John Boehner's growing Tea Party headache

By R.K. Barry

There were a number of stories over the past few days about how disappointed various Tea Party factions were in the Republican leadership for the budget deal negotiated with the devil himself, a.k.a. the President of the United States.

Not to get into a big thing about "who won" the budget negotiations, or how much money is really being cut, because that's being covered by a lot of people - as interesting a discussion as it is.

What amazed me was the attitude of some of the Tea Party spokesmen. Not that I'm in the habit of feeling sorry for Speaker Boehner, but he does find himself riding quite the beast.

My favourite comment came from someone by the name of Doug Mainwaring, a "real estate agent and local conservative activist from Bethesda, Maryland." Mr. Mainwaring opined that "I'm not sure they (the GOP) have the political willpower to accept the mandate that was handed them by the Tea Party last November."

Elections are won for all kinds of reasons, usually with votes by majorities cobbled together from all sorts of voting blocs, so for the Tea Party to actually think they fully and completely call the tune for the Republicans is, well, just a lot of fun to watch. To put a fine point on it: successful political parties have to keep all manner of constituencies happy and pandering to the loudest to the exclusion of the others is a clear way to lose the next election.

The best part, as the Huffington Post reported, was that:

The budget deal passed the House by a comfortable margin, by a vote of 260 to 167. A total of 59 Republicans voted against the deal, but according to ABC's Jon Karl, only 27 of those no votes came from freshman House Republicans, who comprise the bulk of the conference's Tea Party component.

It seems that even those politicians most closely aligned with the Tea Party have no idea from whom they are supposed to be taking their marching orders. Mostly it seems that the Tea Party is really just a bunch of people who find themselves in front of a camera or talking to a reporter when the media need someone from the radical right to express the appropriate amount of indignation at any given moment in time.

That's hardly any way to run a political party and John Boehner knows it.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost)

A failure of leadership: Jonathan Chait and Paul Krugman on Obama, the budget, and the government shutdown that never was

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I haven't written much on the budget/shutdown, mainly because I just haven't had much to say. I never thought a shutdown was likely. Boehner was certainly facing enormous pressure from the right, but most Republicans understood that a shutdown would hurt them politically (if not the country generally), and it was inevitable that a Democratic Party that fears confrontation and that is, for better or worse, all about compromise, would give in. And that's just what happened.

So who won? -- a question Jon Stewart amusingly looked into last night. Well, the Republicans, perhaps, as they came away with fairly significant concessions from the Democrats (even if this was just about domestic discretionary spending), but many on the right aren't happy, whether over the continued funding for Planned Parenthood or over the fact that spending wasn't cut even more -- and while Boehner emerges intact, it's not clear how long he'll be able to hold off the Tea Party. But I'm not really sure the Democrats lost. A shutdown would have been bad for everyone, and so avoiding a shutdown without giving up too much is a sort of "win" for them, as long as they can take the fight to the budget battle still to come and thence into 2012.

And Obama? For a president who is all about compromise, yet another compromise is also a win, and he'll now be able to position himself to secure even greater support from independents when the time comes. He stepped in when he needed to, acted like the mature adult in a world of petulant children, and, however this may irritate progressives (myself included), accepted a deal that will benefit him politically at the expense of fighting the Republicans' disastrous agenda.

That's just the way I see it. I'm not saying I like it.

And the big political problem, it seems to me, is that, once again, Democrats just caved without much of a fight at all, even a symbolic one, except over Planned Parenthood (which, to be fair, is worth fighting for, but it's not the be-all and end-all of federal budget issues), allowing Republicans to secure the upper hand, and a fairly significant "win," despite the fact (forgotten by the media, it seems) that they're still the minority party (controlling the House but not the Senate or the White House) -- even after last November's "shellacking." At TNR yesterday, Jon Chait offered a number of reasons for why this happened. Yes, Democrats are generally more conciliatory (to their credit, perhaps, if not so much in the crucible of legislative politics), and, yes, the issue generally favours Republicans (who can spin their economic and fiscal agenda as "small government" (and who likes taxes? who likes government (until you realize what it does for you)?). But this, to me, is the most convincing explanation:

Republicans were able to credibly threaten a shutdown of the government. That willingness to impose harm on the entire country if they didn’t get a sufficiently friendly outcome proved to be powerful bargaining leverage, moving the goalposts progressively closer to them.

In other words, Republicans are just tougher negotiators, willing to push the country to the brink, or at least to bluff that way, to get their way. It's a game of chicken, and Republicans know that Democrats swerve first. Of course, Democrats should have known better. They should have called that bluff and challenged Republicans to shut down the government. Sure, the government may then have been shut down, but wouldn't Democrats then have "won" politically? At the very least, they would have had a strong case to take to the American people.

But, no. Not this time. Not ever, it seems.

And it doesn't help that Obama himself wasn't really up for a fight. As Paul Krugman writes:

What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn't seem to stand for anything in particular?

I realize that with hostile Republicans controlling the House, there's not much Mr. Obama can get done in the way of concrete policy. Arguably, all he has left is the bully pulpit. But he isn't even using that -- or, rather, he's using it to reinforce his enemies' narrative.

His remarks after last week's budget deal were a case in point.

Maybe that terrible deal, in which Republicans ended up getting more than their opening bid, was the best he could achieve -- although it looks from here as if the president's idea of how to bargain is to start by negotiating with himself, making pre-emptive concessions, then pursue a second round of negotiation with the G.O.P., leading to further concessions.

And bear in mind that this was just the first of several chances for Republicans to hold the budget hostage and threaten a government shutdown; by caving in so completely on the first round, Mr. Obama set a baseline for even bigger concessions over the next few months. 

