On Intransigence

This is what I have been saying: tea party totally screwed the pooch on the debt deal. I doubt they'll be in such a strong position again soon. Sometimes you've got to know when to take the win.

"In conversation, I argued that the tea party too often mistakes a combative posture with standing on principle. A polite fiscal conservative like Mitch Daniels is considered a squish for suggesting atemporary, tactical truce on social issues. Jon Huntsman is totally dismissed by the conservative movement for a tweeted zing aimed at the base, despite a very conservative governing record. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich adeptly throws out red meat and is accordingly presumed a staunch defender of conservative principles, despite years of glaring unprincipled behavior.Perhaps the GOP's unmitigated combativeness and obstruction these last two years will end in a victory in the upcoming election. Especially if it doesn't, Republicans will have to confront the opportunity cost of the path they've chosen. I am not talking about the good of the country. Set that aside for the time being. What I'm saying is that Obama would've traded major concessions for GOP support on his health care bill, he would've cut a deal that reduced the deficit with significantly more spending cuts than tax increases, and he might've even cut a deal on entitlements.
But the GOP didn't want to compromise.
Thus, the status quo today is marginally worse by their lights than it might've been. And it isn't clear that their intransigence has improved Mitt Romney's electoral chances. He wasn't in Congress casting votes. And Obama's reelection chances hinge on the economy more than anything. Republican members of Congress aren't stupid. They've chosen this tactic because the base loves their intransigence and refusal to compromise. The c-word is thought by the rank and file to mean "selling out one's principles," rather than "reaching a mutually beneficial trade that needn't violate anyone's core principles." But if Republicans are ever going to govern successfully, advancing their agenda in any circumstance save the right-wing fantasy of a unified, permanent conservative majority in the White House and Congress, they'll have to compromise.
That means distinguishing between the bad and good kinds of compromise. It means that the tea party must keep encouraging its representatives to stick to principle, but that it must also pressure them to successfully execute the sort of trades that good negotiators leverage, when there's an incentive. It means measuring "conservative victories" by policy advances rather than news cycles or even elections. It means maturing enough to do what works instead of what feels good."

 

           -GOP Intransigence: Wise or Foolish? - Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic - NationalJournal.com

opining

 

The front page of the New YorkTimes yesterday announced President Obama’s recess appointment of Richard Cordray and three others as “a provocative opening salvo in Mr. Obama’s re-election strategy of demonizing Congress”. While this move will certainly draw the wrath of congressional republicans, and indeed already has, to describe it chiefly as a campaign stunt seems to somewhat miss the point.

I cannot help but wonder why, in the midst of a severe and ongoing economic crisis, the much-needed appointment of a director for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should be seen as a solely political move-- particularly when both sides of the aisle have admitted to the qualifications of the appointee in question.

While republicans may quibble about the procedure used, the fact is that the president has taken an important step in the right direction. That the CPB needed a director has been obvious for months. The president has already spoken eloquently on our country’s need for the CPB. Appointing a qualified and respected person to do the job doesn’t seem like reckless partisanship or electioneering to me. It looks like governance. 

I like it, and I’d like to see more of it.

Does he or doesn't he?

    There has been a lot of coverage of the Herman Cain sexual harassment charges. Really, a lot. The story seemed to overshadow important elections happening in Mississippi, Iowa and elsewhere last evening as well as the Occupy movement and all the rest. In fact, there seemed to be nobody other than Herman Cain on tv yesterday. We saw Herman Cain discuss the allegations (in the third person no less) and pundits cable-wide were caught up discussing not so much the did he or didn’t he but the will he or won’t he? Will his poll numbers go down because of this? Won’t he have to drop out of the race if women keep coming forward with these types of claims? (So far, the answer seems to be no).

   There are even polls about whether people believe the allegations, which I find a bit unsettling. There are also articles analyzing the breakdowns of those numbers across demographic lines. I may be a bit burnt out on this story, but at least it’s getting the serious media attention that it deserves.

    Except that it isn’t.

