Quotes of the day

“House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) released the following statement today regarding ongoing debt limit discussions with the White House:


“Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes. I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase.”

***
“I got this from a GOP congressional source later in the afternoon:

“WH is demanding major, unambiguous tax hikes. To get spending caps & entitlement tweaks, greater economic pain appears to be the WH’s asking price. It is increasingly likely that we aren’t going to see a ‘big’ deal if the WH doesn’t budge. Speaker looks to be holding strong…

“[Update 7:39 PM] Appears that the basic framework for future tax reform could not be resolved.

“The bipartisan consensus on tax reform (broader base & lower rates) was championed by President’s fiscal commission, and yet now is being rebuked by the President. Lowering top rates that would help make America more competitive was too large a leap for a true class warrior.”

***
“Tax reform is a worthwhile policy goal, and Mr. Boehner is right to pursue it. But the only way he can avoid being taken for a ride by Democrats is if all parts of any deal are negotiated, voted on and then implemented immediately. Two men, one deal, once. Promises of future action aren’t credible.

“Even if Mr. Obama is sincere on tax reform, he can’t guarantee he can deliver Senate Democrats who are desperate to keep their majority in 2012, much less Nancy Pelosi. We’re told that in Thursday’s White House meeting, Mr. Obama promised to veto any short-term debt-limit deal to give the two sides more time to negotiate. If that’s true, then the President isn’t serious. It means he is using the pressure of the August 2 deadline to bull-rush Mr. Boehner into a bad deal.

“If Mr. Obama is sincere about a long-term spending and tax reform agreement, he’ll take the time to get it right. If he insists on issuing ultimatums, then House Republicans would be better off passing a debt-limit ceiling for a few months with comparable spending cuts and letting Senate Democrats do the same. Mr. Boehner shouldn’t bet his majority on Mr. Obama’s promises.”

***
“In the latest salvo in their campaign to portray Republicans as extremists for not wanting to accept tax increases as part of a budget deal, liberal bloggers led by Ezra Klein have been promoting a chart showing that in the past, the GOP has been willing to accept deals that are far less generous than what President Obama is supposedly offering them. Yet as Conn Carroll pointed out earlier, there’s a big difference between budget deals as negotiated, and budget deals as implemented. The reason why today’s conservatives are much less tolerant of deals that include tax hikes is that they’ve learned from history that the reality of such agreements is that taxes go up as negotiated, but Congress doesn’t deliver the promised spending cuts. No past deal poisoned the well more than the 1990 budget pact, in which President Bush infamously broke his ‘no new taxes’ pledge…

“Back in 1990, the establishment was saying the same things about the need for a ‘balanced approach’ in which all sides sacrifice something to reduce the deficit. Yet what we ended up with in reality was a deal that raised taxes and slashed military spending (in other words, the liberal approach) while entitlements and non-defense discretionary spending rose by an even higher amount than was projected before a deal. Is it any wonder that today’s conservatives are deeply suspicious of budget deals in which Republicans agree to raise taxes in exchange for promised spending cuts?”

***
“The media will initially be all excited about the deal, but will turn almost instantly towards declaring it has no chance to pass, seizing on every criticism of the package or declaration of opposition as sure-fire signs the proposal is dead. The outcry against the package (both before and after the details are known) will be intense on both the left and the right. Interest groups from all quarters will denounce the measure as unacceptable. National security conservatives, for example, will declare that the Pentagon cuts will eviscerate America’s ability to defend itself; liberal groups will deem the entitlement reductions unacceptable. Thumbs down will also come from Paul Krugman, Rush Limbaugh, and every Republican running for president in 2012…

“As the House prepares to vote, the media will declare again that there is virtually no chance of passage. Strange-bedfellow allies, including prominent elements of Big Business and Big Labor – plus, inevitably, Bill Clinton – will make the ‘don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good’ argument in public and in private. As the measure’s details become more known, there will be another round of fly-specking from webizens of the left and the right, declaring the package the worst thing ever considered by Congress in American history. Obama will give some blockbuster speech explaining why the bill must pass. The measure will appear dead both before and immediately after his speech. Then a handful of liberal and conservative House members will come off the fence and declare themselves in favor (some might even flip from declared opposition)…

“And, then, the bill will heart-stoppingly pass the House, with some secret backroom deals and lobbying that will be revealed (if ever) only long after the fact. Reps. Bachmann and Pelosi will vote against. And then it will fully dawn on Boehner and McConnell at the White House signing ceremony (likely as Obama is handing them their souvenir pens) that they were part of history, including part of the part where Obama was able to take off the table the single most damaging issue that could be used against him in 2012.”

***
“Politicians have always postured in public and played poker in private, but as both sides dithered over the debt ceiling, even grizzled veterans grew disgusted. ‘My side’s just as guilty. I think we’re going to have a crisis because politics is going to trump the good of the country,’ says Republican Sen. Tom Coburn. ‘It doesn’t sound like there are any real adults any more, including in the White House.’”

***

Charlie Rangel on debt: What would Jesus do? Huckabee to Rangel: Well, for starters, he’d pay his taxes

To cleanse the palate, via Mediaite, an easy joke but a gratifying one.

We’ve actually reached the point of class warfare in American politics where Rangel’s pander isn’t even the dumbest one this week.

The New York Times: Lying For The DFL

The New York Times opts to toss facts under the bus in an editorial this week about the Minnesota Shutdown:

How far will Republican lawmakers go to protect millionaires? Those who think a default on the federal government’s credit seems implausible should take a sobering look at the “closed” signs dotting Minnesota. The Republican Party there readily shut down the state’s government on Friday by refusing to raise taxes on the 7,700 Minnesotans who make more than $1 million a year.

Well, no.

The GOP refused to raise taxes. Period. Dayton chose to make it about “millionaires”, and before that “the rich”. Had Dayton chosen to raise, say, the gas tax (like the DFL majority in 2009 did), a terribly regressive tax that squats all over working-class prosperity, the GOP would have opposed that, as well.

For the Times to turn the GOP’s opposition to a tax into ”protecting millionaires” is a craven bit of rhetorical dishonesty.

Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, campaigned for office last year promising to raise taxes on high earners, so it was no surprise when he proposed a tax increase on families making more than $150,000 a year to help close a $5 billion budget gap. In negotiations with the Republican majority in the Legislature, he compromised and reduced the increase to those making $1 million or more, but Republicans are refusing to consider any income tax increase.

Note the rhetoric: Dayton keeping a campaign promise? Good. The GOP? Can’t be good, can it?