I still think Obama succeeded politically, continuing to set himself up nicely for re-election next year. But Krugman is right that he weakened himself and his party over the long run, essentially giving Republicans still more confidence that they can they way, or at least a great deal of their way, just by controlling the House.

It will take more time to sort out who "won" and who "lost" this shutdown battle, but with an absence of principled, determined leadership in the White House, the losers ultimately are the American people, who need something other than the Republican agenda and who have a president who is apparently unwilling to fight for anything at all.

Words to live by, words to regret

By Carl 

Obama: 'Inexcusable' not to reach budget deal:

"At a time when the economy is still coming out of an extraordinarily deep recession, it would be inexcusable -- given the relatively narrow differences when it comes to numbers between the two parties -- that we can't get this done," Obama said last night at the White House.

Obama has played this budget debacle exactly right, in my opinion, and it's paying huge dividends for Democrats across the nation. He has come off as statesman-like and put no political capital on the line here.

Conservative pundits have been screeching like seagulls about how Obama needs to be more involved, how it's wrong of him to go off to fundraisers for 2012 while the nation faces a crisis, yaddayaddayadda.

First, one wonders where these asshats were during the 6 1/2 years that Bush spent down in Crawford through things like Katrina, but I digress.

The Constitution is pretty clear about the delineation of budget responsibilities: it falls to Congress. What the conservative tactics tell me is, Pelosi and Reid have been playing hardball, drawing lines in the sand and refusing to commit to anything beyond them.

Those lines must be pretty fair ones, too, for moderates or we'd hear a lot of complaining about how entrenched the Dems are being, how special interests are playing fast and loose with the budget and so on. As well, we'd hear that the sides are very far apart. Obama has made a particular point of noting the narrow gap between the two sides.

Clearly, conservatives feel they can get a better deal from Obama. To his credit, he's refused to upend his Congressional leadership.

Contrast Obama with this: 

Boehner 'No daylight' between tea party and me:

"Listen, there's no daylight between the tea party and me," the Ohio Republican said in an interview with ABC News conducted Wednesday.

"None," he said, when questioner George Stephanopoulos pushed back. "What they want is, they want us to cut spending. They want us to deal with this crushing debt that's going to crush the future for our kids and grandkids. There's no daylight there."

I'm grinning as I write this. Boehner is from Ohio. Ohio is a battleground state. While Boehner can slather his district with pork to ensure his re-election, the one thing he cannot do is persuade people that insane folks are sane.

His seat is officially up for grabs now. By marrying himself to the Teabaggers, he will now make the Speaker of the House of Representatives officially responsible for every hate-mongering sign, every slanderous blogpost, each and every outrageous stunt the Teabaggers pull, in and out of Washington, D.C.

There's eighteen months. That's practically an eternity in national politics nowadays. He's hitched his wagon to a failing star whose light is dimming after the supernova of 2010. The Koch brothers' money is running out, or else Glenn Beck would still have his job at FOX and Wisconsin would still be electing Republicans.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Elephant Dung #23: The Tea Party threatens John Boehner

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.) 

Jon Chait had a post the other day arguing that John Boehner has no choice, if he knows what's good for him, but to shut down the government.

Basically, Boehner is in a tough spot. (No, don't feel sorry for him. It's what he gets for being where he is.) He has to try to appeal to independents and moderates if he wants to maintain/maximize the GOP's electoral prospects for 2012, which means compromising with Democrats on the budget, but he also has to try to appeal to the Tea Party wing of the GOP, a significant part of its right-wing base, if he wants to avoid a full-scale rebellion against his leadership (which could also harm the party's electoral prospects), which means refusing to compromise and allowing for a government shutdown:

What is the downside to a shutdown? Republicans get less popular, have a lower chance to win the presidency in 2012, and maybe a higher chance of losing the House as well. What is the downside to cutting a deal? GOP backbenchers revolt against Boehner and depose him as Speaker of the House.

If I'm Boehner, I'm more worried about the guns pointed at my back then the guns pointed at my face. A shutdown increases the small chance that he goes from Speaker to Minority Leader in 2013, but a deal increases the chance that he goes from Speaker to (R-OH) in 2011. The right-wingers do not trust Boehner, and he has very little slack. He also lived through a series of purges and attempted purges in the late 1990s, always taking the form of purists complaining that the leadership had gone soft.

Boehner's top priority is probably staving off internal revolt. That means shutting down the government.

In other words, if he puts his own personal/political self-interest first, he'll appease the Tea Party. That may be so, and he may well do that, but the question isn't just what Boehner will do but what the Tea Party will do to him. And it may not matter what he does -- or, at least, what he does just may not be good enough. The Tea Party already has a bull's-eye on his head:

The tea partyers who helped drive GOP gains in the last election are rallying in the city they love to hate Thursday, urging Republican House leaders – Speaker John Boehner above all – to resist the drive toward compromise in the protracted fight over the federal budget. Even, they say, if that means Congress fails to do its most important job: pay for the government.

And if Boehner opts instead to agree to a deal with President Barack Obama?

"You're going to see massive amounts of (GOP) primaries" in next year's election, said Mark Meckler of the Tea Party Patriots. If the Ohio Republican strikes a budget deal that doesn't cut spending enough, Meckler said Wednesday, "he is going to face a primary challenge."

Boehner, like the rest of the party leadership, has been appeasing the Tea Party all along. But he's also, to his credit, something of a realist in terms of what is and is not doable in Congress:

"We control one half of one third of the government here in Washington," Boehner told reporters at his weekly briefing. "We can't impose our will on the Senate. All we can do is to fight for all of the spending cuts that we can get an agreement to."