    For all the airtime and newsprint spent on the allegations against Herman Cain, the most serious question is not being asked. Aside from ‘did he or didn’t he?’ the question that remains to be asked is ‘does he or doesn’t he’? Does Herman Cain understand that sexual harassing one’s employees is completely unacceptable, that these allegations are extremely serious and, if true, reflect poorly on his character? The answer seems to be no.
    Judging by the way Cain has laughed off these charges—not just denying them but joking about them—I am forced to conclude that he does not. His defiant attitude says, to me at least, not “I’m innocent” but “so what?” This is extremely troubling. That the front runner for the Republican Presidential nomination seems to see sexual harassment as a laughing matter is something we should be discussing.

    Cain has blamed Rick Perry, the Democrats and the media for what he sees as a witch hunt. Why he thinks this issue wouldn’t have come up in the course of a presidential campaign is really beyond me. It’s not as if a democrat would have gotten a free pass on this issue either. He seems to truly believe that this is not something he should be called to account for, which I take issue with. Anyone who believes he is well within his rights to abuse his authority that way, anyone who would joke about a female lawyer that there is “not a thing I would hire her for” – and not because she is professionally incompetent—is not someone who is worthy of the title of President of the United States.

    It seems like this story is going to be with us for quite some time. We might as well talk about the reasons why it matters.

the (s)hit list

Things that are rocking my world this week:

    -The Decemberists Tiny Desk Concert

    -Niall Ferguson's awesome mini-history lesson for TED (the accent is an added bonus)

Things I could probably do without:

    -Looming grad school deadlines (November sort of snuck up on me this year...)

   -My looming existential crisis (You try staring 25 in the face in 2011)

And then there is the impossible to classify, unending Jobs Act/Debt Ceiling debacle, which is neither awesome (the proper adjective is a bit more colorful) nor easily disregarded.  Watching Eric Cantor cheerfully leading this particular parade of legislative dysfunction makes me mildly nauseous. With a look at some of the riders republicans have tacked on to the Labor HHS Edu approps bill (the usual attempts to deny women control over their own bodies, to mandate abstinence education and to de-fund NPR-- source of my world-rockingly awesome tiny desk podcasts), I have come to a startling conclusion.

The Republican leadership are total geniuses.

Evil geniuses, maybe, but brilliant all the same**. Conservatives have spent years fighting hard against any and all taxes, on the assumption that taxes are a waste of money and that what they procure us is less valuable than what we would otherwise purchase for ourselves. Now, as most people enjoy the things that our tax dollars provide (schools, firefighters, safety at home and abroad, technological advances, national parks, Social Security to keep our old folks out of extreme poverty, Sesame street... stuff like that) and would never be able to buy that stuff on their own anyway, this was a battle they were generally loosing (please see the early 90s, when taxes were up but america rocked).

So, and this is the brilliant part, the republicans have decided to MAKE this true. Rather than proving our tax dollars are wasted, they are going to systematically stop the government from providing all the good things, the services and the safety nets, that we generally get as a return on the taxes we pay. Think about it. What are republicans demanding and where does that leave us if they get it.

NPR? gone. Social Security? Cut to shreds. Oh, and lets not build any bridges or anything either.

When we finally get where the right is leading us, our government will build nothing, support nothing and help no one. Then, at long last, conservatives will be correct on the tax issue. That money is wasted which does nothing to help our country and our citizens. But so long as we continue to run schools and lay train tracks and provide much needed assistance to the poor and the sick, I will continue to pay my taxes. (Not that I have any income to tax right now anyway, but you know...)

(**note: to our more sensitive readers -- if we have any-- I don't really think all repubs are evil. I just enjoy the turn of phrase. I'll blame it on all the comics adapted for tv I've been watching lately)

update: bill fails

sad day friends, the jobs bill I was talking up yesterday apparently failed in the senate thereby crushing my dreams. just another day in our nations sadly divided capitol.

 

from the WaPo: "Obama's revised plan failed on a 50-50 test vote that fell well short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster. Three Democrats abandoned Obama on the vote and two more who voted with the president said they couldn't support the underlying Obama plan unless it's changed."

 

full story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/senate-rejects-slimmed-down-obama-jobs-bill-aimed-at-teachers-and-first-responders/2011/10/20/gIQASEgv1L_story.html

 

lest I leave you in a sad place at the start of the weekend, however, NYMag brings us this fantastic, giggle inducing republican debate (what, they had another one?) recap. Thank you, Michelle Bachman's stylist is really all i can say. Read it at http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/10/cnn_debate_summary.html