Like Republicans in Washington, they have the delusion that they can balance the budget entirely from cuts.

The Times’ “editorial” was apparently written by the MNDFL’s chair, Ken Martin. The GOP budget is the biggest spending increase in Minnesota history.

The governor proposed more than $2 billion in cuts but refused to slash billions more from education, health care and public safety programs.

All of which the GOP compromised on, meeting Dayton much more than halfway.

The Legislature also wanted new abortion restrictions and a voter ID law that Mr. Dayton had already vetoed. When he said no, lawmakers allowed the fiscal year to end without a budget, and state government officially shut on July 1.

The Times apparently believes the GOP should “negotiate” like a Saturn dealer; start with their “final offer” and work backward from there.

Also unmentioned by “the Times” editorial writer: Dayton walked out of the negotiations every time. The GOP Legislature was waiting in the Capitol, ready to negotiate and/or pass a “lights on” bill, to keep govermment running

More than 40 state agencies have closed, including the state parks over the July Fourth holiday. Courts and public safety agencies are operating, but essential services for the poor, like food pantries and child care subsidies, have evaporated. Many parents say they may have to quit their jobs if state-subsidized child care does not resume quickly. The shutdown will cost the state money, since many of the 22,000 laid-off workers will receive unemployment benefits and health insurance, while the treasury is unable to collect on tax audits, lottery tickets and park fees.

Unmentioned by the Times (or any of the Twin Cities media); the evidence is overwhelming that Governor Dayton rigged the shutdown to cause as much pain as possible, specifically to drive those dependent on state employment or services to try to push moderate Republicans into wobbling.

As painful as the closure may become, the governor is right not to yield to the extremist ideology the Republicans are pursuing in St. Paul, Washington and across the country.

“Extremist ideology”.

The GOP ran very openly on a platform of holding the line on taxes and spending. Perhaps you remember the Tea Party – it was in all the papers, including the Times.

Extremist? Governor Dayton won with 43% of the vote; the GOP majorities had, by definition, over 50% of the state’s voters pick them (since the third-party challenges were virtually nonexistant in legislative races in 2010). Can a policy chosen by over half the voters be “extemist?”

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from: hotair

Has Pelosi been marginalized?

Time’s Jay Newton-Small asks this question after former Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked a question that made her appear completely out of touch in the debt-ceiling debate. Despite losing the midterm elections on the issue of spending and deficits, Pelosi wondered aloud in a White House strategy meeting why debt-ceiling negotiations had to involve spending cuts at all, surprising everyone else in the room:

At Thursday’s White House meeting between President Obama and congressional leaders, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner laid out in stark terms the awful economic repercussions of allowing the debt ceiling to lapse. Everyone in the room agreed that defaulting on U.S. debt would be disastrous and that something must be done. At that point, Nancy Pelosi asked: Why couldn’t the debt ceiling be decoupled from deficit reduction?

Her query, after so many weeks of reports and talks centered on deficit reduction tied to a debt ceiling deal, visibly surprised some leaders in the room, several Republican and Democratic sources say. Obama politely informed the House Minority Leader, those same sources say, that that train had left the station weeks ago.

As the leader of a House caucus in a clear minority, Pelosi has already become largely irrelevant, especially after losing the midterms in such spectacular fashion. Now Newton-Small says that Barack Obama might make her even more obsolete by directly dealing with her lieutenant, Steny Hoyer, to get the moderate Democrats on board any deal:

But some Republican and Democratic sources point to Pelosi’s question in Thursday’s meeting as one that highlights how out of touch Pelosi has become on policy as she crisscrosses the country fundraising and recruiting candidates, working to regain the majority and her speakership. The President, these same sources suggested, could rely on House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer to deliver moderate Democrats to help pass the debt ceiling, thus circumventing Pelosi.”I think it’s clear she is not taken seriously by White House, Senate and Republican leadership,” said one Democratic member on the condition of anonymity. …

Boehner will likely need Democratic votes to get a debt ceiling increase passed, which is why Pelosi last week demanded a seat at the negotiating table. She has drawn a line – and made it clear to the President – that she would vehemently oppose cuts to entitlement benefits. Of all the participants in negotiations, Pelosi has the most to lose if Boehner and Obama pass a sweeping grand bargain. Such a move would burnish Boehner’s credentials as someone who can get things done, while shoring up his Tea Party support by cutting trillions of dollars from the budget. His success would undercut her argument that America would be better served with Democrats running the House.

True enough, although that train left the station long ago, too. Pelosi and the DCCC tried using a Republicans-are-Tea-Party-extremist-nutjobs campaign in 2010, and it didn’t exactly work out too well for them the first time. Republicans managed to craft a deal on the FY2011 budget within weeks while only controlling one chamber of Congress, something Pelosi couldn’t do all year with total Democratic control in Washington.

Still, I expect that this report from The Hill that provides some corroboration of Boehner’s increasing stature will make a lot of conservatives … nervous:

The relationship between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and President Obama is building as they head into a critical meeting aimed at ending the impasse over raising the nation’s debt limit.

Since their high-profile golf outing last month, Boehner and Obama have held two private meetings to discuss a debt-limit remedy. Details of the meetings weren’t leaked to the media, and the White House has even refused to confirm they occurred.

After successfully navigating the first major legislative battle over a measure to fund the government through the remainder of the fiscal year, the two men have been “building” their relationship, according to a source close to Boehner.

“They are getting to know each other better, they’re talking more often,” the official told The Hill.

Shouldn’t this be good news? After all, Republicans only control the House. In order to get any of the GOP agenda enacted, it will have to get Obama’s signature, as well as passing the Senate. The House cannot dictate policy, after all, and Republicans need cooperation at some point to succeed in getting spending reductions and other major goals of the party in this session. In order to get that kind of cooperation, Boehner needs to build a relationship with the President, who is never irrelevant, as Democrats discovered in 2007-8 when they controlled both chambers of Congress.

Still, Boehner has never really enjoyed the full trust of conservatives, not even when he held the Republican House caucus in unity against the Obama agenda in the first two years. The perception will be that Boehner is likely to get rolled rather than accomplish the rolling himself. People will point to the resolution of the FY2011 budget and their dissatisfaction with the meager level of cuts, and not without some justification, but it’s also true that Boehner has led a sea change in the terms of the debate on Capitol Hill. The debate is no longer whether to cut, but how much and where.

