an economist."  On requiring businesses to provide health care coverage that covers the cost of contraceptives for employees, GOP politicians can maintain "I'm not a doctor."  And on the great issues of war and peace, they can admit "I'm not a general," a claim that would have the added benefit of suggesting only effete liberals believe in civilian control of the military.

Without their input, it would be one small step for ignorance, one giant leap for effective government.



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Nothing New Under The Sun. Or With McCain.

Give a Republican some credit. The ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, has remarked

I regret the situation in Iraq has devolved to where it is and the many decisions and circumstances that have led us to this point. While I support the administration's short-term actions to respond to the current crisis, I expect them to lay out in the coming days the objectives they hope to achieve and the related time frame.

President Obama ought to offer the nation a forthright explanation of our objectives.  Certainly, he hopes- and expects- the military involvement in Iraq he recently announced to be of limited duration or, as the Tennessee Repub put it, "related time frame."

But two other Republicans have reacted as one would expect.  House Speaker John Boehner, with neither a clue nor a guiding principle, remarked "The president’s authorization of airstrikes is appropriate, but like many Americans, I am dismayed by the ongoing absence of a strategy for countering the grave threat ISIS poses to the region.”

John McCain, always with more principle than common sense, has commented to The Daily Beast of the smart bombs dropped on ISIS convoys approaching the capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan

This is a pinprick... it’s almost worse than nothing because I fear the president is threatening and then he won’t follow through....It’s the weakest possible response and we cannot allow them to take Erbil. What [the administration has] done so far is almost meaningless.

McCain, who advocates more airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and arming the Kurdistan resistance, added "We are paying the price for inaction and we are paying the price for withdrawal.  [Doing more] would contradict some of the fundamentals of [Obama’s] national security policy. But it’s just tragic.”

It is indeed tragic that the Arizona Senator is still beating that dead horse, still evidently unaware that we are not paying the price for withdrawal but for the initial invasion of Iraq- and despite conventional wisdom, for the surge that McCain loves more than life itself.

The primary challenge to the Beltway wisdom that the Surge was a success has been from a few foreign policy experts who argue the Anbar Awakening was more instrumental in reducing the level of violence in Iraq.  However, last month Adam Barr explained

It cannot be denied that the surge and Anbar Awakening were successful in decreasing the levels of violence in Iraq, both against Iraqi citizens and coalition forces. However, I will show that the surge and the U.S. sponsoring of the SOI in the Anbar Awakening held only short-term benefits for Iraq that paved the way for U.S. withdrawal. These short-term benefits of violence reduction came at the cost of long-term stability in Iraq after the U.S. forces withdrew, due to the bottom-up approach that the surge and Awakening took, which was “adopted for near-term advantage by a frustrated administration” (Simon, 2008: 58). The bottom-up strategies of the surge and Awakening fostered the retribalisation of Iraq, undermining the authority of the central government and the cohesion of the country; encouraged the growth of warlordism – especially amongst the Sunni tribes; and failed to address the driving forces behind much of the sectarian violence, instead providing a short-term ‘band aid’ approach to the problem. Moreover, the U.S. failed to use its leverage against the Maliki government to pursue a top-down approach to stabilising the country in the long-term, which should have focused on repatriating the Sunnis back into the political process at an earlier date and brokered a more sustainable power sharing agreement. By addressing these issues, it is apparent that when it withdraws from Iraq, the

“United States will be leaving a country more divided than the one it invaded – thanks to a strategy that has systematically nourished domestic rivalries in order to maintain an illusory short-term stability” (Simon, 2008: 70).

And so it goes. Notwithstanding the apparent departure of al-Maliki (photo below from AFP/Getty via Foreign Policy blog The Cable), the situation in Iraq likely will remain unstable through the next presidential election. There will be no avoiding the issue for either side and it is no more likely the GOP presidential candidate or congressional candidates will blandly refer to "circumstances" than the Republican Party will assume blame for lighting the fire itself in Iraq.

Bob Corker's statement is an outlier. Complexity is as foreign concept to its side as the nation of Iraq itself. John McCain is paving the way for Republican candidates in at lest the next two election cycles to pound on the themes of premature withdrawal, "inaction," or "weakness," It's how they play the game, and the canard of Republican strength and Democratic weakness dies hard.

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Maybe All McCain Needs Is A Good Meal

Senator McCain must get on a plane.  Restaurant week  is still going on in Los Angeles. But if he can't get away before the 27th, he still has time to catch New York City's restaurant week, which extends to August 15. No doubt in the Big Apple, by far the largest city in the country, exciting, and even exquisite, culinary options are available.

