Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” Monday night:
O’DONNELL: What you are now witnessing is the most masterful rope-a-dope ever performed by a president against an opposition party in Congress. It began months ago… Joe Biden then lead negotiations with House Republicans about how to find a compromise position on the White House position of doing nothing but raising the debt ceiling and the Republicans position of cutting $4 trillion in spending while raising the debt ceiling. Biden and House Democrats then rope-a-doped the Republicans into weeks of discussions over trillions of dollars of spending cuts. And during that time, Democrats appeared to be increasingly willing to go along with trillions of dollars of spending cuts — possibly as much as three trillion. Then Biden and the President insisted that there be at least a trillion in tax revenue increases and Republican Eric Cantor fell for the Obama ultimatum and walked out of the talks doing exactly what the President wanted him to do because Cantor was thereby proving to the country once again that President Obama was willing to be much more flexible and reasonable in these negotiations and compromises with Republicans than Republicans were willing to be with the President. Specific policy issues aside, President Obama has already won the public contest of who appears to be more reasonable and he won that weeks ago.
And:
O’DONNELL: The more President Obama pushes for the $4 trillion package, the more Boehner retreats from it. The President is finally capitalizing on a phenomenon that has been obvious from the start of his presidency: if he is in favor of something then the Republicans are opposed — it’s as simple as that. Here is the President embracing the Republicans number so now the Republicans must be against their own number. This, THIS! is a work of strategic brilliance by the President.
Source of transcript: DailyKos
First of all, just on O’Donnell’s style: Man, I’m exhausted from watching this. Can you say, “strident?” I thought you could, except you’d say it leaning forward, widening your eyes, and then pausing for effect afterward. I burn calories just watching that guy.
Anyway.
I don’t think Obama is bluffing about anything. Why should he? He’s got the Constitution in his back pocket if he needs it. I know he enjoys playing poker but he’s equally good at games like basketball where you just put the ball directly in the basket, and golf, where you basically do the same. The sport in those two games comes with looking good while doing it.
I tried to post Keith Olbermann’s radically different take here in the comments but apparently the embed codes don’t work here — so I published the vids (yup, it’s a two-parter) as a separate post.
Olbermann is outraged, to put it mildly, that the president would use cuts to Social Security and Medicare as bargaining chits to appease tea baggers, who, of course, cannot be appeased.
I hope O’Donnell is correct that Obama was merely using the offer of program cuts as a tactic to rope-a-dope Boehner and the baggers into opposing what they claim they are for: reducing the deficit.
My sense is this is a show for independent voters, who are undoubtedly getting the message that Republicans would happily cause the U.S./world economy to fail — AGAIN — to avoid making a deal with the president. By walking away from the negotiations over the issue of cutting tax loop holes for the wealthy, they have revealed themselves (again) as unprincipled ideologues.
I tend to agree with Olbermann, and seriously doubt Obama could get the sort of program cuts to the safety net he’s talking about through the House. He’d have to make up the 218 votes from conserva-Dems and Republican members who are not tea baggers or who are not scared shitless of being primaried by a tea bagger. I doubt there are even 150 House members who fall into any of those three categories.
But, hey, not goosestepping in lockstep behind our leaders, especially when they are marching toward a cliff, is what makes us not Republicans. And this sort of dissent in the left-wing media is further proof that what MSNBC and Current do, unlike what Fox does, is not propaganda.
If Obama were looking for cuts in entitlements to please tea baggers, then yes, that would be wrong. I think he’s looking at them because he thinks there is no future for these programs without changing things about the way they pay out now. And refusing to entertain such notions is no different from the Norquististas refusing to think about changes in the tax code – ever. I can’t watch Olbermann after already watching O’Donnell because my faux outrage quota has been exceeded. You’ll just have to tell what he said.
But as strident as O’Donnell was, he supported what the president is doing. Olbermann does not.
Sure, we need entitlement reform, but not done sloppily as a sop to tea baggers. Tossing ideas against the wall to see what sticks has about a zero chance of working out.
The reason a lot of pundits think this is all a dodge is because the president does not have the votes in the House to pass whatever it is he has proposed. As I said above, the math does not work, especially now that he’s pissed off the House leadership, liberal caucus and rank and file by throwing them under the bus.
So you really think Obama is going for the tea bagger vote? Seriously? Like Obama thinks if he just cuts Medicare the tea party will forgive him for not being born here, being black, having the middle name “Hussein,” and whatever else they hate him for?
Yes, he put Social Security cuts on the table as an enticement to get tea baggers in the House to vote for the debt ceiling deal. But, no, of course he’s not thinking that he himself would ever get tea baggers to vote for him in the general election.
But if Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow were correct in their analyses last night, McConnell and Boehner have folded, which means Obama’s ploy of dangling Social Security cuts as tea bagger bait worked. Boehner couldn’t get the baggers to go along with raising taxes — which was the trade off for the entitlement cuts — so he and the Turtle capitulated.