I’m neither encouraged nor discouraged by this development; I’d call it expected. Boehner needs to get cooperation from the White House before he can accomplish anything, and he’s doing his job — and it’s the changed political environment that has Obama suddenly seeking a cross-aisle relationship. Pelosi’s downfall demonstrates how effective Boehner has become in avoiding marginalization himself. Indeed, Democrats seem more suspicious of this development than perhaps conservatives are:

Democrats, meanwhile, have been growing more frustrated with the president for not consulting them more.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a respected member who rarely speaks out against the White House, warned the administration this week that it should not take Democratic votes for granted.

In an interview with The New York Times, Whitehouse said called it “a risky thing for the White House to basically take the bet that we can be presented with something at the last minute and we will go for it.”

Some Democrats are very worried that Obama will blink in his negotiations with the GOP. Some of them contend that Boehner got the best of Obama in the negotiations on tax cuts late last year and the fiscal 2011 budget showdown.

Well, he did, in large part because the terms of the debate changed among voters. The midterms delivered that unmistakable message, and Obama needs to respond to it in some credible manner. Democrats in the Senate ignore that reality at their peril, including Whitehouse, who has to stand for re-election in 2012. Rhode Island is usually a reliable Democratic stronghold, but even there voters may be tiring of the spendthrift federal government and those who continue to enable it.

In which I defend Michele Bachmann

It’s funny sometimes how the plastic, contrived world of national politics can mimic the real world. While it is surely of little interest to the readership at large,
I have a friend who is a local musician. I don’t know if he’s ever going to be showing up on any top ten lists, but as a local blues / folk guy he’s pretty good. Last summer he had a show scheduled at a local bar which is fairly popular with the denizens of our area.

Unfortunately, the date coincided with an annual street festival in the city which features a major music event in the park with many talented groups. The bar wasn’t expecting much and went so far as to offer two for one drinks for ladies in a vain effort to draw in a crowd. My friend was resigned to playing to an empty room, but I said I’d drop by anyway in a show of moral support. (Even if I didn’t qualify for the free drinks.)

Obama’s reaction to jobs report: More of the same deflection

President Barack Obama still refuses to take any responsibility for delayed action on the budget, to acknowledge that, perhaps, he could have led differently (and more effectively) on this issue.
This morning, when he gave his brief reaction to today’s dismal jobs report, he implied he has been doing everything possible to strengthen the economy and again deflected blame to Congress, calling on the House and Senate to take action “right now” to alleviate the economic hardship of millions of Americans.

No “Hollywood victory moments” in the budget fight

On Friday, Governor Scott Walker signed a bill that made Wisconsin the 49th state to allow law-abiding citizens to carry firearms. Walker had tried to get the bill passed for years while a state legislator, but his Democratic predecessor, Jim Doyle,
and Democrats in the legislature had stymied those efforts. This time the bill passed with bipartisan support and allows Wisconsin residents to get permits on a must-issue basis — meaning that the state cannot deny a permit application without justifiable cause, such as a felony record:

In one stroke, the legislation takes Wisconsin from being one of the final pair of remaining holdouts on concealed carry to having one of the more permissive bills in the country.

The proposal, which takes effect Nov. 1, joins other long-sought measures that Republicans passed this year, including requiring photo IDs from voters and making health savings accounts tax-exempt.

Signing the bill in Rothschild, near Wausau, Walker noted the length of the fight over the legislation, which he had once also supported as a lawmaker.

“By signing concealed carry into law today we are making Wisconsin safer for all responsible, law abiding citizens,” he said in a statement.

The measure includes provisions requiring training and permits, which were sought by both Walker and Democrats. Some Republicans unsuccessfully pushed “constitutional carry” bills that would have allowed people to carry concealed guns without permits.

Protesters shouted about the threat to public safety facing Wisconsin residents that has been seen in, er, how many carry states? Zero. In fact, most states see a decrease in crime after the enactment of such legislation, as Rep. Cliff Stearns noted in 2009:

Allowing law-abiding people to arm themselves offers more than piece of mind for those individuals — it pays off for everybody through lower crime rates. Statistics from the FBI’s Uniformed Crime Report of 2007 show that states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate, 46% lower robbery, and 12% lower aggravated assault rate and a 22% lower overall violent crime rate than do states without such laws. That is why more and more states have passed right-to-carry laws over the past decade.

In 1987, my home state of Florida enacted a “shall issue” law that has become the model for other states. Anti-gun groups, politicians and the news media predicted the new law would lead to vigilante justice and “Wild West” shootouts on every corner.

But since adopting a concealed carry law Florida’s total violent crime rate has dropped 32% and its homicide rate has dropped 58%. Floridians, except for criminals, are safer due to this law. And Florida is not alone. Texas’ violent crime rate has dropped 20% and homicide rate has dropped 31%, since enactment of its 1996 carry law.

Another study makes the moral case for expanding and enhancing right-to-carry laws. A report by John Lott, Jr. and David Mustard of the University of Chicago released in 1996 found “that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths.” Further, the Lott-Mustard study noted, “If those states which did not have right-to-carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1,570 murders; 4,177 rapes; and over 60,000 aggravate assaults would have been avoided yearly.”

Think about it. Nearly 8,000 of our fellow citizens have died between 1992 and 1996 because of the irrational fear that law-abiding Americans would abuse their right to self defense. In fact concealed carry permit holders are more law-abiding than the rest of the public. For example, Florida, which has issued more carry permits than any state has issued 1.36 million permits, but revoked only 165 (0.01%) due to gun crimes by permit-holders.

John Lott wrote about the dynamics of self-defense in his seminal book, More Guns Less Crime, which is in its third edition (and is available on Kindle now, too). Here in Minnesota, opponents also warned about the return of the Wild Wild West and blood flowing in the streets, and the scare tactics turned out to be entirely false. That’s because going through the training process provides a sobering douse of cold water on gun owners about the realities of using a firearm for self-defense. My late friend Joel Rosenberg’s excellent book on the subject Everything You Need to Know About (Legally) Carrying a Gun in Minnesota and his most recent effort The Carry Book gave an entertainingly dire warning to those who thought that a carry permit was the same thing as a Junior Deputy badge.

Law-abiding citizens who seek out and receive the necessary training to get the permit know exactly the stakes involved, which is why (besides the fact that they were law-abiding in the first place) these states don’t see increases in crime rates, especially in relation to permit holders. But having law-abiding citizens carry firearms may be why criminals suddenly take less interest in victimizing them, which may well be the reason for the drops in crime seen after adoption of carry-permit laws.

We’ll be celebrating Joel’s life and work at the MOB Day at the Range this Thursday evening, as well as raising funds for his family. Looks like we can also celebrate the fact that our neighbors to the east have won the right to protect themselves, too.