But as expensive as New York- or at least Manhattan- is, McCain may want to wait until August 13 and get in on Denver's restaurant week.  Then he can hop a plane and go to Stamford, Connecticut, which is celebrating restaurant week from August 18 to September 2.

This all sounds silly but Senator McCain really, really is anxious to go somewhere special for dinner. Politico reports

Sen. John McCain turned amateur psychologist on Wednesday and diagnosed President Barack Obama with a lack of desire to “social interface” with people and with “self-pity.”

“The self-pity that Obama continues to exhibit is really kind of sad, really,” McCain said on Wednesday during Fox News’ “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.”

McCain’s comments came in response to a comment from Obama at a California fundraiser that suggested that the GOP is not “loyal and rational.”

“You know, I can’t work with him at all,” McCain said. “When is the last time he really called leaders of both parties together over at the White House, say, for a dinner, a social event.”

When asked why Obama has not sent out bipartisan invites to the White House, McCain said, “I cannot explain it except to say that he does not have this desire to have social interface with people and sit down and try to work things out.”

Senator McCain's interest in bipartisan action, however, appears not to be held by House Speaker John Boehner who, responding to the crisis of thousands of children illegally crossing the southern border, declares of President Obama's proposal  "I don't have as much optimism as I'd like to have" about action before Labor Day.

Senator McCain probably wasn't thinking about "social interface" and working things out when he referred to "a cowardly administration that failed to give the Ukrainians weapons with which to defend themselves."  Nor when he called U.S. policy in Syria an "abysmal failure and a disgraceful one."   Nor when he labeled the situation in  Iraq a "colossal failure of American security policy."

Given McCain's propensity to slam every inch of President Obama's foreign policy, his remarks about Iraq are mild, perhaps because the Senator may sense that the whole escapade has been a dismal failure.  At an event hosted yesterday by CNN and National Journal, McCain commented "I think I would have challenged the evidence with more scrutiny. I hope that I would have been able to see through the evidence that was presented at the time... You'll find this surprising but I think I would have been more reluctant to commit American troops."  That's at least halfway to an admission of mistake.

Such introspection, however, doesn't reveal to McCain that much of the testosterone-infused commentary about Iraq amounts to a classic case of sunk cost fallacy.   Neither does it deter Senator McCain from attributing Obama's approach to Iraq as infused with "self-pity."

"Self-pity" is the biggest crime in GOP-land.    Many Repubs live by the credo of never admit error. Never admit uncertainty. Never admit weakness.  Do not contemplate; do what feels right.  If President Obama were even more bipartisan (cartoons below by, respectively, Joel Pett of the Lexington Herald Leader, Steve Sack of the Star Tribune and Ben Sargent ), it would be perceived as even greater weakness. then the Republican Party would be really annoyed.

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Or She Can Have Boehner And McConnell Over For A Barbecue

You're forgiven if sometimes you think "is she serious?" But then you remember that Hillary Clinton (in all likelihood) is running for President, and it begins to make sense. Sort of.  The Wall Street Journal online edition notes that, at "an event in Colorado" last week.

Partisanship in the 1990s was as grave as it is today, she suggested at the Colorado event. Nevertheless, Mr. Clinton made inroads with hostile Republican lawmakers, Mrs. Clinton said.

"My husband had some really serious problems with the Congress when he was in office," she said. "They shut down the government twice. They impeached him once. So it was not the most pleasant of atmospheres. But I will say this: Bill never stopped reaching out to them."

Building those relationships on Capitol Hill "is something there is no rest from," she added.

Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Obama has "worked so hard and reached out so often, and it gets discouraging because you don't feel like you're getting much back." She added: "I don't think you can ever stop. And I think that's part of whoever the next president is just has to be ready to do."

While at the State Department, she found money in the budget to offer visiting diplomats tea, cookies and coffee in hopes of forging personal ties, she added in her remarks in Colorado.

There is little likelihood that John Boehner, who has announced his intention of getting the U.S. House of Representatives to sue President Obama, would have been satisfied with tea and cookies. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who once maintained "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," can get all the coffee he needs or wants from any Starbucks store in the District, or even in Kentucky.

 Even President Obama now indirectly concedes he had been a little naive, stating at a campaign event in May "I hear folks saying, 'Oh, you know, if you just play golf with [House Speaker] John Boehner more and we're just trying harder to be more bipartisan, then we'd get more stuff done,' That's not the problem."

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.  Or as the nearly-elected President Bush might have put it, "fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again." (Perhaps he was thinking about The Who's conservative song, way below. Shameless visual addition.)