He's right, but that isn't going to cut it with the Tea Party. The threats may be enough to keep Boehner from compromising too easily, but compromise he must if he is to avoid a repeat of the Gingrich fiasco of the '90s, when Republicans shut down the government, took most of the blame, and paid for it at the polls. All of this proves once again that the purists in the Tea Party have no clue about governance and are holding the GOP, and its leaders, to impossible standards. And, ultimately, the party will pay for it.

What the Teabaggers think they can gain from this isn't clear, but it seems that they'd rather be "right" (in their own minds) than win. So far, since the emergence of the Tea Party as a major force, Republicans have been more than willing to kowtow to its demands. Indeed, the GOP has fully embraced the Tea Party, and the two have more or less merged into one (though, of course, the Tea Party has always been heavily Republican and decidedly right-wing in its ideology). But how long will that last? At what point will Republicans, who, after all, have elections to win if they actually want to accomplish anything significant, shed this albatross that is clearly bringing them down? 

It may not happen soon, not with all the mutual co-opting that has taken place so far and will the enormous enthusiasm the Teabaggers have brought to the GOP, stirring up a party that seemed catatonic after the '08 election. The Tea Party is just too influential a part of the GOP right now, and that isn't about to change. But I'm just not sure the relationship is tenable, not with the Tea Party threatening any Republican who deviates even slightly from its right-wing orthodoxy, even solid conservatives like Orrin Hatch and successful leaders like John Boehner.

It would probably take another massive defeat or two for Republicans to get the message and run the other way, but, with the party purging itself of insufficiently conservative members and the Tea Party leading primary challenges against those who deviate from its extremism, it is likely that the GOP will nominate more and more unelectable candidates, increasing the likelihood of just such a defeat.

Not that I object to the GOP nominating unelectable candidates. I'm all for it! So let's all enjoy this while we can.

To support the military intervention in Libya or not?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm not sure what to do about Libya. I'm generally a liberal interventionist, though less of one after the Iraq War, and I do think that some humanitarian crises demand military action. But is the situation in Libya a humanitarian crisis? Or is there otherwise a good reason to intervene? Do we intervene just because we don't like Qaddafi? Or because he's an easier target than other dictators? And if in Libya, why not elsewhere -- say, in Bahrain, or North Korea?

Questions, questions, questions. As Fred Kaplan asked (and as I blogged about last week):

What is the desired goal of this action? Is it to pressure Qaddafi to stand down? Is it to provide air cover to the rebels, so they can fight Qaddafi's ground forces on more equal footing? Whatever the goal, if the no-fly zone doesn't get us there, should we try other means? And if not, why not? As Clausewitz wrote, war is politics by other means. War is fought for a political objective. If that objective is important enough to justify one form of military intervention, why not another form? What is the goal? How far are you willing to go to accomplish the goal? How important is the goal?

Is there even a goal, or we just taking this one step at a time? With Iraq and Afghanistan fresh in our memories (and with the latter war still ongoing, and not well), should we not have a better sense of what the hell we're doing? And of what the cost is going to be, or, rather, of what cost we can expect, both in human and monetary terms? (What can we expect? What are we willing to put up with?)

Regardless, I do generally support the current military effort, not least because it is not a unilateral effort but an international one with the British and French taking lead roles. The Iraq War in particular soured our appreciation for military intervention of any kind, and perhaps rightly so, but ask yourself this: Do you not want Qaddafi removed from power? Do you not think we should be not just expressing our support for the Libyan opposition but, given that Qaddafi has the power to crush it but actively supporting its efforts? Sure, there is inconsistency here. Again, we're intervening in Libya but not in North Korea, a far more horrendous state. But there will never be consistency. Almost by definition, military intervention must be ad hoc. And not intervening in North Korea, or even in Bahrain, does not mean that all intervention is thereby illegitimate.

But now let me disagree with myself. Will any good actually come of this intervention? Perhaps not, given how messy the situation is. As Josh Marshall writes, making a strong case against intervention:

No clear national or even humanitarian interest for military intervention. Intervening well past the point where our intervention can have a decisive effect. And finally, intervening under circumstances in which the reviled autocrat seems to hold the strategic initiative against us. This all strikes me as a very bad footing to go in on.

And this doesn't even get us to this being the third concurrent war in a Muslim nation and the second in an Arab one. Or the fact that the controversial baggage from those two wars we carry into this one, taking ownership of it, introducing a layer of 'The West versus lands of Islam' drama to this basically domestic situation and giving Qaddafi himself or perhaps one of his sons the ability to actually start mobilization some public or international opinion against us.

I just don't know. Even if the intentions are good, there is just so much that could go badly here. And yet, isn't that always the risk? Given our bipolar partisan political culture, we're all expected to pick a side. I'm just not sure I can. I'm for doing something, and something relatively aggressive, but I'm just not sure this is it.

I'm sorry I'm not more decisive, but it concerns me that people are being decisive without any good reason to be other than ideological inclination or pure partisanship.

But if the intervention in Libya may well be a no-win situation, what is clear is that for Obama it doesn't matter what he does, he will be severely criticized. Politically, it's an almost absolute no-win situation for him, and the only way he comes out of it looking good is it the intervention somehow succeeds without much consequential damage, which seems unlikely. The allies may be targeting Qaddafi and his forces, but at home it's Obama who's the target, and he's taking it from all sides:

-- On the left, Ralph Nader thinks Obama should be impeached for war crimes. In the House, Democrats are questioning the legality of the attacks. Dennis Kucinich is even talking impeachment.