Shep Smith: C’mon, do we really need a new law aimed at Casey Anthony situations?

Via Mediaite, a screechy follow-up on “Caylee’s Law,” which I touched on in yesterday’s post about the deep, deep thoughts of the Anthony jury. This could have been an interesting segment: See, for example, this survey in Salon of laws passed in response to specific crimes and how they’ve fared in practice. How often will police and prosecutors need Caylee’s Law? Will it do more harm than good by exposing the innocent to unfair charges? Shouldn’t there be a cooling-off period of reflection before writing legislation in response to an infuriating event? (“Yes!” say Patriot Act opponents.) Good questions all, but we never get to them because Shep’s too busy trying to parse whether Caylee Anthony was ever really “missing” when she was almost certainly dead from the start and mommy dearest knew it. Except … mommy dearest insisted that she didn’t know it and she got 12 people to kinda sorta believe her on that. From the jury’s perspective, Casey did think Caylee was genuinely missing and just didn’t care enough to report it. That’s what the law’s designed to address. Would have come in handy once all the other charges fell apart, no?

Maybe all Shep’s saying is that it’s unlikely the law will deter anyone. Any innocent parent will report their kid missing the instant they know about it whereas any guilty parent who’s responsible for their kid’s disappearance either won’t report it, notwithstanding Caylee’s Law, or will report it only after they think the incriminating evidence is gone. Fair enough, but deterrence isn’t the point. The point is to give prosecutors a fallback charge in cases like Anthony’s where there’s good reason to believe that a parent’s killed or abducted their kid but not enough evidence to convict them of one of those more serious crimes. How often that unusual set of circumstances obtains, I don’t know, but unless you think we’re in for a wave of future child killers refusing to call the police because they saw how that strategy worked for Casey, the effect will likely be negligible.

Oh — since we’re on the subject, you’ll be pleased to know that the first million-dollar interview offer has been withdrawn by “The Jerry Springer Show” after an immediate backlash. That’s how toxic she is. Too toxic for … Jerry Springer.

Video: Talking class warfare, Casey Anthony, and MN shutdown on Tom Sullivan Show

Earlier this week, I taped an appearance on the Tom Sullivan Show, which aired for the first time yesterday on Fox Business Channel. Tom put together a good panel, with Lauren Simonetti from Fox Business and economist Lindsey Piegza.
We went through two rather similar topics in the Minnesota shutdown, which comes at the end, and the ramped up class-warfare rhetoric coming out of the White House of late. We also debated whether cameras in courtrooms have become a problem in trials like the one involving Casey Anthony or whether the media is the problem:

I was happy to set the record straight on the Minnesota shutdown, but I missed the opportunity to rebut Lauren on the Canterbury issue. Yes, the lack of state inspections has hampered business at the race track, but that hardly impacts most Minnesotans. The bigger impact is certainly with people who regularly access state services. I wasn’t arguing that there is no impact, but that the impact has been barely noticeable for most Minnesotans. People here are annoyed by the inability of the government to resolve the issue, but the people getting most hurt are the state workers who support Dayton and suddenly don’t have any income. As more of the details emerge from this standoff, the worse it will look for Dayton, who deliberately waited until the session ended to veto the budget bills the GOP produced six weeks earlier — six weeks in which Dayton refused to negotiate on the bills separately so that state government could keep operating.

By the way, I mention that I’d been to a baseball game the day before, which is one reason I may look a little stiff (or more so than usual, anyway). I forgot the sunscreen and ended up with bad sunburns on my neck and legs, which made for an interesting morning with a necktie and long pants. Thankfully, the show asked for a makeup artist that blended down my neck and face, or I might have looked like a beet. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun with Tom, Lauren, and Lindsey, and hopefully I’ll get another chance soon to contribute.

No “Hollywood victory moments” in the budget fight

Boehner didn’t cave on the budget deal this weekend, as some feared he would. The prior fears were not by any means inexplicable. Republicans in Washington are speaking mildly rather than trenchantly, and taking slings and arrows from the chattering class. There’s no Terminator-type trash talk coming from them. All the movement and fury seems to be on the Democrats’ side.


And that makes sense, because it’s the Democrats who occupy indefensible ground. Essentially, their position is that if Republicans won’t agree to raising the debt ceiling and raising taxes, the president will use his discretion to default on US government debt after 2 August. They don’t put it that way, of course, but that’s the reality. If Obama defaults on government debt, it will be because he decided to, not because he had to. He could be impeached for making such a decision.

The money will be there to meet out debt obligations; it just won’t be there to do that and continue to pay for all the other activities of the government. Obama could, equally, decide to cut expenditures in wildly unpopular ways like shorting Medicare reimbursements or leaving the troops without their pay, but Democrats in Congress wouldn’t let him get away with that either, any more than Republicans would. The real option after 2 August is to cut expenditures on other operations of the government, including the programs and subsidies that the Obama administration considers its highest priorities.

All of which is why it’s the Democrats who are most alarmed about having to face the choices after 2 August. The GOP position is not a precarious one. It’s a strong and meaningful position, and that’s why Obama and the Democrats are mounting a sustained assault, using every trick in the book to get the GOP to give up the ground it has staked out. Advertently or not, the Republicans have acted according to the strategic maxim of Bismarck’s military genius, Von Moltke the Elder:

A clever military leader will succeed in many cases in choosing defensive positions of such an offensive nature from the strategic point of view that the enemy is compelled to attack us in them.

Why doesn’t the GOP position look more tough and inspiring? For one thing, because our imaginations have been so conditioned to Hollywood productions and the 120-minute movie package that we think victories have to be signaled by the devices of video storytelling, or they aren’t victories.

But in real life, it rarely happens that way. Think back to January and the endless, annoying Cirque du Wisconsin with the runaway Democrats hiding out across the state line in the EconoLodge or wherever it was. There was no Hollywood victory at the end of that sorry episode. Eventually the Democrats just straggled back. On balance, the Wisconsin Republicans have been winning the peace.

But they looked, throughout the pitched confrontation, like a herd of deer caught in the headlights: bemused, a little shell-shocked, a little quizzical. A lot of conservatives wrote them off because they were just a bunch of modern legislator schmoes, doing modern legislature stuff. But while the Democrats and unions are still fighting a vociferous rearguard action, and it ain’t over yet, the momentum has clearly turned to the Republicans’ side.

Consider James Pethokoukis’ reference to Reagan and Reykjavik in 1986 (cited by Ed). Mikhail Gorbachev offered to raise the Reagan ante on strategic arms cuts, the best counteroffer ever presented by a Soviet leader, but Reagan turned it down because Gorbachev’s condition was that Reagan abandon the Strategic Defense Initiative.