 On Inauguration Day 2008, author Robert Draper (according to The Huffington Post) revealed that at a private dinner in Washington, D.C.

the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). The non-lawmakers present included Newt Gingrich, several years removed from his presidential campaign, and Frank Luntz, the long-time Republican wordsmith. Notably absent were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) -- who, Draper writes, had an acrimonious relationship with Luntz.

For several hours in the Caucus Room (a high-end D.C. establishment), the book says they plotted out ways to not just win back political power, but to also put the brakes on Obama's legislative platform.

"If you act like you're the minority, you're going to stay in the minority," Draper quotes McCarthy as saying. "We've gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign."

Let it not be said that politicians never keep their promises.  Still, Mrs. Clinton suggests that the relentless effort to block all things Obama has fostered an atmosphere no worse than that faced by President Clinton who, she neglects to mention, may have committed high crimes and misdemeanors by lying to a grand jury about periodically being involved in sex acts in the Oval Office.

But yes, Bill Clinton did enjoy "reaching out" to Republicans (video of remarks of 11-12-99 at signing of Gramm-Leach-Bliley, below).  Last October, Ryan Chittum, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, explained

Clinton installed Robert Rubin and Larry Summers in the Treasury, which resulted in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which officially did in Glass-Steagall and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which left the derivatives market a laissez-faire Wild West (not to mention a disastrous strong dollar policy that was a critical and underrated factor in the bubble). He also reappointed Ayn Rand-acolyte Alan Greenspan, who has as much responsibility as anyone for creating the crisis, as Fed chairman—twice.

Now it’s true that Clinton faced an extremely hostile Republican Congress for the last six years of his presidency. But his administration actively encouraged the big deregulatory legislation, and squashed its own dissenters, like Brooksley Born, who saw disaster ahead.

Clinton would have you believe that he signed those bills because his administration was forced to by a GOP that was beholden as usual to Big Business, but then what about the deregulatory legislation he signed in 1994, before Gingrich & Co. took Congress?

Riegle-Neal hasn’t got a tenth of the press that the CMFA and Gramm-Leach-Bliley have, but it was a milestone in the creation of Too Big to Fail, allowing banks to cross state lines, effectively gutting state regulation of banking. The Christian Science Monitor that year quoted a Wall Street analyst saying that, “‘It also didn’t hurt that NationsBank president Hugh McColl has a working relationship with President Clinton or that the comptroller of the currency, Eugene Ludwig, was a successful lawyer at Covington & Burling and NationsBank had been a major client.’” Hugh McColl gave us Bank of America.

From across the pond, The Independent wrote in a piece that was prescient in more ways than one:

“In effect, Congress has said let the merger mania begin. There is virtual consensus that the legislation will allow both the big US banks and their foreign rivals in America - British banks among them - to grow much bigger.

Nor was that the only thing the banks got that year. The American Banking Association wrote about Riegle-Neal, the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1994, and the Community Banking Development Act that “the 103rd will be remembered as the first Congress in recent memory to pass “clean” pro-banking legislation.”

Clinton, on signing Riegle-Neal, praised McColl and the head of Chase Manhattan, and said, ” It represents another example of our intent to reinvent Government by making it less regulatory and less overreaching and by shrinking it where it ought to be shrunk and reshaping it where it ought to be reshaped.”

Again, this was before the Republicans took over Congress.

In 1999, on signing Gramm-Leach-Bliley into law, Clinton said, “This is a day we can celebrate as an American day” and that ” the Glass-Steagall law is no longer appropriate for the economy in which we live” and “today what we are doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down these antiquated laws and granting banks significant new authority” and “This is a very good day for the United States.”

The past five-and-a-half years have been marked by a President collaborating with the opposition in ways unimaginable in a Repub administration. But at least he understands the pitfalls, and the problems his efforts have fostered.  But even with the benefit of hindsight, Hillary Clinton says "bring it on,"  as the "Ready for Hillary" movement rolls on.

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And They Believe Susan Rice Is More Of A War Criminal Than Condoleezza Rice

Rush Limbaugh sees a conspiracy. Rush Limbaugh always sees a conspiracy. It may be the Obama Administration (or "regime," as he calls it), Democrats, liberals, the media, middle class voters- often a combination- but there always is a conspiracy.

Now for Rush as for his Party, it's Benghazi.  Friday, he imagined

Now, the Drive-Bys are made up of a lot of stupid people.  And the Drive-Bys are made up of a lot of uninformed people and the Drive-Bys are made up of a lot of people with a lot of prejudice. And there are a lot of reporters who will discount Benghazi simply because of who is interested in it.  For example, Fox is interested in it and it automatically is nothing.  If I'm interested in it it doesn't rate any interest, because Fox and me, all we want is to get Obama.

