If it's war they want ...

In one of the more infelicitous analogies I've ever read, Republican Congressman Steve LaTourette defended an enduring Boehnerian speakership of mayhem, mutiny, and arithmetical illiteracy, because otherwise "It's like saying the superintendent of an insane asylum should be discharged because he couldn’t control the crazy people. That's nuts."

I admit I like the analogy, since if nothing else it suggests a practical way forward: Thorazine in the lower chamber's water supply. Nonetheless, competent superintendence of insane asylums generally does entail a certain amount of "crazy control" so that the inmates can harm neither themselves, each other, or, most important, the surrounding community.

What genuinely worries in The Hill piece, though, from which the LaTourette quote is lifted, are these concluding passages:

One conservative House Republican ... said the only way Boehner’s position is likely to be in serious jeopardy is if he agrees to raise the debt ceiling in a fiscal-cliff deal with Obama without significant concessions on spending cuts and entitlement reform from the president.

"If he gives away the debt ceiling, he’s in trouble," the member said.

Which is to say that in the tormented minds of the crazies the fiscal cliff is to the debt ceiling what a firecracker is to a hydrogen bomb--which, it would seem, the crazies fully intend to detonate. They can't wait. It's so close, so tempting, so nihilistically orgasmic, they themselves are about to pop.

The member's comment also suggests that any fiscal-cliff deal would be both secondary and insignificant to his and his fellow radicals' anticipated, debt-ceiling extortion of monumental dimensions; hence the president's trading of anything--whether marginal rates, taxable levels, or a chained CPI--for an interim deal would in short order amount to an utterly useless appeasement.

Further, and paradoxically, any fiscal-cliff deal that's endowed with a one- or two-year postponement of a debt-ceiling war would be far more reckless than the war itself. Republicans' legislative "right" to cryptofascistic terrorizing of the nation's economy and credit must be forever and unconditionally surrendered. This government, as well as future governments, simply cannot endure with an apocalyptic debt-ceiling knife held perpetually at its throat.

If war must come, let it come now--and have it done with.

Comments

[Janicket]

Abraham Lincoln: "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Peter Arnett, concerning Ben Tre, Vietnam, l968: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it', a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong."

And away we go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcW_Ygs6hm0

[Robert Lipscomb]

I am hoping that Obama uses the debt ceiling for the ultimate showdown. have all Democrats in the Senate and in the House vote, or be prepared to vote, for a clean raising of the ceiling. Then, dare the GOP to take the heat as the markets react to their hostage demands.

Obama and the Dems could spend each day explaining the inanity and insanity of what the GOP would be doing. Then watch their civil war commence.

[Peter G]

Well then let me concur with all of above. The fiscal speed bump is a preliminary skirmish in this war of maneuver. The debt ceiling is,on the other hand, the perfect opportunity to break the Republican caucus. The president has done much to lay the groundwork in creating the appearance of sweet reason and willingness to compromise. Endless republican intransigence is going to, I believe, lead to such public frustration that when the failure of their ideology becomes apparent the blood will flow under the back room doors. You can't mess with everyone all at once and the business community is Ginger to revolt.

[Robert Lipscomb]

The true madness beneath all of this is the Ronald Reagan lie that cutting income tax rates pays for itself. Many, most (all?) GOP politicians still believe this and its convers - raising tax rates hurts the economy.

[japa21]

The WSJ had a lengthy piece describing the negotiations. Obviously Obama was playing hardball all the way.

And, based upon what it says, unless the GOP does an awful lot of caving get ready to hear an inauguration address and SOTU speech that will knock the GOP to hell and (hopefully) not back.