This certainly didn’t resonate as a victory at the time. We don’t remember it today, but the Western media proclaimed an atmosphere of civilizational doom after the Reykjavik summit. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting an editorial containing the phrase “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” Even many of Reagan’s staunchest supporters wondered if the old man had finally gone round the bend. Reagan was defending territory he had staked out – territory so alarming to the Soviets that it drove them to act, maneuver, change their approach, move off of their position – and to the observers of the time, that looked like disaster.

What we do remember today, however, is that it was Reagan who got what he wanted in the end.

In politics, victory often comes on little cat feet. I won’t be surprised if the way a GOP budget victory looks to the public is a lot like how it looks in Wisconsin today. An interim solution rather than a grand bargain; a sense of tension maintained rather than the catharsis of a satisfying conclusion.

There will be work left to do, but a shift of momentum. An MSM counter-narrative will be retailed relentlessly, on the water-torture principle. Paroxysms of caterwauling will persist from the Democrats and their constituencies. From the GOP, no glory, no stirring speeches, no one-liners. No string crescendo, no pulsating beat. Nothing but a bunch of Republicans looking weary and dithery, like they just stumbled in from a windstorm – but haven’t forgotten what they went out into it for.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

Pawlenty plays it safe — but smart — on homosexuality

GOP presidential hopeful and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said today he’s not sure whether homosexuality is genetic or behavioral. Political Ticker reports:

“As I understand the science, there’s no current conclusion that it’s genetic,” Pawlenty said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Saying he preferred to “defer to the scientists” about the issue, the former Minnesota governor said it was unclear if being gay or lesbian was a lifestyle choice.

“There’s no scientific conclusion that it’s genetic. We don’t know that. So, we don’t know to what extent it’s behavioral,” Pawlenty said. “That’s something that has been debated by scientists for a long time.”

T-Paw didn’t pass on the chance to reiterate his support for traditional marriage, however. He phrased his views positively, emphasizing that he is a proponent of marriage between one man and one woman and saying simply, “I have not supported the issues of allowing gay couples to have the same benefits in public employment as traditional couples.”

Political Ticker and other news outlets framed Pawlenty’s remarks as a “punt,” but, from where I sit, he answered the question the only way he could have. So far, science has not conclusively established homosexuality as a genetic predisposition. Given that Pawlenty presumably disapproves of gay behavior, what did he have to gain by either absolving gay couples of responsibility for that behavior or blatantly accusing them of poor choices?

Conversely, he did have something to gain by making a statement in support of traditional marriage — an institution his base likewise values and wants to see protected. (Keep in mind just 28 percent of Republicans think same-sex marriage should be legal and just 25 percent of conservatives hold that view.) Perhaps Pawlenty played it safe, but, primarily, he played it smart.

Video: Hume: The Obama DOJ reminds me of nothing so much as the Nixon Justice Department

Last week, of course, was a big week in the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious, the international gunrunning scandal that Obama administration officials still refuse to clear up. Today, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume characterized the ongoing scandal perfectly:



“This Obama Justice Department reminds me of nothing so much as the Nixon Justice Department,” Hume said on Fox News Sunday. “You have the scent of high-level knowledge of serious wrongdoing and you have the smell of cover-up and I think the stench of cover-up on this gun-running operation is very strong indeed.”

Hume’s commentary comes after Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, last Monday gave secret and exclusive testimony to congressional investigators Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) to the effect that ATF was not the only agency involved in the scandal, taxpayer money was used to finance the gunrunning and Department of Justice officials explicitly instructed ATF officials not to respond to congressional inquiries.

Quotes of the day

“Sunday evening’s much anticipated deficit-reduction meeting at the White House, involving President Barack Obama and congressional leaders, concluded after negotiations that lasted about 1 1/2 hours.


“When asked before the start of Sunday’s talks if a deal could be reached within 10 days, Obama told reporters, ‘We need to.’”

***
“‘You have to have a backup plan. If you are relying on Congress to avoid the possibility of an Armageddon, you can’t just bet on that,’ said Keith Hennessey, who headed the White House National Economic Council during President George W. Bush’s administration…

“As recently as June 21, Miller told a group of sovereign debt holders in London that there is no Plan B and assured them that the debt limit would be raised before August 2.

“Publicly, Treasury has maintained there is no contingency plan. ‘Our plan is for Congress to pass the debt limit,’ Geithner said late in May. ‘Our fall-back plan is for Congress to pass the debt limit, and our fall-back plan to the fall-back plan is for Congress to pass the debt limit.’”

***
“As the White House continues negotiations with congressional leaders over a budget deal this weekend, newly elected head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde says that she ‘can’t imagine for a second’ that the United States would default on its debt obligations, saying it would be ‘a real shock’ to the global economy if no agreement is reached…

“Lagarde, who previously served as France’s finance minister, said there could be ‘real nasty consequences,’ including rising interest rates, depressed stock markets, increased unemployment, and decreased investment if a deal is not reached by the Aug. 2 deadline facing the United States.

“‘It would certainly jeopardize the stability, but not just the stability of the U.S. economy, it would jeopardize the stability at large,’ Lagarde said.”

***
“Democrats need a lot more tax revenue to make their long-term budget plans works. This is why Obama has not offered a long-term budget plan. The need for massive tax increases would then be clear to all. In private, liberal economists all talk about a need for a value-added tax to raise the additional revenue.

“But a liberal think with close ties to the White House, the Center for American Progress, recently released a budget plan that goes out to 2035. It shows taxes as a share of the economy rising dramatically to nearly 24% of GDP vs. around 18-19 percent historically. And I am guessing they would go even higher if the table went beyond 2035. If Boehner and the Republicans don’t hold the line now on taxes, this is the American future.”

***
“The details of a smaller deficit reduction deal have yet to be worked out, but the collapse of the grand bargain leaves President Obama in a more favorable political position. If both parties agree to cut $2 trillion from the budget with minor tax increases, he’ll notch a bipartisan accomplishment. But he can also say he tried something more ambitious in putting cuts to Social Security and Medicare on the table without facing the political fallout of actually slashing those programs. He went big and congressional Republicans — not to mention the noticeably silent 2012 Republican presidential candidates — didn’t. It will be Republicans who will have to justify bowing to the extreme wing of their party and walking away from a deal that included some ten times more spending cuts than revenue increases. Some things just aren’t too big to fail.”