The regret is they weren't able to successfully cover it up.  If anything, the Drive-By media is gnashing its teeth over the fact that the original Fox and anti-standard media version of this, my version, is the one that's real, that the regime has been lying.  They're mad that that has been learned.  So now they've gotta cover it up. So we're into the cover up of a cover-up now.  The media is not interested in the truth of this story.  They never have been.  This has been a circle the wagons event from the get-go. From the night of the Benghazi attack, this has been a circle the wagons moment.  Now they've gotta do it again.

There never has been a cover-up. On Thursday's Hardball, for instance, David Corn observed "still questions unanswered about Benghazi, about the CIA annex there" and "why more should have been done before the fact."

Now House Speaker Boehner has has announced a select committee by demanding "what else about Benghazi is the Obama administration still hiding from the American people?" It will be focused, presumably, on- as The New York Times put it- "whether the Obama administration misled Congress about how it responded to the attack and its aftermath." Twenty months later and the GOP is little concerned about how to prevent future incidents of its kind.

It's not as if the Administration is blameless over the attacks in which four Americans were killed, though if the GOP had had been as concerned about the September 11th attacks which cost nearly 3,000 American lives eleven years earlier, there might have been assumption of responsibility rather than an opportunity to gin up support for a war that cost approximately 4500 additional American lives.  But the suggestion of a talk show host that the mainstream media has ignored "Benghazi" because Fox is obsessed with it flies in the face of an investigation conducted by the media source emblematic of the tradtional media. 

In December, The New York Times published a summary of the findings of its investigation and concluded "Benghazi was not infiltrated by Al Qaeda, but nonetheless contained grave local threats to American interests. The attack does not appear to have been meticulously planned, but neither was it spontaneous or without warning signs."   "Experts" were "distracted," it found, "from more imminent threats," evidently due to "intelligence failures."

Neither the Times, then, nor other objective sources completely absolves the Obama Administration, though in the best tradition of GOP fearmongering and its efforts at ruthlessly exploiting the deaths of four Americans, the temptation to defend the President to the hilt is powerful.   In a balanced (though profanity-laced) perspective, The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur, graduate of the finest high school in the USA, maintains (video below) needed perspective.  The Obamites (Obamians?) "came in here and they fudged things a little bit and said 'yea, yea' it was just a little demonstration."  But, he notes,

They just changed net neutrality... it could effectively kill equality on the Internet; they do warrantless spying on all of us, on 3000,000,000 Americans. They do drone strikes on people they don't even know who they are.

There's a mountain of problems with the Obama Administration.  (But) this Benghazi thing.... get the f_ _ _ out of here with Benghazi.

With his acknowledgement of failings of the President, Uygur renders clear why MSNBC dropped him in favor of Obama toady Al Sharpton.  But he makes clear also that Republicans, on the radio and in Congress, will turn a blind eye to policy errors of this Administration when it's more satisfying and less filling to exaggerate and exploit.

 





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A Low Bar


Interviewed by CNN's Jake Tapper on Thursday, first he goes left:

Well, I think the principle that we don't want two classes of people in America is a principle that a lot of people agree with, not just me and not just Democrats.  But I am encouraged by, you know, what Speaker Boehner has said.  Obviously, I was encouraged by the bipartisan bill that passed out of the Senate.  I genuinely believe that Speaker Boehner and a number of House Republicans, folks like Paul Ryan, really do want to get a serious immigration reform bill done.  And keep in mind that the Senate bill and the legislation that I've supported already calls for a very long process of earning citizenship.  You had to pay fines.  You had to learn English.  You had to pay back taxes.  And you had to go to the back of the line.

And at the end of that, you could get citizenship.

Of course, that wasn't President Obama going to his left, only a reiteration of the position he generally has held. Then, however, he dribbles right, stating

If the speaker proposes something that says right away, folks aren't being deported, families aren't being separated, we're able to attract top young students to provide the skills or start businesses here and then there's a regular process of citizenship, I'm not sure how wide the divide ends up being. That's why I'd want to prejudge it.

What I'm encouraged by is the fact that that Speaker Boehner and others seem to recognize our country will be stronger if we are able to resolve this issue in a way where, you know, kids, for example, who have grown up here and for all practical purposes, are Americans but don't have the right papers are not being punished.

