MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Obama walks out of Debt Meeting
By anna am on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 7:45pm |President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of a debt-limit meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday, rattling the already shaky negotiations, according to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and a second GOP source.
Cantor said the president became “agitated” and warned the Virginia Republican not to “call my bluff” when Cantor said he would consider a short-term debt-limit hike. The meeting “ended with the president abruptly walking out of the meeting,” Cantor told reporters in the Capitol. “I know why he lost his temper. He’s frustrated. We’re all frustrated.”
URL:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58937.html
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Comments
Cantor is obviously (and rather pathetically imo) trying to undermine Obama's success at painting the Republicans as reckless.
I'm curious what was the "bluff" was that Cantor said Obama told him not to call.
by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 8:06pm
I think that Obama would veto the short term solution if Cantor were to get it through. The item is still developing and new details keep being added. It seems real, however, not just Cantor trying to use the tar brush. More likely, he just wanted to get out ahead of the White House's release of the story, which is apparently imminent.
by anna am on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 8:19pm
You're probably right about Cantor. (And I wryly note that you just assisted his effort to preempt Obama.
)
I don't think Obama should veto. 1) It would weaken the pragmatist narrative that he's been working so hard to project. 2) Once the drama is over, people will forget all about the statutory debt limit. 3) By ceding the power to the president, the Republicans will ensure that the drama will never return to haunt us again.
by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 8:36pm
another double post. seems like the hijinks of the illuminati at play here.
by Elusive Trope on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 8:46pm
Now that the Wall Street bigwigs have come out against default, Obama does have the out of saying he has to play Cantor game - and then fold this game into the silly season meme that has seemed to work well for him in the past. If done right, Obama comes out looking like the reasonable parent who, because of circumstance, has to momentarily give into the spoiled out-of-control child Cantor. Cantor and his fellow far rightists still get do victory laps for their base, but it will undermine any hopes for the GOP to take back the oval office.
by Elusive Trope on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 8:44pm
And I wryly note that you're right about my assisting.
I don't agree, though, that Obama shouldn't veto Cantor's proposal -- which isn't the same as McConnell's.
About McConnell's proposal, I'm of two minds. On the one hand, I agree 200% with what Ezra Klein had to say today:
On the other, I don't like the smell of it. McConnell's passing the buck because he knows the price the Republicans are going to have to pay if checks really don't go out and the markets crash. But I think that, politically, it potentially creates a lose-lose situation for the president.
by anna am on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 9:04pm
I meant McConnell. Republicans all look the same to me. ;)
McConnell is certainly passing the buck. I just think that it hurts Obama more to refuse the buck than to take it.
And frankly, I don't think taking this buck matters very much if you're a Democrat. Voters might care about the debt, but I don't think that anyone outside the right wing is upset about the act of raising the statutory debt limit. (And frankly, the right wing only cares about it because Republican politicians made an issue of it in the first place, so it became an ideological symbol for them.)
by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 9:19pm
And as someone pointed out, in 6 months the public will not even remember it. But they will still be aware of whether they have jobs or not.
by cmaukonen on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 10:33pm
If McConnell's proposal is put into effect, without any deal on the budget, nobody will be able to see it as anything other than a pathetic and humiliating admission of defeat by the Republicans. They are throwing in the towel because they are taking a pounding from the financial markets, from the IMF, from Moody's, from everyone.
The whole point of this debt-limit hostage gambit was to force the White House to accept big, sharp, conservative spending cuts. If after all this fuss, the Republicans now permit a rise in the debt limit without extracting the conservative cut, they lose. It's pretty obvious.
Nor does an additional charade requiring the White House to ask for the debt ceiling increase make things any better for Republicans. The White House has already said many times the debt ceiling must be raised.
It goes like this:
R. I have a hostage! Give me a bazillion dollars or I don't give you the hostage back!
WH: Hand over the hostage.
R: No!
WH: Hand over the hostage.
R: No! Not unless you give me a bazillion dollars!
WH: (waits)
R: What's your answer?!!!
WH: Maybe I'll give you a half a bazillion dollars, and you give me the hostage.
R: No deal!
IMF: Give up the hostage R.
R: No!
Brooks: Give up the hostage R. You look like a boob.
R: No!
Moody's: Give up the hostage R.
R: No!
Bernanke: Give up the hostage R.
R: (thinking) OK, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to step back 100 yards from the hostage. Then you have to ask me nicely for the hostage.
WH: OK, and what are you going to say when I ask?
R: I'm going to say no!
WH: What about the bazillion dollars?
R: Forget the bazillion dollars.
WH: OK
R: I'm stepping back now!
WH: (walks over to hostage and puts hostage in car)
R: (yelling faintly from 100 yards away) OK, now tell me what you want!
WH: May I have the hostage please?
R: No!
WH: Ummm ...OK, good terrorist hostage-taking skilz, there. Cya.
R: You're not the boss of me!
WH: (drives home smiling with hostage.)
by Dan Kervick on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 2:44am
Your story line sounds good if it was true, but it isn't.
We were sold into slavery. our
predecessorswe borrowed the money and now it's time to pay up.D :"For a hamburger today I'll gladly pay you Tuesday.
R: well sorry Wimpy but you've been telling me, you'd pay me Tuesday, and it's been over 40 years now, besides I think you've been stringing me along, I don't think you ever have any intention of paying me back, you just want to take and take and you think you don't have to pay it back. Sorry it doesn't work that way, so don't play dumb now you knew I'd expect my money.
