Folks, I really did try for a while to find other things to write about so that this blog is not just a rant about how awful the Republican politicos are. That's a hard assignment, when we are bombarded daily with evidence that they are.
The meme of this week has mostly been their posturing over the debt-reduction, budgetary negotiations. Just this morning, here are some headlines of stories on Huffington Post:
"'Surprise': GOP Outraged By Offer They Received Weeks Ago"
"Obama Takes Fiscal Cliff Show on the Road as Republicans Stew"
"Krauthammer Loses It: Obama Offer Like Civil War"
This is about their storming around yesterday over the budgetary
proposal that President Obama had given them some time back; or rather
he sent over a slightly newer version, but he had the Secretary of the
Treasury deliver it instead of appearing himself. I'm thinking it's
the fact that he sent Geithner while, as someone put it, he was
flying all over the country hyping up his tax hike message to the
American people.
The sub-meme running this week also is their outraged reaction to Harry Reid's plan to change the Senate filibuster rules on the first day of the next session.
In all this, they're acting like they're entitled to run the show, even though they lost the election decisively -- some even say there was a mandate from the voters to change the show.
Here's the headline I would like to hand to the Republicans:
"Elections Have Consequences and You Lost"
Ralph
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The NPR pundit pair, E. J. Dionne and David Brooks, today weighed in on the fiscal cliff negotiations.
ReplyDeleteBrooks maintained that the latest administration proposal was a terrible idea and would bring to a halt any bipartisan spirit that was developing. He said Republicans were jolted by the election and are trying to come to terms with it, and that Obama should understand that and -- not his words, but in effect he said -- be nice to them.
Dionne disagreed completely. He said that he thought Obama's move was great. Because the Republicans had come to expect from Obama that he would give away his bottom line before even beginning to negotiate, it was important for him to simply put out what he wants as a start -- and challenge the Republicans to put their plan out there. And then negotiate. That's the usual way of negotiating, and that's simply what Obama has done.
As usual, I agree with Dionne. Obama has to show that it's a new ball game. He's done with treating Republicans as if they have to be mollified. They don't hold all the trump cards anymore -- if they ever did.