Except that, as the President surely understands, under the paltry standards to which Obama is holding Speaker Boehner, those "kids... who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are Americans" would not become Americans. If they don't get citizenship, creation of those "two classes of people in America" Obama claims not to want would be merely a matter of time.   As surely he understands.

That "regular path of citizenship" the President does genuinely support is, well, an already established, regular path of citizenship which even Republicans are loathe to oppose. The Washington Post reports

On Thursday, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) released a list of Republican “principles” on immigration. The statement declared that there would be “no special path” to citizenship for illegal immigrants, but that, in general, they should be allowed to “live legally and without fear” in the United States if they meet a list of tough requirements and rules.

Still, Obama says "The fact that they're for something, I think, is progress," suggesting that he wants a bill, whatever might be in it, to reach his desk.  Details optional.  Repub leaders are given the green light to continue to oppose citizenship because the President is tickled pink they are for "something."

If Speaker Boehner were hooked up to a polygraph, he would explain that "live legally and without fear" means protection from law enforcement, an arm of legal government.  Whatever pressure is placed on illegal immigrants (cartoon below from Paul M. Szep) by private sector employers is, however, off-limits from government regulation.    Legalization without citizenship: a pretty sweet deal for employers, not so much for immigrants and the American public.

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The Only Thing In The Middle Of The Road Is A Dead Armadillo

Senator Joe Biden, whose many years in Congress lent a gravitas to the charismatic, inexperienced fellow from Illinois, helped Barack Obama be elected President.  Vice-President Joe Biden, who announced his support for same-sex marriage while his wavering boss still was "evolving," helped secure the Democratic base in 2012 and pave the way for Obama's re-election.   And just as with gay marriage, Biden is attempting on immigration reform to buck up the president and move him in a more definitive direction, issuing the challenge "John Boehner, call up the bill."

At a White House question and answer session on Skype on Wednesday, Biden was asked by conservative blogger Crystal Wright, as The Blaze put it, why it is fair to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. Biden, possessed of an understanding of the language which escapes most conservatives, responded "They're not being ranted amnesty. They have to earn it. They have to go to the back of the line, pay taxes and have a background check."  Unfortunately, he added "so we don't concede it's amnesty."

"Concede" is what is generally regarded as true but which we deny, and thus sounds a heck of a lot like an admission.  It is not "amnesty," as he had pointed out, when something is asked of an individual receiving a favor. (For her part, Wright recently posted "Obama is America's first Black POTUS, may be America's Worst," which is evident on its face.  Obama is America's worst black President. And its best.)

A Melissa Mullins asked Biden
.
My ancestors escaped Ireland to escape the potato famine and from Italy to escape Mussolini’s rule. They did it legally. With the influx of immigration and the out of control deficit, what do you say to legal immigrants when they see others taking advantage of other benefits such as health care, education and tuition assistance meant for American citizens.

Biden responded

By the way, my parents, my great grandparents, my great-great grandparents came to escape the famine and they didn’t all come here legally,” Biden said. “They didn’t all come legally. So listen, the existence of the system wasn’t as nearly as truncated as it is now. A lot went to Canada. Came down. So, I’d check your ancestry to make sure they did come in legally, if that’s a concern to you...

The other piece here is that there is this misnomer that somehow, with us moving toward this immigration reform, and pathway to citizenship, that all of a sudden 11 million folks in the shadows now are going to be able to qualify for all these government programs.  They will not qualify. By the way, when they are in the system, identifiable and everyone knows they are on this pathway, it’s easier to determine they don’t qualify. It’s easier to determine they will not get the benefits.

Biden did not get to be vice-president by being stupid.  He avoided the temptation to note that illegal immigrants do receive health care and public education, as they should, lest they remain uneducated and poor on their way to an earlier death, an accurate response which might have annoyed the millions of misguided Americans who are opposed to both deportation and enabling illegal immigrants to live decently while here.

Municipal government expert Robert Longley summarizes

While illegal aliens do not enjoy all of the rights granted to citizens by the Constitution, specifically the rights to vote or possess firearms, these rights can also be denied to U.S. citizens convicted of felonies. In final analysis, the courts have ruled that, while they are within the borders of the United States, illegal aliens are granted the same fundamental, undeniable constitutional rights granted to all Americans.

The individuals uncomfortable with "rounding them up" but also hostile to rights and benefits for illegal immigrants might- unbeknownst to them- have an ally in President Obama. USA Today reported in late October that the President urged Congress to address immigration reform this year (video from an interview a month earlier) but

also made it clear that he prefers the bipartisan approach of the Democratic-controlled Senate, which passed a comprehensive package June 27 that has been languishing in the GOP-controlled House. House Democrats have offered similar legislation, but Obama added that "if House Republicans have new and different, additional ideas for how we should move forward, then we want to hear them."