-- On the right, John McCain, to whom the media always turn on military matters (because he apparently still has credibility), supports Obama (more or less) but thinks he waited too long to act. Richard Lugar, a devout realist, thinks we could be in for endless humanitarian war. And John Boehner wants Obama to explain U.S. objectives more clearly.

Actually, let me quote Boehner:

Before any further military commitments are made, the administration must do a better job of communicating to the American people and to Congress about our mission in Libya and how it will be achieved.

You know what? That makes sense. I'm usually extremely critical of Boehner (and of the party he leads), but Obama should indeed explain himself, and this action, to the American people. After Iraq and Afghanistan, if not generally, they deserve no less.

And it would help because while the intervention isn't unilateral, and while British and French leadership gives the U.S. some cover, the action isn't going over all that well in the Arab world:

The Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa, deplored the broad scope of the U.S.-European bombing campaign in Libya and said Sunday that he would call a league meeting to reconsider Arab approval of the Western military intervention.

The last thing the U.S. needs is opposition from Arab and other Muslim states. The intervention must be seen, and must be, not just a U.S.-European effort to remove an undesirable leader but a broad international effort to support an oppressed people. Even if the allies don't have ulterior motives (oil, for example), the perception of a Western attack on yet another Muslim state, and an attempt to control that state, must be avoided. And it's understandable why many in the Muslim world might perceive this to be precisely that.

Obama has explained himself, but not sufficiently. And that, in part, is why I'm still on the fence, and I suspect why many others are as well. Yes, the U.S. was right to intervene in Bosnia and Kosovo. Yes, it is shameful that the international community ignored Rwanda. Yes, there is good reason to seek Qaddafi's ouster and to free Libya from the shackles of tyranny. But... but... but... we're living in the shadow of the misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we're right to be skeptical.

Needless to say, now that it's started I hope the intervention goes well. But we need a much clearer sense of the objectives than we have now, and we need to know how far our leaders are willing to do. Until then, we must remain vigilant in our criticism.

Elephant Dung #19: The Tea Party prefers Charlie Sheen to John Boehner

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

Poor Johnny B.

Try as he might, he just can't win -- that is, win over the Tea Party that is now so much an integral part of the GOP. And the radical rightists are placing him squarely in Palin's crosshairs:

A national tea party group is in revolt against House Speaker John Boehner and wants to see him defeated in a 2012 primary, arguing that he looks "like a fool" in the debate over spending cuts and makes less sense than actor Charlie Sheen.

"You look like a fool," Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips wrote in a post on the group's website, directing his message at the Ohio Republican. "Charlie Sheen is now making more sense than John Boehner."

Ouch. That's like saying you have less musical talent than J-Lo. (Yes, American Idol reference. I went there. I'm not watching this year -- why, without Simon? -- but I did catch her new video on last night's show. "This is the worst song ever," said The Reactionette. Hyperbole, to be sure, but only slight. "That was terrible. Just awful." Agreed.)

Boehner "did not get the message" from the tea party movement demanding big cuts to federal spending, Phillips said, and "the honeymoon is over." The movement should respond, he said, by finding "a candidate to run against John Boehner in 2012 and should set as a goal, to defeat in a primary, the sitting Speaker of the House of Representatives."

Right, because Boehner is all-powerful and can therefore make it all happen, even with a Democratic Senate and president. Not that I wish to defend him, but he's reasonable and sane compared to the Tea Party, which largely sits on the sidelines spouting ideological extremism, and attacking sinners while seeking to cleanse the Republican Party of the ideologically inadequate, while legislators like Boehner are forced to work within the parameters of a democratically-elected legislature, that is, to seek compromise to get anything done.

The Tea Party completely misunderstood last year's midterm election results, just as it misunderstands politics generally, and expected right-wing revolution right away. But revolution was never to be, and not just because of Boehner. It's not just extremism but delusional ignorance that drives the Tea Party.

The Republican right, the party's new mainstream, has taken over. It's pulling the party further and further to the right, away from its former establishment, and it's purging the party ranks of those who aren't sufficiently right-wing, who aren't ideologically acceptable to the new Bolsheviks. Among its many targets are some of the most reputable members of the party, including those with long careers advancing conservative causes, like Orrin Hatch and Richard Lugar. We can now add Boehner to the list, a long-time loyal partisan who's been speaker for just two months.

And Democrats, of course, are salivating.

Will Republicans actually listen to the American people and scrap their right-wing agenda?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

John Boehner, Sunday, February 13: "[I]t's not my job to tell the American people what to think. Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people."

The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, March 2:

Less than a quarter of Americans support making significant cuts to Social Security or Medicare to tackle the country's mounting deficit, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll...

In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was "unacceptable'' to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security "unacceptable."

The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, March 2:

Americans strongly oppose efforts to strip unionized government workers of their rights to collectively bargain, even as they want public employees to contribute more money to their retirement and health-care benefits, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows.

Eliminating collective bargaining rights for public-sector workers over health care, pensions or other benefits would be either "mostly unacceptable" or "totally unacceptable," 62% of those surveyed said. Only 33% support such limits.

It's not my job to tell you what to make of these two polls, nor what to make of Republican efforts to cut entitlement programs and eliminate collective bargaining rights, nor what to make of the Republicans' claim that, coming out of the 2010 midterm elections, they have a mandate to implement their right-wing agenda.

You can draw your own conclusions.

I'm just sayin'.

Boener blinks

By Carl 

Well, well, well... suddenly the Teabag has lost its flavor...

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told a convention of religious broadcasters in Nashville on Sunday evening that a federal government shutdown was not appropriate and not what the electorate wanted.
His remarks were the latest sign that congressional leaders were backing away from the brink of a shutdown.

