Monday, July 25, 2011

President Obama to address the nation tonight (updated)

Tweet from Jay Carney:

POTUS to address nation, 9 pm tonight, re stalemate over avoiding default and the best approach to cutting deficits. Watch @ wh.gov/live.

UPDATE: Once again, BooMan nails it.

I'd like every liberal who has carped about the president's approach to the debt ceiling negotiations to pause now and consider the fact that the Republicans have now revealed their bottom line. They made an offer. Their offer is nothing. We get nothing. Not one thing that we want. Nada. And that has always been their position...

Now, this thing is still not over, and the president is going to speak to the nation at 9pm tonight. I expect he will be extremely pissed off. I also expect the Republicans not to give a shit...But my point for the purposes of this thread is the following. Since there was never any way to win any concessions, wasn't the game here to make sure people see you as having been reasonable? And the other side as the economic terrorists that they are?...

It seems to me that this wasn't a game about outcomes. The outcome was pretty well known in advance: the Republicans would refuse to raise the debt ceiling if it meant making a single concession on anything. Given that, the whole exercise was about political perceptions.

I don't understand why this isn't better understood.

I personally don't think you have to assume that President Obama put anything on the table he couldn't live with. But as BooMan said...that's not the point. The point was to be reasonable and expose the economic terrorists. Anyone who can't see that now is simply blinded by their ideology.

6 comments:

  1. i think too many of the self-imagined gate crashers, excuse me, the "professional left," will be too busy polishing their:

    "we're professional pushers of the, you know, left, and we gotta trash the guy's abilities cuz that's our job yo, bro"

    to actually take a hard look (not a left or a right look) at just how much rope has been given the Tea Party and how quickly and joyously they've used it to hang themselves.

    i'm so very glad i'm a working-class leftie and can use my own two eyes to see and my own voice to speak. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. btw, today i chatted with a woman who'd spent the last 46 years of her life voting Republican. she told me she would "never" vote for the party again. why? because they were stubborn... and lacked compassion. and this debt ceiling deal was the last straw.

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  3. Wow - LOVE hearing those stories sige!!!!!!

    Here's my response over at BooMan's place:

    "Simplified reason why more people don't understand:
    We're mired in chest-thumping, dick-swinging mode.

    Obama don't play that.

    And all those who rely on chest-thumping and dick-swinging are needing to thump their chests harder and swing their dicks bigger in order to avoid irrelevance."

    ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. you got that right. the testrostone levels are higher than in a boy's high school locker room.

    and about as complex.

    evolution. catch it 'for it passes ya by. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Eve'nin', Ms. Pants

    Allllright, now....

    Tell the truth, Ms. Pants

    Tell the TRUTH!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hah!!!!!

    I thought you'd like that one.

    ReplyDelete

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