The House has been working on its own series of smaller immigration-related bills but has yet to pass any.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has signaled that action on immigration is still possible, and several GOP lawmakers have indicated they are exploring approaches to addressing the legal status of the undocumented population.

Oh, sure they are.  As with Democrats, the GOP wants to increase visas and thereby the employment pool, which would drive wages down.  But that appears to be what Repubs are selling as their concession to Democrats, for whom jacking up the number of immigrants is an aim, but not the centerpiece of their legislative effort.    Make no mistake about it:  both parties see increased immigration as a social good- but Republicans would deny rights to immigrants as much as possible, creating a whole new class of the impoverished, while Democrats would provide a pathway to citizenship.

By promoting the comprehensive approach, Joe Biden is not only staking out the party's desired position as a negotiating tactic.  He's also promoting the only immigration policy which would not be a disaster for the nation





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Of Two Johns


Sometimes a centrist writes something so remarkably naive that one is moved to ask:  was he writing while under the influence? did he write during a sort of dream sequence? did a Republican break into his home, put a gun to his head, and persuade him to write such gibberish?

And so Slate's John Dickerson has an idea how to end the budget showdown.   He writes

The House would pass a “clean” debt limit increase and clean continuing resolution to keep government funded, which is what the president wants. Then there would be a side agreement cooked up by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Boehner that would include something that Republicans want. That agreement would name budget conferees to debate the big issues of spending, taxes, entitlements, and economic growth, and it would include some guarantee—probably in the form of a stick—to make sure the conferees did their work.

The pain would have to be more than just holding members’ paychecks because the stakes are higher now. Such pain mechanisms used to be considered a joke, but the no budget/no pay gimmick worked—the Senate did pass a budget after all. Sen. Rob Portman has a bill intended to end dysfunction in the budget process by steadily decreasing funding if there is no budget—a version of that scheme might be adapted to help members focus or face cuts to popular programs. Perhaps a version of that could be bolted on to this side agreement. Or, the debt limit increase could be of short duration to help focus the discussions.

You know he wrote that- I couldn't have made it up. This is worse than even setting up another supercommittee, which Dickerson acknowledges it is tantamount to. If there is agreement for a steadily decreasing funding if there is no budget, no budget would trigger no funding.  Doubtless Republicans would have a field day with that, stalling and avoiding agreement on a budget, knowing that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is slow death to programs which aid the poor, the elderly, the jobless, the middle class. Or what they call "nirvana."

Dickerson wasn't done.  He recommends a "side-agreement" to include discussion of "Medicare-means testing and changing the inflation formula for cost of living adjustments in Medicare, often referred to as chained CPI." That way, presumably, we can cut benefits across the board for the elderly (through chained CPI) while eventually turning Medicare into a welfare program by means testing. In Dickerson's dream state, Republicans surely would want to maintain a program in which the affluent pay to help out the elderly who aren't as well-off.

Obviously, making such major concessions to the GOP would validate its strong-armed tactics.  The editors of the Detroit Free Press note Republicans are

shifting their hostage-taking to the nation’s credit, saying they won’t vote to pay for what America has borrowed until they get concessions on Social Security and Medicare.

The destructive pattern is a threat to stable governance.

Actually, let’s be clear about who’s behind the blackmail here. Right now, according to many sources there are enough Republican votes to end this nonsense. But the tea party faction of the GOP has cowed its leadership. House Speaker John Boehner now says there’s no way he’ll offer or support a “clean” bill to raise the debt limit, even though he offered one last spring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Boehner also says he doesn’t have the votes to get the government back open without some changes to health reform, despite what many others seem to say.

So here we are. A week into a shutdown that is yanking billions out of the economy and threatening people’s livelihoods. A week away from the nation defaulting on its debt payments, which could trigger another economic meltdown.

In a sense, the GOP is embracing the strategy of the Confederacy: The party is willing to sink the republic to preserve its own ideology. There’s no point to government at all if it’s not going to operate. And if America doesn’t pay its bills, then it’s not an economic superpower — it’s a deadbeat. But the tea party is willing to claim victory behind either one of those outcomes.

The president isn’t negotiating, and shouldn’t.

Much has been written exploring the motives of the Repub obstructionists.  On the surface, it is about repealing the Affordable Care Act.   But House Speaker John Boehner- who holds the key to averting the crisis- seems not to be obsessed with the ACA, and almost everyone recognizes that the President is not likely to tinker with reform which has come to bear his name. But while the aim may be dismantling Obamacare, the goal may be, as the Free Press inadvertently suggested, the disembowlement of government.