"Americans want the government to stay open, and they want it to spend less money," Boehner said. "We don't need to shut down the government to accomplish that. We just need to do what the American people are asking of us."

In other words, it's business as usual. That's going to piss off the Teabaggers mightily, many of whom believe the only way to restore sanity to the budget process is to shut the thing down.

The Republicans are in a tough spot, to be sure. This is a giant game of Steal The Bacon, and Obama and the Democrats know all they have to do is prevent the Republicans from bringing the pork back to their side and the game is won. In other words, the Republicans will have to make a proposal that truly makes the necessary cuts to the budget to bring some form of fiscal stability back. Obama's budget proposal was nothing but a gauntlet thrown down.

In order to truly reduce the size of government, three things have to happen. Unfortunately, all three of those things are guaranteed...well, two are. One is unproven... to stifle any economic recovery:

1. Defense spending has to be cut. Unfortunately, defense spending is the one guaranteed job creating program for the district in which the contract is awarded, including the contract for the F-35 engine, the biggest boondoggle in the current developing Pentagon arsenal, and oh by the way, built in Boener's home state of Ohio!
2. Social Security and Medicare have to be reined in somehow. Now, you can't cut current spending. Remember all those elderly Teabaggers with their "keep your government hands off my Medicare" signs? You can cap the cost of living adjustments (COLAs) by faking a zero inflation number, which is accomplished by using core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, which are "too volatile" to be useful. Are you kidding me? In a day and age when stock traders have software that can suss out microscopic inefficiencies and exploit them for millions in profits, we can't find someone to write a fractal-based program that can include the two biggests costs to an American family?
3. Taxes must be raised. Now, no one is going to propose this without a healthy dose of political cover, because the Teabaggers will flip out, and you know what that means: no more GOP.

Of those three items, only taxes has been unproven to have much direct impact on economic growth. Indeed, one can make the case, as I often have, that the Clinton tax hike on the rich, while lowering taxes on the working and middle classes, actually created robust and exuberant economic growth that was struggling to even begin to break thru when he took office.

Defense spending and social programs that funnel money directly to taxpayers are vital cogs in the economic activity of this nation. Some defense spending clearly can be cut. The F-35 is an example of a program that no one, not even the Pentagon, really wants and is make-work to bolster the bottom lines of the Carlyle Group and Pratt & Whitney. Still, even these are minimal compared to what would happen to deficits should the economy make a startling comeback in the next few years.

It's hard to believe that, just ten years ago, we were running budget surpluses that would pay down the national debt eventually, only to have Republicans decide that deficits don't matter and that matter belongs in the pockets of Americans.

Well, it never made it there, did it?

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

How stupid do you have to be?

By Carl 

Michelle Bachmann stupid, apparently... 

Michele Bachmann won't say whether she thinks President Obama is a citizen and a Christian.

"Well, that isn't for me to state," the conservative Minnesota House Republican said today on ABC's Good Morning America. "That's for the president to state."

Obama and aides have repeatedly said the president was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, and is a Christian.

"We should take the president at his word," Bachmann said, but she declined to weigh in herself, even when pressed by GMA host George Stephanopoulos. 

Look, Mickey... I should take you at your word that you're a woman, but you know, maybe you need to offer up proof? I challenge you to appear naked on the next talk show (that's not on FOX, because I'd like to be able to tune in).

Even John Boehner, who gave a particularly clumsy answer when David Gregory pressed him this past Sunday on a similar topic (i.e., repudiating rank-and-file Republicans of this mistaken belief), was able to say he took the president at his word. 

David, it's not my job to tell the American people what to think. Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people. Having said that, the state of Hawaii has said that he was born there. That's good enough for me. The president says he's a Christian. I accept him at his word. 

See, Mickey? Even a klutz like Bonehead can be just a little flat, rather than a half-octave off!

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

If you lose your job, John Boehner might just tell you to go fuck yourself

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You may lose your job, but John Boehner doesn't give a shit:

If House Republicans succeed in cutting tens of billions of dollars in discretionary spending over the next six months, some of the most immediate victims will be federal employees, many of whose jobs will be slashed as their agencies pare back.

At a press conference in the lobby of RNC headquarters Tuesday morning, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) shrugged this off as collateral damage.

"In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs," Boehner said. "If some of those jobs are lost so be it. We're broke." 

As Brian Beutler notes, "Boehner didn't cite a source for the claim that Obama had added 200,000 employees to the federal payroll. And he said he didn't have an estimate of how many jobs would be lost as a result of the GOP cuts." In other words, he doesn't really know anything, he was just talking out of his ass.

But there's nothing funny about people losing their jobs, and Boehner's lack of concern, his utter disregard for real people dealing with real problems, is appalling.

As Steve Benen notes, even with all the talk right now about jobs and unemployment, Boehner "by his own admission, prefers a budget plan that would make unemployment worse, on purpose." He "intends to force thousands of teachers, police officers, medical professionals, and food inspectors from their jobs, and... said he doesn't much care." 

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2011 Republican Party!

Long live Birtherism!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As Politico reports, Birtherism, the claim that President Obama was not born in the U.S. and is therefore in office illegitimately, is alive and well all across the country:

The opening of 2011 state legislative sessions has been accompanied by a spate of birther-related bills, the clearest indication yet that the controversy surrounding President Barack Obama's place of birth will continue to simmer throughout his reelection campaign.

Lawmakers in at least 10 states have introduced bills requiring presidential candidates to provide some form of proof that they are natural-born citizens, a ballot qualification rule designed to address widespread rumors on the right that Obama was not born in the United States.

