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

    The Glory that was Gre.....America

    By Flavius on Fri, 08/05/2011 - 11:27pm |

    Some Congressional Republicans are just backward rejecting modern economics on the same basis they reject Darwin and climate science. Others are cynical, desiring the worse possible economy as an aid to recapturing the White House and Senate in 2012. Still others simply do not believe that government action can ever be a force for good……………………………..

    The US suffers with an increasingly third-world level of infrastructure, third-tier education system and enormous gaps in the preparedness of its workforce….

    And by the way, the US is not going to take on any other major problems either-immigration, tax reform or climate change, for example. It is not going to do so for the same reason it has failed at sensible economic management: because the Tea Party has a veto………………………

    One (lesson of the crisis) is that America now regards its most solemn financial obligations as flexible commitments. The problem is not just that some members of Congress were willing to contemplate national default. It was that some of them clearly desired default as an ultimate weapon against social spending. The precedent has been set for using America’s credit rating as blackmail……..

    This is the way in which the US resembles Greece-not in its underlying creditworthiness, but in making paying its debts a political question.

    Jacob Weisberg , August 5th Financial Times

     

    Seems a pretty succinct summary of where we are. Flavius

    Comments

    Dear God, if there is one thing that Democrats HAVE to do, it is to tie this S&P downgrading to the damned tea-party.  Please Democrats, don't bungle this or pussyfoot around and let them off the hook!  Super-glue this downgrade to the forehead of every one of these idiots.


    by MrSmith1 on Sat, 08/06/2011 - 5:55am

    Dear Sir: I'm sorry to be the one to inform you, but Obama made it a point at the beginning of his Administration ... bipartisanship is the ultimate goal. Therefore, any attempts to rub GOPer's noses in the shit they leave on the carpet is forbidden. Otherwise, Democrats would have wrung them thru the ringer publicly airing their dirty laundry so the 2010 elections probably would have given Democrats significant majorities in both House and Senate and this debacle would have never happened.

    I'm not holding my breath on Obama allowing Democrats to stick this one on them.


    by Beetlejuice on Sat, 08/06/2011 - 6:15am

    I know a number of Republican voters who are good human beings. I expect you do too.

    They do the sort of things  suggested by that phrase: Push your car when you're stuck in the snow, keep an eye on your kids if you have to leave the house briefly.

    A couple are "first responders", cops or firemen. Like the doomed ones caught  in photos going up the World Trade Center when everyone else was fleeing.

    Or soldiers.

    Obama didn't and shouldn't rub their noses in the shit. He's their President and just as they owe him respect, he owes it to them.

    Doesn't mean he should endorse their plans. They want a particular sort of world , that's their right. We want a different one, our right. If he can he should try and explain why for example we want to ensure that every sick American gets the kind of treatment that every sick European  gets as a matter of course.

    Maybe some will be convinced. Probably not many, but more than if he ridicules them. No one was ever  convinced by being kicked in the shins.

    As for the Republican politicians., I won't argue  they are all  good people.Some clearly aren't. But the Army explained we were saluting the uniform not the officer wearing it , and that applies here. Even Darrel Issa represents the people who, sadly, elected him and they should be respected if not he. Sure I'd be secretly pleased to see him kicked in the shins or any other part of his anatomy. But that  would be un-presidential for Obama. And more to the point, would lose him a few votes.


    by Flavius on Sat, 08/06/2011 - 11:19am

    When Beetlejuice suggests rubbing Republicans' noses in their own shit, he is obviously talking about the party representatives and leaders. The idea being to discredit them in the eyes of voters who may have supported them until now.

    Your last sentence is, I think, wrong. Obama needs to be far less reverential to the arsonists on the right. He should be at least as angry as most of the country is.


    by acanuck on Sat, 08/06/2011 - 12:06pm

    Hmn. I think the President ought to treat all (well, most) Republican politicians with civility even tho few actually deserve it.

    Arsonists is a good word. When I think of Grover Norquist (which I try hard not to do) the phrase auto de fe seems to spring to my lips.


    by Flavius on Sat, 08/06/2011 - 8:37pm

    The President has treated the GOPer's with courtesy above and beyond what would be considered necessary and polite. And I ask to please tell me how they have responded to the olive branch he has extended to them? While many Democrats weren't too happy with the Supreme Court overstepping their enumerated rights as defined in the Constitution with the Bu$h v. Gore vote count, at least they gave respect to the Office of the President and the person residing within. You can't say the GOPer's have responded in kind, can you? If civility is what one expects, then one should also expect it to cut both ways too ... which it hasn't. Obama kept his Party from publicly embarrassing the GOPer's when they had the opportunity because he believed in taking the higher road. Too bad he didn't know the high road he chose to follow had so many potholes that it has made the journey far more testing than what the lower road offered. As we all now know, the low road would have been easier to maneuver around obstacles and the expectations at the end more easier to work with simply because the problems encountered on the high road were brought there from the low road the GOPer's followed instead. So the Democrats missed an opportunity by playing nice and are paying a stiff price. The only way to break out will be to use the ever increasing interest payments being attached to the bonds that will take money away from other agencies, entitlements and so forth to satisfy what's being demanded because of the stunts the GOPer's are pulling. So the Democrats have a golden opportunity to rub the GOPer's noses in the shit they've created that's going to cost us more just because they wanted to be dicks.


    by Beetlejuice on Sat, 08/06/2011 - 10:36pm

    Arsonists shouldn't be treated with civility.  They should be treated as arsonists.  Step one: they need to be publicly identified as arsonists.


    by Dan Kervick on Sat, 08/06/2011 - 10:56pm

    If some people are backward and ignorant troglodytes driving the country into decline and impoverishment because they don't understand the world they live in, and those people are allied with malevolent cynics who are creating decline and impoverishment on purpose as a route to personal power, it will be very hard to resist their efforts if your own message is that these folks are actually nice, reasonable, neighborly people entitled to respect, and with whom one should work and negotiate in a spirit of compromise.


    by Dan Kervick on Sat, 08/06/2011 - 10:54pm

    Hate the sin but not the sinner


    by Flavius on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 4:25am

    Dan

     

    Since this post is about to  make a well deserved trip to oblivion let me first actually respond to your point..

    I completely agree that the Republicans  are an unsavory mix of what you accurately describe as troglodytes   and malevolent cynics. Roughly equivalent to the Tea Party and Fox. And it's pointless to "reason" with either.

    But they,the Dems and the Independents also contain actually nice reasonable neighborly people . You must know some. Most aren't political junkies, chances are they claim they vote for the person not the party and are quite capable of voting for  Bernie Sanders and -God help us- Sarah Palin.

    We/Obama need their votes.. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that requires a "high road" approach.

    Joke:

    Some guys are on a hunting trip.The agreement is that Charlie will do the cooking but if any one complains they have to take over.

    Charlie, really sick of the deal makes a particularly disgusting meal.

    Bill: What the hell is this ?

    Charlie (complacently) Moose Turd Pie

    Bill (red faced , shouting ) Moose Turd Pie.!.....(then remembers the deal).But Good .

     .

     

    The way Obama handles the trogs and mals will decide the election.. Maybe I'm wrong that a slashing attack  

     


    by Flavius on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 1:15am

    You messed up the punchline. The agreement is that whoever complains about the cooking gets the job. But no matter how badly he cooks, the other hunters carefully avoid any complaints. So to try to lose the job, Charlie starts adding moose turds into the recipe (The version I heard used moose piss). One guy tastes it and says, "Hey this tastes like moose turds ... but good."


    by Donal on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 8:12am

    Story of my life


    by Flavius on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 11:11am