***
“Anyone harboring any doubt over who is repsonsible for the failure of a “grand bargain” must consider Pres. Obama’s record. He avoided the debt before the election. After the election, he submitted a budget so absurd it got zero votes in a Democrat-controlled Senate. (Indeed, Senate Democrats have yet to submit a budget of any kind.) He has not moved from the positions he staked out in April. His position is not balanced, no matter how much the White House and the establishment media try to spin it as such.

“Furthermore, there should be no expectation that Obama will budge on the budget. Obama’s non-budget speech was a tacit admission that he cannot run for re-election on his record, but must demonize his opponents with class warfare and MediScare. He would be willing to entertain a GOP surrender on his terms, because he likely calculates that the liberals put off by any deal will be outnumbered by demoralized conservatives and libertarians, while he gains casual, low-information independents. Otherwise, he has already announced his intentions. He will do the only thing for which he has shown any talent: campaign. Whether he can run a negative campaign running from his record, as opposed to standing as the blank slate of Hope and Change, remains to be seen.”

***
“‘No matter the size of the cuts,’ a House GOP aide says, ‘I have major doubts that any kind of revenue raises could pass the House.’ Multiple Republican staffers suggest that Boehner faces as many, if not more, defections than the GOP did on the continuing resolution to keep the government running in April. Fifty-nine Republicans voted no on that deal; less than half of them were freshmen. Early on, Boehner called the debt-limit vote the first ‘adult moment’ for the new GOP majority, but the Tea Party’s mantra has been that the vote represents their greatest point of leverage to force the kind of draconian cuts the conservative grassroots wants. The sentiment only deepened in the wake of the April budget deal. Some, like freshman Republican Jeff Landry, are ready to risk the dire consequences of default to make a point. ‘If I don’t get exactly what I want, I’m not voting for it,’ Landry told Politico.

“Faced with the prospect of losing up to 100 members, Boehner will have to assiduously court Democrats without exposing his right flank, particularly as Cantor, his No. 2, lurks over his shoulder. Democrats are laying down their own markers, vowing not to support a deal that includes cuts to benefits in entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, though several have expressed a willingness to discuss these cuts separately. ‘Because of the dogmatic, know-nothing wing that is willing to discard the interest of the country…at the altar of Norquist purism,’ Connolly says, Boehner and Obama will ultimately find themselves needing a passel of Democrats to save a deal — likely more than the 81 Democrats who supported the CR in April. Connolly estimated some 100 Democrats would be required to thread the needle. ‘Triangulation isn’t going to work,’ Connolly says. ‘You need the Democratic caucus to pass this. And so does John Boehner.’

***
Via Mediaite.


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Snowe: No Social Security or Medicare cuts in the debt-ceiling deal

Via Think Progress, which asks a good question. If Snowe’s serious about a balanced-budget amendment, why rule out a deal on entitlements right now when there’s a tiny (emphasis on “tiny”)
bit of political momentum to make big changes to the budget? If she thinks Medicare’s too tough a nut to crack when we’re facing armageddon in three weeks, wait until millions more boomers are on the rolls and she has to deal with cuts every. single. year.

Another good question for you: Where does this leave us vis-a-vis the Lightbringer’s (alleged) proposal to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67? That’s not a cut, strictly speaking, but the outcry will be enormous all the same. Is Snowe open to entitlement reform so long as she doesn’t have to call it a cut or is this a pure “hands off Medicare!” pander to seniors ahead of her reelection campaign next year? If it’s the latter, then any deal involving entitlements would start with just 46 votes in the Senate (assuming Collins and Scott Brown stick with the caucus, which is unlikely). How do they pick up 14 Democrats to beat the filibuster, especially when the DNC’s core campaign message next year will be, er, “hands off Medicare”?

Don’t look for members of Maine’s congressional delegation to support cuts in Social Security or Medicare as part of the debt limit legislation, but all four say a debt reduction package that includes budget cuts and new revenues is likely.

“There are solvency problems with both programs,” Sen. Olympia Snowe said in an interview on Friday, “They have to be addressed but not as part of the debt reduction talks.”

She said any debt reduction plan worked out by President Barack Obama and congressional leaders will still need the support of members of both parties and both Medicare and Social Security have strong bipartisan support…

She said she has no idea what will come out of the budget talks but she believes to get enough votes to pass it will have to have cuts in spending and additional revenue.

She wants to raise revenue by closing loopholes, not raising rates, a plan Collins agrees with. Does Collins also agree that entitlements should be off the table right now? The story doesn’t quote her to that effect but the lede sure makes it sound like it. (And it would be in keeping with her skittishness about Ryan’s Path to Prosperity.) If she’s out too, then we start with 45 votes in the Senate. And if Brown, who also opposes Ryan’s plan and is up for reelection, joins them then we’re at 44. What could go wrong?

Oh, in case you’re wondering how this afternoon’s debt-ceiling meeting went, Chuck Todd tweets, “The two sides are farther apart in debt talks than they have been for a while. Some in talks believe this is going no where. #stalemate?” If that’s the narrative in tomorrow’s papers, Wall Street should have an interesting day. ABC goes behind the scenes:

Boehner said at one point that “it’s clear to all of us how big this spending problem is. Congress keeps voting for programs we can’t pay for. But look, entitlement cuts aren’t easy for us to vote for either. Our guys aren’t cheerleading about cutting entitlements.”

“Your guys already voted for them,” the president said, referring to the budget offered by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc.

“Excuse us for trying to lead,” Boehner said…

During another exchange, Republicans were going through proposed tax increases as bad for jobs.

“C’mon, man!” Vice President Biden exclaimed, “let’s get real!”

Cantor’s proposal this afternoon totaled $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years, including … $200 billion in Medicare and Medicaid. Where that leaves us vis-a-vis Snowe, Collins, and Brown, I have no idea. The task now is to somehow get to $2.4 trillion, which is the amount they’ll need to raise the debt ceiling by to get through all of next year and beyond the lame duck Congress. Boehner has insisted that total deficit reduction be at least equal to the increase in the debt ceiling, so they need to find $700 billion somewhere. Interestingly, as part of his own Medicare proposal, Obama reportedly wanted $800 billion to $1 trillion in new revenue; if the GOP can get to $700 billion to make this deal, why not try for $800 billion and then call his bluff on Medicare? Make him own that proposal. If nothing else, it’ll be a hedge against Democratic Mediscaring next year.

While you mull, via Bryan Preston, here’s The One flat out admitting today that new taxes are on the way in 2013. Have at it, RNC ad team.

Bachmann: Who needs executive experience if it means more big government?