On the face, this is basically meaningless. For Birther legislation to have been introduced in 10 states, all you need is 10 crazy right-wing conspiracy-mongering Republican legislators. And ridiculous legislation pops up all the time -- like, for example, proposing that South Carolina should have its own currency.

Certainly some such legislation could pass in a crazy Republican-dominated state -- like, for example, South Carolina -- but the bigger problem is that Birtherism has essentially become pretty standard fare in the GOP, even as its leadership sends mixed signals about it, as is the equally ridiculous claim that Obama is a Muslim. (He's not. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Unless you're a Republican, in which case you probably think there is.)

Take how John Boehner shuffled his way through some admirably tough questioning on Meet the Press on Sunday:

GREGORY: Do you not think it's your responsibility to stand up to that kind of ignorance?

BOEHNER: David, it's not my job to tell the American people what to think. Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people. Having said that, the state of Hawaii has said that he was born there. That's good enough for me. The president says he's a Christian. I accept him at his word.

GREGORY: But isn't that a little bit fast and loose? I mean, you are the leader in Congress and you are not standing up to obvious facts and saying these are facts, and if you don't believe that it's nonsense?

BOEHNER: I just outlined the facts as I understand them. I believe that the president is a citizen. I believe the president is a Christian, I'll take him at his word.

GREGORY: But that kind of ignorance over whether he's a Muslim doesn't concern you?

BOEHNER: Listen, the American people have the right to think what they want to think. I can't -- it's not my job to tell them.

GREGORY: Why isn't it your job to stand up and say, no, the facts are these? Didn't John McCain do that in --

BOEHNER: I just --

GREGORY: When you're saying "it's good enough for me," are you really standing up and saying, for those that believe that, or who would talk about that -- you had a member of Congress, you had a new Tea Party freshman, who was out just yesterday speaking to conservatives and he said, "I'm fortunate enough to be an American citizen by birth and I do have a birth certificate to prove it." That was Raul Labrador, a new Congressman from Idaho. Is that an appropriate way for your members to speak?

BOEHNER: The gentleman was trying to be funny, I would imagine, but remember something  -- it really is not our job to tell the American people what to believe and what do think. There's a lot of information out there, people read a lot of things, but I --

GREGORY: You shouldn't stand up to misinformation or stereotypes?

BOEHNER: I've made clear what I believe the facts are.

Well, maybe, but of course he wants to have it both ways. Boehner obviously knows -- not just believes -- that Obama was born in the U.S. and is a Christian -- but also realizes that he can't dismiss the anti-Obama movement in his own party, given how prevalent it is in the base. And so he hedges: He takes Obama at his word, but, hey, maybe Obama's word shouldn't be taken. He believes he knows the facts, but he could be wrong. In other words, he's covering both sides of his ass, talking bullshit to make it seem as if he's the sane leader of an insane party while refusing to say anything definitive, anything that might upset the Birthers and Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim crazies. Indeed, far from condemning them, he's actually legitimizing them, and their views, by refusing to take a stand for the obvious truth. (Yes, they have a right to their views, but that doesn't mean all views are equally legitimate or that you can't criticize any views at all.)

And don't even get me started on that whole "we're here to listen to the American people, not tell them what to think" stupidity. Please. That's pure dishonesty, and, lamely defending himself on national TV, a ridiculous cop-out. If that's what he thinks political leadership is, or leadership of any kind, he should resign immediately. But not before voting to un-repeal the Affordable Care Act, which even around the elections last November, when Republicans took back the House, had the support of a majority of the American people.

Are you listening, Speaker Boehner? Stop the insanity.

(Although, come to think of it, I'm fine with the Republicans embracing all the insanity they can handle. And if that includes more and more Birtherism, hey, why not? The Democrats, including the president himself, just look better and better by comparison as Republicans move further to the right and further into the clutches of demented and deeply bigoted conspiracy theories.)

Elephant Dung #16: House Republicans face internal turmoil

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

Poor Republicans. Poor, poor Republicans.

It looked like they were doing so well in 2010, propagandizing against health-care reform and otherwise lying to stir up their base, with the media eagerly repeating their talking points, obstructing anything and everything the Democrats proposed, using the filibuster in the Senate to block any number of Democratic initiatives, and capitalizing on angry Tea Party sentiment to whip up electoral success. Their poll numbers rose, they crested into the midterms, and they gave Obama and the Democrats a shellacking, slashing the Democrats' majority in the Senate and winning back the House with overwhelming force. Obama was down, the Democrats were in a state of apparent disarray, and the Republicans were back, baby!

Or not.

Lame-duckery notwithstanding, Congress used its time after the elections to put a cherry on top of Obama's first two years in office, repealing DADT, ratifying New START, and giving the Democrats hope that all was not lost.

Maybe it wasn't the Republicans' time after all. Maybe it was all something of an illusion, their success having more to do with a terrible economy and low voter turnout than anything else.

And then there was the question of what they would do back in power in the House. Obstruction would still be the name of the game in Congress, thanks to Mitch McConnell et al., and there would be overreach by over-eager Republicans looking to paralyze Congress through hearings and investigations to score political points, but with the Tea Party emerging as a major force in the Republican Party, and with Teabaggers and those sympathetic to them heading off to Washington, it was probably inevitable that the cracks in the GOP would deepen, dividing the party and threatening even the limited power it could wield in Congress. 

Yes, of course, House Republicans voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a meaningless vote, but since then things haven't exactly gone smoothly: 

Under pressure to make deeper spending cuts and blindsided by embarrassing floor defeats, House Republican leaders are quickly discovering the limits of control over their ideologically driven and independent-minded new majority.