D: Well you have all kinds of money your rich and you can just print some up; besides if you hadn't have squandered it on wars, you might have forgotten I owed you.
R: Remember; you authorized me to spend on the wars, you signed the promissory notes when you wanted the new cars and the new appliances, and you knew that someday I would want to settle our debt.
D: Yeah I know, but just this time again......; could you spare me some more money for a hamburger today I'll gladly pay you Tuesday
R: No Wimpy I cant, you've borrowed so much money from me over the years, I cant pay back those I borrowed from.
I tell my creditors, Wimpy's good for it, but they don't believe me, they tell me I'm being blind, they ask me has Wimpy ever paid off the debt he owes you? They tell me whatever money you should have paid me back you continued to ignore your promise and instead it's reported you've been seen hanging out at the bars, running up a large tab, womanizing, running up a large tab and bumming cigarettes; smoking like theirs no tomorrow.
You've been bumming cigarettes like you've been bumming hamburgers , and some people are sick of the way you borrow and borrow, but you never want to pay it back. Wimpy, you've gotten fat and I'm going broke supporting you
D: Yeah I know, but just this time again ......could you spare me some more money for a hamburger today, I'll gladly pay you Tuesday.
by Resistance on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 6:05am
We don't have to pay up.
by Dan Kervick on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 7:50am
I get what you and Ghenghis are saying and you're right absolutely in the short term, and in the flat narrative. But spin happens, and when it does it's anybody's guess what the public will forget: it's just as likely that what will go out of their heads is the current spectacular Republican failure, along with Mitch McConnell's hand in this deal.
He's up to no good. And the plan is to turn this against Obama and the Democrats, which time will easily allow. McConnell's even said as much.
As has been pointed out time an again, US voters don't really care about the debt limit. It's an unreal issue to them.
But spin gets through to them.
by anna am on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 10:50am
And so the position of a Democratic president should be that he is not going to let the Republicans give up until they force him to cut entitlements?
by Dan Kervick on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 11:02am
Of course not. I think the deal is sensible on many levels and solves more problems than it will create -- or at least in terms of governance, or what passes for governance in this country.
But, politically, in terms of its potential for dicey voter messaging from our Republican friends, it stinks. As I said before, I'm of two minds about it. I think that's allowed, isn't it?
by anna am on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 11:33am
hummmmm ... so a hissy fit erupted over who's turn it was to be the adult in the room, eh? I wonder if the GOPer's realize even if they grudgingly come to an agreement just a few hours before the 2nd August deadline, Moody's and S&P will have already downgraded the US to the level of a banana republic by then.
by Beetlejuice on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 8:53pm
I tend to go with Robert Reich on this though. It will be the McConnell plan or one like it that will be enacted.
Which is what any sane politician would want.
Nervous ? Try go bezerkers.
by cmaukonen on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 10:27pm
Reich is likely correct. The McConnell plan is pure Get Obama Party boilerplate. No solutions, not even baby steps in the right direction, scare the bejeezus out of everyone, juice up the rhetoric, do nothing at all that is necessary or good for the country, lie, and make partisan Kool-Aid for the next election. Gotta give the rubes a cause to get out and vote. If all the nation's problems were on track to be solved The Base would stay home.
by NCD on Fri, 07/15/2011 - 12:18am
I would have paid BIG money to see that!
by stillidealistic on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 11:51pm
Me, too. Maybe the next Pay-Per-View show.
by Elusive Trope on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 12:00am
Maybe he could use THAT as a fundraiser! Seriously, I'd pay to see it!
by stillidealistic on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 12:02am
Seriously, I'd pay to see it, too. I could see viewing parties being formed around the country, bringing Obama supporters and Cantor haters together for snacks and drinks.
by Elusive Trope on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 12:13am
Whose credit card?
by Resistance on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 12:28am
Didn't I hear you say you'd be picking up the tab?
by Elusive Trope on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 1:59am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnuijDieOvY
by Resistance on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 10:39am
Wow! I've been gone all day and missed all of this. I'll have to catch up, but for now -- Wow! Oh, to be a fly on the wall.
by Ramona on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 12:12am
I really don't like it when politics brings out the nasty in me, but I've gotta admit, these creatures have me so frustrated, that the idea of them getting their comeuppance makes me happy.
Eric Cantor sitting in stunned silence...the very thought gives me goose bumps. The good kind!
by stillidealistic on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 1:52am
Interesting comment.
A slightly different way to look at it is that it's demeaning to lose perspective. Some portion of what's going must be pure theater. And some may represent a tacit -or even overt- agreement between the negotiators.
Maybe in private Cantor's a good human being who helps old ladies across the street.And we've just seen that Anthony Weiner combined impeccable positions with improper internet flirtations...
The first couple of times I heard worrying rumors about a candidate for whom I was working I rejected them as too much in conflict with his public positions. And was wrong.Ted Kennedy did disgrace himself at Chappaquidick; Gene McCarthy abandoned his supporters in Chicago.
Now I just tune that stuff out and work for the schmuck who'll vote right. Churchill in June 41::
by Flavius on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 7:32am
Me too.
by anna am on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 10:07am
This is straight out of "The Art of War" by Uncle Remus.
by Rootman on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 7:22am