Politico notes, correctly, that this is a great line directed at Romney, an “eh” line directed at Pawlenty, and a dumb line directed at Perry or Palin. There’s no obvious way out of this box: After four years of blaming the failures of Hopenchange in part on The One having never run so much as a lemonade stand, how do Republicans turn around now and take a chance on Bachmann?

Bachmann said executive experience doesn’t matter if it comes with “more of the same big government as usual.”

“This election will be about quite simply, who can lead that restructuring effort,” Bachmann said, referring to turning around the economy and working to repeal the federal health care reform law.

“Executive experience in government is one thing, but not when it comes to a promise of more of the same big government as usual,” she continued.

“Right on!” says Rick Perry, hunkered down in his office and feverishly dialing political operatives in New Hampshire. Bachmann’s other emerging problem is that the more she woos the Huckabee faction in Iowa with ostentatious displays of social conservatism, as she did last week when she signed a marriage pledge so heavy-handed that even Gingrich is shying away from it, the more she risks being pigeonholed as a “Christian candidate” a la Huck three years ago. Case in point: “Nightline” is planning to run a report tonight in which a former patient at the counseling center owned by Bachmann and her husband will claim that he was advised to pray the gay away. Won’t hurt her a bit with social cons, but if it does come down to her and, say, Romney for the nomination, his pitch to undecideds will be that the GOP can’t afford sideshows that take them off-message when they’re trying to beat Obama on the economy. Which of course is actually 90 percent of the reason to consider nominating Pawlenty. Once the general election campaign begins, blandness is very much a virtue.

Exit question: Via Ace, here’s a choice passage from Palin’s latest Facebook note. Who’s this aimed at?

As we approach 2012, there are important lessons we can learn from all of this. First, we should never entrust the White House to a far-left ideologue who has no appreciation or even understanding of the free market and limited government principles that made this country economically strong. Second, the office of the presidency is too important for on-the-job training. It requires a strong chief executive who has been entrusted with real authority in the past and has achieved a proven track record of positive measurable accomplishments. Leaders are expected to give good speeches, but leadership is so much more than oratory. Real leadership requires deeds even more than words. It means taking on the problems no one else wants to tackle. It means providing vision and guidance, inspiring people to action, bringing everyone to the table, and with a servant’s heart dedicating oneself to striking agreements that keep faith with our Constitution and with the ordinary citizens who entrusted you with power. It means bucking the status quo, fighting the corrupt powers that be, serving the common good, and leaving the country better than you found it. Most of us don’t see a lot of that real leadership in D.C., and it’s profoundly disappointing.

Pawlenty’s been pushing precisely the same message on the trail in Iowa lately. Hey Ed Rollins — any idea who Palin’s talking about here?

Marine to Mila Kunis: Let’s me and you hook it up at the Marine Corps Ball; Mila Kunis to Marine: Okay

I’m trying to read this guy’s mind and figure out whether he cut the video as a goof, just messing around on a slow day at war, or whether this was actually part of a brilliantly clever scheme to make it happen. Step one: Film the clip, in full bad-ass uniform,
replete with a cutesy move with the shades. Step two: E-mail it out to friends and friends of friends and wait for it to go viral. Step three: Hope that some entertainment reporter stumbles across it and asks Mila Kunis about it — on camera, preferably.

If this guy really did game it out that way, he should be planning war strategy in Afghanistan. Jackpot:

After questioning her publicist if she knew about the invitation, the clearly flattered 27-year-old actress agreed.

“I’ll go, I’ll do it for you,” she said, turning to Timberlake. “Are you going to come?”

“They don’t want me! They want you,” Timberlake responded. “You need to do it for your country.”

Kunis nodded.

“I’ll do it,” she confirmed.

So get that limo reserved, Sgt. Moore!

Alternate headline: “Marine Corps recruiting up 800 percent.” The only problem? Obviously there’ll be other guys who follow his lead and the pressure will be on for other gorgeous young starlets not to say no. C’mon, Blake Lively: You do support the troops, don’t you?

Dude, this is so alpha, it should come with a content warning for beta males. Damn.

Quotes of the day

“President Obama made no apparent headway on Monday in his attempt to forge a crisis-averting budget deal, but he put on full display his effort to position himself as a pragmatic centrist willing to confront both parties and address intractable problems…



“Republicans dismissed his performance as political theater. But Mr. Obama’s remarks appeared to be aimed at independent voters as well as at Congressional leaders, and stood in contrast to the Republican focus on the party’s conservative base, both in the budget showdown and in presidential politics…

“Seeking to shed the image of big-government liberal that Republicans used effectively against him last year, he has made or offered policy compromises on an array of issues and cast himself in the role of the adult referee for both parties’ gamesmanship, or the parent of stubborn children…

“‘There was never a discussion of, ‘Let’s sit down and reposition ourselves.’ There were discussions of returning to first principles and the things that motivated him to run,’ said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior political strategist. ‘This is what he talked about all through the 2008 campaign — that we need to put solving problems ahead of scoring political points, and we have to think about not just the next election but the next generation.’”

***
“Groups such as Norquist’s and Greenstein’s serve as political and intellectual gatekeepers. They help determine which ideas and what rhetoric are acceptable to their partisans. The visions presented to their constituents are satisfying — but also selective, simplistic and, ultimately, false. This is one reason that budget debates have been so futile, and why the nation is now flirting with a potentially disastrous failure to raise the debt ceiling.

“Governing is about choosing, and in the budget debate, there are no popular choices. But the reality shaping them all is an aging society in which programs for the elderly are pushing the budget into growing disequilibrium. Until the political gatekeepers acknowledge this — meaning the left recognizes the need for genuine benefit cuts and the right accepts some higher taxes — public understanding and political agreement will remain hostage to partisan fairy tales. It’s time to deal with facts.”

***
“The bases on both sides view any deviation or compromise as blasphemy. The astute veteran political columnist Mark Shields likes to say that he would rather belong to a church that is seeking converts than one intent on driving out heretics. But that’s not the approach that many rank-and-file Republicans and Democrats in Congress are taking these days…

“My sense is that when members of Congress go back to their states and districts, they are staying more in their comfort zones than they did in the past. They are appearing before more predictably friendly audiences and, deliberately or not, eschewing those who disagree with them. Every lawmaker can point to an event where an angry constituent became confrontational. But those incidents are happening less and less, minimizing their exposure to hostile audiences and contrary points of view…

“Elected officials on both sides of the aisle become like Pavlov’s dogs when they spend too much time with friendly audiences. They come to instinctively know what listeners want to hear and will produce a political reward versus what will be frowned upon and could warrant punishment. They know what lines and arguments will result in smiles and heads nodding up and down in approval or frowns and heads shaking back and forth. Predictable audiences result in predictable responses. But members should try a little door-knocking and seek out audiences that don’t consist almost entirely of the party faithful. They might hear something very different, and get a hint of what may be coming down the road.”