The only thing I can think of that is less likely than individual tea baggers voting for Obama because he is willing to make Social Security needs-based is the idea of the group of tea baggers that got into Congress last year supporting raising the debt ceiling because Obama is willing to make Social Security needs-based.
Actually, there is one thing even less likely: the idea that Obama himself could think this.
All due respect to O’Donnell, Maddow, Olbermann, and the rest BUT it’s just possible that what Obama is putting forward is based not on cynical political calculation (or in this case, wildly unrealistic cynical political calculation) but because he really thinks this is the way the country needs to go. Face it, it’s just barely possible that Obama is right and it’s hard to abandon your position when you’re just flat right.
P.S. There’s an ad at the bottom of this page that says, “Stand with Ron Paul: Click here to prevent a Debt Ceiling Betrayal. Paid for by the Ron Paul Presidential Campaign Committee.” Oh yeah, those tea baggers are this close to rolling over on their stand not to pay more taxes.
Right, but the bargaining position Obama put them in was, I’m willing to take the heat from my base by betraying Social Security, if you tea baggers will agree to raise taxes. You say you’re all about cutting spending and cutting the deficit, so, fine, I’ll let you cut these programs now so that people in the fifties today will be eating cat food in 15 years — if you will agree to kill the loop holes on corporate jets, end the Bush tax cuts and the rest. The tea baggers, predictably, would not go for it.
Sorry, but reforming entitlements should not be done as part of a hostage deal. Obama did not go into these negotiations saying that he planned to put entitlement reform into the mix. He said he wanted a clean bill, like the other 73 of these things have been. Entitlement reform was tossed on the table at the 11th hour as a negotiating tactic.
Entitlement reform was tossed on the table by Republicans who said the only tool in their trickbag to make them vote to raise the debt ceiling was cutting spending. Obama, as the leader of the whole country and not just the sane portions, was faced with the task of trying to work out a compromise. So after they said, “We will only vote your way if you cut spending,” he said, “I will only cut spending if you raise taxes.” And so forth, to and fro. It’s how we arrive at legislation. I know you know this.
I’m pretty sure it was the White House, not Boehner, that proposed the “grand bargain” of trading entitlement cuts for tax hikes. The White House started the negotiations wanting a clean bill. Biden and the gang of whatever negotiated a $2 trillion package that was 85 percent cuts and 15 percent revenue, then the grand bargain of $4 trillion was proposed. Now it appears that it’s all going to shake out as a clean bill.
Stop what you’re doing and read this brilliant piece by the always brilliant Joy-Ann Reid: http://blog.reidreport.com/2011/07/the-gop-putting-a-brave-sneering-face-on-debt-ceiling-capitulation/#more-25666
I especially liked this part, which Jonathan Chait also highlighted today:
Chait responded: “You’re dealing with Cantor! Does Obama want Boehner to assert himself? Does he want Cantor to officially depose Boehner? Is he genuinely confused about what’s going on here?”
What I think it means is that a) John Boehner Is Bad at His Job and b) he’s in deep shit with Cantor and the baggers who have hijacked the GOP House caucus.
Yes, that was Joy-Ann’s favorite part as well. Here’s what she tweeted about it yesterday:
TheReidReport Joy Reid
If you missed this Wapo story: washingtonpost.com/business/econo… read it, if only for the Obama to Cantor “am I dealing with you or the speaker?” moment.
Other gems:
TheReidReport Joy Reid
I am, frankly, puzzled by the liberal despair in the face of near total GOP collapse/capitulation on the #debtceiling, #p2fail
And:
TheReidReport Joy Reid
Dear #emoprogs: if President Obama was down for cutting entitlements and not raising taxes on the rich, THERE WOULD ALREADY BE A DEAL.
Come to think of it, you can have O’Donnell and Olbermann but leave me The Reid Report.
Okay, but O’Donnell pretty much agrees with you and Joy Ann, especially, “if President Obama was down for cutting entitlements and not raising taxes on the rich, THERE WOULD ALREADY BE A DEAL.” He sees the political maneuvering from the perspective of his former position as chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, not to mention his job as a writer/consultant for “The West Wing.” But he has not been critical of the president.
It’s Olbermann, all the Democrats in the House and me who are saying, “Hands off Social Security and Medicare, Mr. President. Don’t even go there.”
O’Donnell, like Chris Matthews, worked on the Hill and no how ‘the game’ is played. They watch it the way a former boxer commenting on a fight on HBO. Olbermann, Maddow, and Shultz -all of whom never were in DC and don’t know the game, analyze the situation the way you analyze a baseball game from the top bleachers.
Anyway, Obama pretty much has to do nothing and the GOP will eat itself. The few who remain on July 30th will scramble to make a deal with Obama – any deal.