There is, in fact, "no point to government at all if it's not going to operate."    While faith in government erodes with each passing day due to GOP machinations, Republicans pray the raison d'etre of the pro-government party is dealt a blow.   Support for functions of government declines (as would result with means-testing of Medicare) and social programs would be cut.  Defense programs would remain sacrosanct while a big hole is torn in the social safety net.

That may be difficult for the likes of John Dickerson to understand.  After all, he maintains that without significant concessions, "Boehner may be helpless to move his members toward a deal."   Anyone who still believes the John Boehner is "helpless" and a captive of the "Tea Party" probably believes also the Speaker's party has only the interests of the nation at heart.



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His Name Ought To Rhyme With Mum, Drum, And Ho Hum

Judging by a Politico report, President Obama is getting closer to acknowledging that the Speaker of the House is recklessly toying with the nation's economy or, as the latter would put it, "playing games" with the full faith and credit of the American economy.   We read

“The truth of the matter is there are enough Republican and Democratic votes in the House of Representatives right now to end the shutdown immediately with no partisan strings attached. The House should hold that vote today,” Obama said, daring Boehner to take action.

But, he said, Boehner hasn’t brought the clean continuing resolution to the House floor because “the doesn’t apparently want to see the government shutdown end at the moment unless he’s able to extract concessions.”

That's rather obvious, but it's the closest the President has come to calling out the leading Repub in the country.  Salon's Mugambi Jouet has gone much further, explaining

How much blame does John Boehner deserve for the shutdown of the federal government? A common narrative in recent months has been that he is a weak Speaker who has failed to rein in hard-line Republican House members, especially in the Tea Party’s ranks. Radical Congressmen make uncompromising ideological demands, the narrative goes, thereby forcing Boehner to take inflexible stances he does not really believe in, including the government shutdown. What most commentators tend to overlook is that Boehner himself has helped foment the radicalism of the modern Republican Party.

For years, he has made fiery declarations promoting the visceral animosity of numerous Republicans to the Obama administration. “Your government is disrespecting you, your family, your job, your children,” Boehner illustratively said in a 2010 speech, a year before he became Speaker of the House. “Your government is out of control. Do you have to accept it? Do you have to take it?” Boehner answered his own question: “Hell no, you don’t!”

Before the passage of the Obama administration’s health care reform in 2010, Boehner likened the law to “Armageddon,” the Biblical apocalypse, and said it was a “monstrosity” that would “ruin” America. Interviewed on 60 Minutes, he was literally moved to tears when explaining his desire that children continue to “have a shot at the American Dream” despite the menace posed by Obama’s policies (see the 6 min. mark of this video). Still in 2010, the year the GOP took back the House, Boehner warned that “we will not compromise on our principles.”  He evenexplicitly noted that he rejects the word “compromise.”

Some commentators argue that Boehner has just been pandering to the Tea Party, yet this point overlooks how he already took hard-line stances well before the Tea Party movement came into existence. Back in the 1990s, he led a drive to abolish the Department of Education and helped Newt Gingrich craft the “Contract With America.”

Boehner is among the affluent persons who have favored “winner-take-all” economic policieswhile pretending to defend working-class and middle-class Americans. He assures that he headed a “small business” prior to becoming a Congressman in 1991. His wife also stresses that the Boehners are “just normal, average people.” In reality, he made millions while running a marketing firm. As a Congressman, he distributed checks from tobacco lobbyists to fellow legislators on the floor of the House itself. Close ties to lobbyists later helped him become Speaker of the House.

While he has had a tense relationship with Tea Party-aligned Congressmen, who have accused him of being overly compromising, he largely shares their worldview, long backing the kind of radical laissez faire policies embraced by the Tea Party.

On global warming, he has echoed the scornful skepticism of scientific research that is relatively ordinary among contemporary Republicans—unlike among conservatives elsewhere in the industrialized world, many of whom identify climate change as a man-made problem. For example, he described the notion that carbon dioxide emissions are harmful to the environment as “almost comical” and emphasized that cows emit carbon dioxide too.

In other words, there are reasons to doubt the common notion that a clear dichotomy exists between Boehner and the most radical members of the House, who are mainly faulted for spurring the government shutdown. By both American historical standards and international standards, it is the modern GOP that is hard-line, not just its Tea Party faction. This peculiarity is epitomized by the adamant opposition of virtually all Republicans to universal health care, which is widely accepted by all leading right-wing parties in Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. 

