The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Which shell is it the pea is under?

    By Flavius on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 10:30pm |

    Over at Brad Delong's he was dispairing about Obama's  economic comments at todays press conference.

    Not so much his readers - or me-.

    Zach said...

    On Obama's rhetoric .............................................. the White House has already recognized that any compromise package is going to fail in the House on its first vote (between those who've lined up against any debt ceiling increase on principle and Democrats who won't sign onto any compromise that'll please Eric Cantor). Remember TARP? Same thing. The markets will plunge, a lot of money will be burned up for no reason, people will call their representatives, and we'll get a new vote with token changes that'll pass the next day. If no actual compromise is possible, the best place to be in is being the one who was looking for a compromise. ...........................................

    and

    Ebenezer Scrooge said...

    Obama's reasoning, I think, goes like this:
    - First, burnish your reputation as a man of reason, which is pretty good to start with.
    - Second, make sure the Republicans look as crazy as possible.
    - Third, act like you really don't care about the outcome................................................I think it is good reasoning, for a conventional game of chicken. It explains everything that Brad doesn't like about Obama's statements.

     Flavius says

    Me too.If as per Zach.

    ........................................... the White House has already recognized that any compromise package is going to fail in the House

     

    And if you need to improve your standing with Independents then as per Ebenezer you need to make .......

    the Republicans look as crazy as possible

     

    That's my view of today's press conference. Nothing to do with what Obama really thinks, everything to do with immunizing himself against the panic in the streets when we reach the magic cut off date in early August and still do not have agreement to raise the debt limit.

    Comments

    Boehner complains Obama is burying our kids in debt. This from the top House leader of the Republican Party.  The Republicans, who put thousands of young Americans deep underground.  Sent to their deaths for partisan political reasons to win the War President's re-election, in 'wars of choice' sold on blatant fabrications. They didn't even allow photographs of the caskets coming back home.

    A GOP administration that watched thousands of Americans being burned and atomized by hijacked aircraft and did nothing.  While, meanwhile, Bush/Cheney in an act of prescience or enormous coincidence, started taking anti-anthrax CIPRO on 9/11, before the last burn victim died and before the final body count had come in, and a week before the first anthrax letter was mailed in mid-September 2001. 

    Of course the anthrax in the capital mail was blamed on Saddam and ginned up the nation for war. They also said Saddam was involved in 9/11.  Both were lies. They told the nation and the world nothing but lies for eight long years. They ultimately gave only unsworn unrecorded secret testimony to the 9/11 Commission, which they opposed.

    Now they don't want to raise taxes, even on millionaires, billionaires and hedge fund gamblers. They want the poor, the sick and the unemployed to pay for it all.  Their failed wars, their tax cuts, their incompetent management and failed leadership. Why anyone thinks the GOP has any solutions to the issues that this country faces is a testimony to Americans unmatched ability to know nothing, remember little, and believe anything.


    by NCD on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:46pm

    I agree


    by Flavius on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 3:19am

    Beautifully put. Nothing rings so true as the truth. Any one who disputes this is either deaf, dumb and blind or wasn't born yet.

     


    by Tommy Holmes on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 11:54am