So naturally the President and the Democrats gave him another option. But didn't extending the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthy become necessary to get Republican support for extending the jobless benefits? Nonsense: Five times in the last two years, the Republicans have gone along with extending those jobless benefits, and they've done it without being bribed with tax cuts for the rich.
Even now, Boehner's September confession, and the GOP's unwillingness to take the blame for killing off jobless benefits offered an alternative blueprint for this President: Simply let the law expire as scheduled in 24 days. Let all the tax breaks go, Mr. President. And when the Republicans take over the House and try to pass them anew, if they somehow are not stopped in the Senate, simply veto anything that does not keep tax cuts for the middle class and unemployment benefits as the dog, and perks for the rich as the tail.
The GOP is still terrified of being blamed for cutting off the unemployed. What you should have done is take that fact and break them with it.
=====================
Yesterday, I had an exchange with a very senior member of this administration who wanted to sell me on Obama's compromise. I pointed out that that was fine, except that, as I phrased it to him, "frankly the base has just vanished." "Well," he replied, "then they must not have read the details."
There, in a nutshell, is this Administration. They didn't make a bad deal. We just don't understand it. Just as it was our fault, Mr. President, for not understanding your refusal of even the most perfunctory of investigations of rendition or domestic spying, or the other crimes of the Bush Administration, or why you have now established for those future administrations who want to repeat those crimes, that the punishment for them will be nothing. Just as it was our fault, Mr. President, for not understanding Afghanistan. Just as we didn't correctly perceive, sir, the necessity for the continuation of Gitmo. Or how we failed to intuit, President Obama, your preemptive abandonment of single payer and the public option.
Or how we could not have foreseen your foot-dragging on "Don't_Ask,_Don't_Tell." Just as we shouldn't have gotten you angry at your news conference today and made all the moderate Democrats wonder why in the hell you get publicly angry so often at the liberals who campaigned for you, and whether you might save just a touch of that sarcasm and that self-martyrdom for the Republicans.
And of course, Mr. President we totally betrayed your administration by not concluding our prayers every night by saying "thank you for preventing another Great Depression; so you are entitled to skate along on your own wonderfulness indefinitely.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
5
5
4