***
“In a rational world, electorates would recognize the need both to reduce entitlements and to increase revenue. But indignation isn’t rational. The Tea Party position is that the deficit should be reduced without any increase in revenue, even the elimination of tax breaks and loopholes that all serious economists now define as ‘tax expenditures’ (because they essentially give revenue away to lucky special interests). At the same time, many Tea Party supporters appear reluctant to accept that cuts would apply to their own entitlements as well as everyone else’s.

“Even more self-contradictory is the readiness of young people in Europe to back the interest groups opposed to spending cuts. The recent demonstrations in London were essentially on behalf of teachers relatively close to retirement. ‘It’s for the future generations that we’re doing this,’ claimed one protester, ‘not just for ourselves. We’re doing it for everybody.’ Baloney. It’s the government that has the future generations in mind, not the protesters. The young people who join in such protests are suckers, demonstrating for the right to pay much higher taxes in the future.

“Today’s proponents of austerity are like toreadors, fighting the raging bull of debt. I can understand the vested interests throwing bottles at them. It’s the cheers of the Indignant that are bizarre.”

***
“I lived through this with President Carter, in which you start asking, ‘Does this guy have any idea what he’s doing?’”

Video: Sgt. Leroy Petry receives the Medal of Honor

The second living recipient of the Medal of Honor since Vietnam, just nine months after Staff Sgt. Sal Giunta became the first.
What kind of man are we talking about here? One who didn’t have to participate in the raid for which he was awarded the MOH but went voluntarily, had his hand blown off by a jihadi grenade during that raid after he picked it up and tried to toss it away before it detonated, thereby saving the lives of two of his men, and then reenlisted in the Army after being fitted with a robotic arm and went back to war. Total deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan: Eight and counting. He has four kids.

As usual, the Army’s done a bang-up job creating a Medal of Honor webpage for him. The Profile and Battlespace graphics are a must, but take time to read this Army news story too about his recovery and experience with his new robotic hand — all the way to the part where one of his kids names the damaged arm “Nubby.” An apt exit quotation from Obama: “What compels such courage? What leads a person to risk everything so that others might live?”

Intern who helped save Gabby Giffords’ life to throw out first pitch tonight

Daniel Hernandez, the intern whose calm courage helped to save the life of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), will throw out the ceremonial first pitch at tonight’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Phoenix, the New York Post reports.

Hernandez, 21, was hailed as a hero after his quick thinking was credited with keeping Rep. Giffords (D-Ariz.) alive until paramedics arrived after she was shot in the head outside a Tucson-area grocery store in January.

After hearing the gunfire, Hernandez ran to Giffords and held her upright so she could breathe and applied pressure to her head wound. He had been hired by Giffords less than a week before the Jan. 8 attack.

Among those killed in the shootings, in which six people died and 12 others were wounded, was Christina Taylor Green, the daughter of Los Angeles Dodgers scout John Green and granddaughter of former Major League Baseball manager Dallas Green.

MLB commissioner Bud Selig invited the families of all of the victims to participate in the pre-game ceremony, KTAR.com reported.

Hernandez’ part in the tragic Giffords’ story has always impressed me, perhaps because I know just how terrified I would have been in the same situation, how tempted to run as far and as fast as possible. Perhaps such a terrifically human gesture as to immediately attempt to alleviate the suffering of another ought to be the norm — but is it? Certainly it’s more likely to be if, when someone does display loyalty and bravery, he receives recognition and gratitude. The chance to throw out a ceremonial pitch at an All-Star game seems in line with that.

Obama: No, I can’t promise that Social Security checks will go out in August if we don’t reach a deal

See James Pethokoukis’s new graph for a response to this. There should be plenty of revenue in August to cover entitlement checks and interest on the debt if Treasury has the legal authority to prioritize payments,
which isn’t as clear as one would hope. Either way, the more voter angst O can create about default — and given the movement among independents, he’s doing a fine job — the more pressure there is on the GOP to make a deal and the more protected he’ll be politically if we hit X Day on August 2 without an agreement. Which, of course, is the point of McConnell’s gimmick today: If his bill were to pass, responsibility for keeping Social Security flowing coming would shift suddenly from those darned millionaire-hugging Republicans to the debt-loving Obama administration. You are willing to unilaterally order another $2 trillion in debt right before the election in order to keep grandma’s checks coming, aren’t you, champ?

If you’re looking for the case for and against the McConnell gambit, here’s Grover Norquist giving a thumbs up and Philip Klein giving a thumbs down. Norquist’s argument is straightforward: This debt-ceiling showdown has always been about politics for Obama, so let him choke on the politics of it. Force him to finally finally finally put his spending plan in writing after he and his party have ducked the issue for months. In fact, according to Roll Call, McConnell’s only question at yesterday’s debt-ceiling meeting was to ask how much the Biden plan would save in discretionary spending next year. The answer: Two measly billion. It’s time for Democrats to get serious, says Norquist, and this will force them. Au contraire, says Klein, there are lots of ways Obama can gin up phony savings to check the “deficit hawk” box for his campaign. Besides, he argues, the McConnell plan actually weakens the GOP’s ability to reach a real deal because O will read it as a sign of panic in the caucus and will press harder for concessions. I’m not so sure about that, though: To me it looks like a sign that McConnell and others in the caucus have more or less given up on making a deal, which strengthens the GOP’s hand insofar as Obama will either need to make new concessions to get them back to the table or start thinking about a Plan B like McConnell’s plan to avert a default.

I do think Klein was spot on with this post from April, though, about how the GOP promised the base too much in terms of what it could realistically achieve while sharing power with Democrats. For all the sturm and drang about the debt-ceiling deals under consideration, to my knowledge none of them — even the “grand bargain” — would actually reduce the debt over the next 10 years. Even the best-case scenario is merely a slower rate of growth. That’s not a serious solution, or even a half-solution, to such a cataclysmic problem, and yet it’s the very best we can do with the current occupants in Congress and the White House. We’ll have to shuffle the deck next year and hope for better; all McConnell’s doing is acknowledging the bleakness of the situation and trying to maximize the odds of a more favorable hand. Exit question: Given that McConnell’s bill would force Dems to own the debt hike, why would Reid allow it to pass the Senate without changes? And if it did, would Obama sign it or veto it?