It is widely understood that Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who dreams of the White House, is a dangerous radical. But with the opposing party in charge of the Senate, he was unable to get his own chamber to block a clean continuing resolution.  But John Boehner is not merely a tear-jerking, chain-smoking, human tanning bed. He has real power and is in control of one of the two chambers of Congress which, given the filibuster elsewhere, makes him the most powerful member of the United States Congress.  Whether himself an extremist or a coward unwilling to say "no" to the children in his caucus, he is the one keeping the federal government closed and jeopardizing the country's credit rating

For months, after the GOP House and the Democratic Senate each passed a budget, Democrats pleaded with House Republicans to appoint Representatives to a joint committee to reconcile the two resolutions.  The Republicans refused and now, under threat of a debt default, are demanding the Democratic Party meet their terms.  And John Boehner, interviewed Sunday by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, claims

My goal here is not to have the United States default on their debt. My goal here is to have a serious conversation about those things that are driving the deficit and driving the debt up. And the president's refusal to sit down and have a conversation about this is putting our nation at risk of default.

There is a word for this sort of effort to manipulate facts and the American people. And there is a word for people like John Boehner, one which brings to mind a classic episode of WKRP in Cincinnati.


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Give Him Hell, Harry

Friday, House Speaker John Boehner whined

This isn't some damn game. The American people don't want their government shut down and neither do I. All we're asking for is to sit down and have a discussion and to bring fairness — reopen the government and bring fairness to the American people under Obamacare. It's as simple as that. But it all has to begin with a simple discussion.

Boehner seized his opportunity when The Wall Street Journal quoted "a senior administration official" boasting "We are winning. ... It doesn't really matter to us" how long the shutdown lasts "because what matters is the end result."

This isn't some damn game.  The Speaker should have spoken to Kentucky's junior Repub Senator, Rand Paul,  who yesterday had a brief conversation with the state's senior Senator. Rand Paul was picked up on an open microphone maintaining “I think if we keep saying, ‘We wanted to defund it. We fought for that and now we’re willing to compromise on this’, I think they can’t, we’re gonna, I think, well I know we don’t want to be here, but we’re gonna win this, I think.”

There are individuals on both sides who are determined they turn a government shutdown to their political advantage.  They are, after all, called politicians and, it is said, politics ain't beanbag.

But one side, and one Party alone, turned a routine rise in the debt ceiling in 2011 into a political football in which Democrats ended up accepting budget numbers very close to the ones extremist Paul Ryan (R-WI) had proposed.  President Obama having erred by negotiating on the debt ceiling two years ago, the radicals are back.

And chief among them is John Boehner.  While Ted Cruz receives the opprobrium of the left, center, and even some Republicans for demanding the federal government cease operations unless the Affordable Care Act is crippled, Speaker Boehner has led his caucus to rejection of the clean continuing resolutions which have passed the Senate and  has chosen the debt ceiling as his target. For that, he is praised by the mainstream, many Democrats as well as the media, as a "moderate."

President Obama recognizes "the only thing that is preventing (the federal government from reopening) all that from happening right now, today, in the next five minutes is that Speaker John Boehner won't even let the bill get a yes or no vote because he doesn't want to anger the extremists in his party,"  That is self-evident.  But given the Speaker's penchant for gimmicks, Boehner had to be called out, and Harry Reid has done it.    The Senate Majority Leader reportedly privately has called Boehner a "coward," which apparently has upset the latter.  So at a press conference (video below) Friday, Reid implored the Speaker to "let the House stop these irresponsible, reckless games and just re-open the government."  He noted Boehner

single-handedly is keeping the government shut. Some recent stories have even suggested the Spaeker is keeping the government shut because I hurt his feelings. That's true. I'm sorry I hurt his feelings but we shouldn't take it out on (public employees)...

We shouldn't be dysfunctional government.  There is no reason to be except for one man. That's Speaker Boehner (who) does not have the courage to stand up to that small band of anarchists.

Sometimes the truth hurts, and this may have hurt even some liberals.  The American Prospect's Paul Waldman argues what "Reid should be doing is giving John Boehner a little space (because) right now, the country is waiting for Boehner to muster the courage to allow the clean CR, and Democrats shouldn't do anything that's bound to make him dig in his heels."

But that is a role better suited to the Compromiser-In-Chief in the White House.  And if Harry Reid's remarks are offensive to Boehner and uncomfortable for Obama, the President can tell the Speaker: "Take your pick. You can deal with me or you can deal with a real Democrat." Good cop, bad cop is a game- and that's something John Boehner relates to.

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