Shoot Me Now

I've been away for a blissful week in Cancun with my wife with absolutely zero access to internet (it was there, I just stayed away from it). Had no expectation of the debt ceiling shit show being solved upon my return, but I didn't expect to come back to this:

A Congressional aide briefed on ongoing negotiations between House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama says the two principals may be nearing a "grand bargain" on to raise the debt limit which would contain large, set-in-stone spending cuts but only the possibility of future revenue increases.

"All cuts," the aide said. "Maybe revenues some time in the future."

[...]

A White House spokesman called the claims from aides "not credible" -- the result of having a "3rd hand version of the facts."

However two aides and a third source, close to the principals confirmed that Obama has been emphatic with Democratic negotiators that his preference is to negotiate a big deal with Boehner and squeeze it through Congress.

Lacking still, including among Democratic sources, is any sense of what's in the still-forming plan -- vis a vis both spending and revenue. And Democrats, particularly in the House, will have a lot to say over whether the deal is acceptable -- their votes will be necessary for Boehner to pull off a grand bargain.

Well isn't that cute - Republicans get exactly what they wanted all along and that which is directly counterproductive to economic recovery, and in return the President gets a sort-of-kind-of-maybe-we'll-think-about-discussing-revenues-in-the-not-to-near-future. I'll let you decide how that will go. Here's a hint as to when those results might happen: When the sun rises in the west, sets in the east. When the seas go dry, and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves.

And this is all because the Obama team deems it ever so erudite to take deficit reduction off the table going forward, so he can pivot to jobs and winning the future and stuff during his second term. Does anyone really think for even a second that the GOP won't manufacture some other bull shit excuse to stonewall Obama's agenda if he wins a second term? Here's an observation of mine, Mr. President - they hate you. They hate you, they hate your family, and they hate everything you stand for. If that much isn't glaringly obvious already, then god help you. They don't want to negotiate in good faith, they don't want you, your policies, the middle class, or the country to succeed, and they don't want anything but their craven pursuit of personal and political gain. Cutting some bullshit deal with these assholes is not going to buy you a lick of political capital to spend in a second term. Just as the debt ceiling has never before been used as a political hostage because it is insane and dangerous and cynical, just so they will manufacture some other crisis to grind Washington to a halt, suck all the air out of the room, and monopolize the stenographer's in the media with a manufactured, unnecessary crisis. Just as they continue to peddle their ignorant, demonstrably false talking point that we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem, so they will continue to contrive other similar falsehoods with which to push their reckless agenda while hamstringing your own. And just as they spent the better part of two years hyping the deficit as the greatest crisis the country has ever faced while millions of Americans wallow in unnecessary and preventable unemployment and poverty brought on by the financial crisis, so they will immediately ignore the same admonitions if they are able to unseat you in 2012 and embark upon their "conservative" agenda of privatizing everything, wiping all regulations off the books, and cutting the top marginal tax rate to 1%. 

And fuck eleven dimensional chess. I am over it, and the rest of the country is over it. If Congress and the administration wanted a clean debt ceiling vote, they could have it, and they could fight for it and get the public behind it. Instead we are left with what will likely be another Republican wet dream of a deal in the likeness of the Bush tax cut extension just ahead of the midterms. That didn't exactly rile the base, in case the administration has forgotten so soon.