For the second consecutive day, House Republicans on Wednesday lost a floor vote due to a mini-revolt, this time over a plan to demand a repayment from the United Nations. Earlier in the day, members of the party’s conservative bloc used a closed-door party meeting to push the leadership to go well beyond its plans to trim about $40 billion from domestic spending and foreign aid this year, demanding $100 billion or more.

The spending rebellion came after the House on Tuesday rejected what was expected to be a routine temporary extension of anti-terrorism Patriot Act provisions when Democrats and about two dozen conservative Republicans balked at a fast-track procedure. Republicans, still searching for their footing after assuming control in January, were also forced to pull a trade assistance bill from the floor after conservatives raised objections. They found themselves mediating other internal fights as well.

Speaker John A. Boehner conceded that the fledgling majority was encountering turbulence. "We have been in the majority four weeks," Mr. Boehner said. "We are not going to be perfect every day."

There's your understatement of the day. 

Now, Washington has a way of corrupting everyone who steps foot in it, and it's likely that some of these supposedly principled conservatives, many of them Teabaggers of some variety, will ultimately cave. They may want to stand for their extremist right-wing ideals, but such extremism generally doesn't go over well in Congress, not least when you have to compromise to get anything done and when you have to bring home some bacon to win re-election votes.

But what these two votes tell me is that the Tea Party is very much for real not just as a loosely coordinated "movement" at the grassroots level but within the Republican Party in Washington.

The fraying of party unity, if not of a scale or intensity that imperils Mr. Boehner's ability to advance the main elements of his agenda, nonetheless stood in sharp contrast to the record of Republicans in remaining remarkably united against President Obama and the Democrats over the past two years. The infighting foreshadowed potential difficulties for Republicans in holding their troops together for clashes with the White House and the Democratically controlled Senate as well as their ability to corral reluctant Republicans to vote to increase the federal debt limit.

Yes, Republicans like order and stability and are awfully good at being a united front against Democrats, but how long will that last in the current Congress, what with the competing priorities of the leadership, the more conservative (and rigidly ideological) rank and file (including the new Teabaggers), and renegades looking to advance various personal interests, with Obama rising again in the polls and looking extremely strong (along with a strengthening economy), and with Republicans already at each other's throats in anticipation of 2012?

This series -- Elephant Dung -- is about highlighting the divisions within the Republican Party. Much of the time, the divisions are personal, with one leading figure attacking another (often Sarah Palin), but what these latest developments in the House show is that the divisions are also political and ideological, with the various constituencies of the party, usually at peace with one another, eagerly vying for supremacy in the wake of the party's reacquisition of power (at least in the House). There have been such divisions before, there always are to some degree, but what makes their emergence more threatening this time is the rise of the Tea Party, which came out of 2010 with a sense of arrogant righteousness that makes it feel entitled to get its way and therefore not to have to compromise not just with Democrats but even with other elements of its own party, the GOP, mostly notably the less rigidly ideological establishment represented by the likes of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. 

And I think we ain't seen nothin' yet.

Glenn Beck is crazy, but he's one of the Democrats' best friends

By R.K. Barry

I usually get home around six and almost immediately turn on MSNBC and pretty much keep it on as background noise through most of the evening. If you watch MSNBC with any regularity, you will know that show after show presents the day's political events from a relatively mild liberal-left perspective – at least from my point of view. 

Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, etc. are on the roster. If there is one thing I wish they would do it's compare notes a little bit better because it seems that night after night they all cover pretty much the same stuff. Now, I know when world-changing events such as are happening in Egypt occur, it's impossible for any political pundit to refrain from commenting and that's fine.

But last week, on one given night, every single show did a little rant on Glenn Beck's recent fearmongering, conspiracy-theory claim that the events in Egypt are prelude to a generalized takeover by Muslim extremists in all parts of the Middle East as well as Europe and, who knows, even perhaps the United States. His claim is typically supported by an argument that radical socialists and communists will make common cause with radical Muslims because, as he argues, they have a common enemy – capitalism and freedom-loving people everywhere.

Having said all of that, I must also quickly say that I don't give a fuck what Glenn Beck thinks, though apparently a lot of people who reject his views still seem pretty focused on them.

What I struggle with is the extent to which I should pay any attention to this fool at all. More often than I can say I have either written or otherwise commented that I no longer want to write about or think about Glenn Beck. But here I am again.

When his lies and idiotic theories put the life of a hard-working, civic-minded, academic in jeopardy, simply because she is on the left, in the same way that a lot of us are, we have to call him out. This is just dangerous nonsense and we have to address it. I am of course referring to what he has been doing to City University of New York professor Frances Fox Piven, which you can read more about here.

But typically what he goes on about is so stupid and without any intellectual value that I want to ignore it. Then I think about the impact that he and Rush Limbaugh and others on the radical right are having on our national debate and have to rethink my willingness to call it fringe behavior unworthy of attention.

We do notice that Republican politicians are loathe to criticize Beck and Limbaugh and others, knowing that, if they do, those who watch such programming and are influenced by it are highly motivated and inclined to punish at the polls anyone who attempts to challenge the passionately held, albeit nutty, views espoused by these guys.

And this is the point. Right-wing extremism in the media, through the power of a focused and unrelenting message and the reach of media conglomerates, has by now a pretty good track record of motivating a significant segment of the conservative base to influence nominations and general elections. But as we also know, the outcome has not always been a happy one for the conservative side.

The reason for their mixed success is that so much of politics, especially in nomination contests, happens at the margins. Nomination contests are frequently about motivating true believers to care about yet another layer of political contest, which is where extremism can flourish.

This is why we end up with incompetent and unsuccessful candidates like former Republican Senate nominees Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. This is why Sarah Palin can say any number of really stupid things and the Republican establishment has to pick its spots very carefully if it wants to criticize her. Establishment Republican candidates don't want to piss off those who are likely to be motivated enough to get involved in nomination battles, either as activists or voters. I don't know what percentage of the Republican base this characterizes. I don't know what percentage would be unhappy hearing their media heroes criticized by potential Republican candidates. Is it 5%, 10%, 15%? Whatever it is, it would be a big number in politics.

In politics, highly engaged voters at the margins are key. You need to keep them motivated, whether that motivation is about anger or about hope for a new future. They have a disproportionately important role to play in determining who gets to run in the general election. 

So, yes, I do resolve to pay limited attention to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and the other right-wing crazies on the merits of their arguments, which, frankly, have no merit. But we should have no doubt that they are masters at stoking a certain kind of American political paranoia that has been with us for a long time, and let us at least give them their due for that.

A lot of people are saying that Beck has jumped the shark with his latest ramblings about Egypt. Maybe. For me, he's jumped so many sharks I've stopped counting.

I do think, however, that there is a bad moon rising for the Republicans as we head towards the 2012 elections, based on the dynamic put in play by the radical right and their cheerleaders on national television and radio.

Weak Republican candidates will continue to get nominated based in part on the passion of those on the margins who are driven by Beck and company. Republican presidential nominees will have to play to this constituency if they hope to secure the nomination, which almost surely guarantees their failure in the general election. There just aren't that many crazy people out there.

So there, I've talking myself into a changed position. Let's keep on talking about Glenn Beck. Let's help get his audience all excited and out of control. It can only help remind the sane part of the American electorate that they are not like Beck and those who take him seriously, that they are better than that.

I guess I also think that MSNBC should continue to go for it when it comes to Beck. But don't just do it in that way that you usually do, by mugging for the camera as he says one silly thing after another. That is just not that useful. No, I would challenge every responsible media outlet to ask every credible Republican nominee for office if they will disavow the crap spewed by Beck and Limbaugh. Force them to try to play the fringe of their own party against its vital center and then wish them good luck with that.

It's a little bit like House Speaker John Boehner being unwilling to criticize birthers in his own caucus.

Let us resolve, then, to make every Republican candidate wear the foolishness coming out of all those televisions and radios as Democrats march on to success in 2012. Seems like a plan.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

Republicans should man up and back stiffer gun laws

By Nicholas Wilbur

Bang. Bang. Bang.

That's the sound of Democratic Party leaders smashing their heads against the wall after House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that, in light of the Tucson shooting of 20 people, including a member of his own branch of Congress, he will not be supporting any bill that would expand federal gun regulations.

The doomed fate of any gun-restriction bill is as disappointing as it is expected.

Disappointing because a recent poll shows that more Americans support increased gun restrictions, and because authorities in Tucson say the gun used in the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) – a 9-mm semi-automatic Glock with a 31-round clip – would have been illegal six years ago under President Clinton's assault weapons ban of 1994.

Expected because the power of the gun lobby in Washington, combined with historic GOP backlash against any legislation that smells of Second Amendment infringement, effectively killed any Democratic hopes of reauthorizing the ban in 2008, four years after the bill's 10-year sunset clause expired.

Faced with a Republican-controlled and Tea Party-influenced House of Representatives, Democrats have resorted to tepidly backing a Republican-proposed and severely gutted version of the 1994 bill: a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines, or clips.

The argument for such a ban is simple but not overwhelmingly popular: nobody but a mass murderer hoping to gun down a parking lot full of civilians needs 31 bullets in a semi-automatic weapon for protection, Democrats say. While true, this argument hasn't convinced opponents, and it won't get legislation passed.

The Democrats' idealism is noble, and their efforts might be regarded as irreproachable if it weren't for the constraints of political pragmatism and the Speaker's perfunctory refusal to even entertain such an idea.

Rest assured, Democrats. There is another way.

When Republicans spin the rhetoric surrounding a controversial issue, it's called "framing the argument." When Democrats do it, it has no name because they don't have much of a track record of ever having effectively done it. Now is their chance.

Republicans love their country. They love their Constitution. They love their guns. And they love to entertain thoughts that one day they will be able exercise their patriotism and give their double-action Smith & Wesson some real action and defend of their homeland against Commie terrorists who want to invade their homes and burn the Stars and Stripes swaying in the Midwestern winds on their lawn.

This is fine. These beliefs are admirable. But what ever happened to excellence, discipline, and self-responsibility, the core values of American conservatism?

Republicans, of all people, should be the last to lean on the government in order to uphold a law that allows 31 rounds in the clip of a semi-automatic weapon. To rely on government bailouts for this kind of social assistance is antithetical to the most basic tenets of conservatism, and it should be utterly insulting to the true patriots of this country to ask the government to essentially subsidize ­– via legalization – the unskilled and un-sharp-shooting of those who claim to stand for individual liberties in the ongoing battle against socialism, treason, and terrorism.

Republicans are not lazy, deranged, sissy stoners who require 31 rounds of ammunition to protect themselves, their families, their country.

Republicans are masterful marksmen – whether in war, in politics, or in defending property lines – who can etch themselves into the history books of American Independence with a single shot (or possibly two, for those who hold the double-tap method of execution in high esteem).

It's time Republicans put an end to the excessive government handouts that serve no other purpose than to give unqualified, unskilled, undisciplined, and generally unexceptional Americans an undeserved sense of machismo. It's time they back a law that separates the boys from the men. It's time these faux Republicans MAN UP and start proving their patriotism.

(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)