A badly wounded deal?

This bill is dead. I'd bet money. It now looks as though the House will weight it down with deathly amendments, as if the CBO's scoring wasn't enough.

So Obama's luck appears likely to hold, although it's damn unfortunate that such valuable battering time has been squandered.

The additional upside, of course, is that Obama & Co. can now do what needed to be done all along: kick the final bejesus out of the insidious GOP. That's assuming, naturally, that I'm right and this bill is dead.

***

update:

The insane: "I would be shocked if this bill is not sent back to the Senate," said Alabama's Rep. Spencer Bachus following his party's black mass this evening ...

vs.

The insanely calculating: Republicans, said Oklahoma's Rep. Tom Cole on CNN minutes ago, should take the "gigantic wins" of this fiscal-cliff deal--such as that of cementing most of the vastly unaffordable Bush tax cuts in perpetuity--and then proceed to pummel and abuse and cripple and possibly destroy the American economy during the wholly fabricated debt-ceiling crisis.

Now who could argue with that?

We'll soon find out.

***

downdate:

It seems I lost the bet, as did, I'd still argue, the country.

Comments

[Peter G]

I'm following the news closely too of course. And if you are right and the bill is killed, as was always possible, then I think the Republicans have an even worse problem than they had before. Unfortunately so will Obama.

[Smartypants]

Let me give you an alternative to the idea that PBO is "lucky."

What would your alternative strategies be if you knew that your opposition was going to adopt an approach of total obstruction to anything you wanted to accomplish.

One option would be to dig in your heels and fight it out. That's essentially an invitation to a "both sides do it" verdict - which plays right into your opposition's hand.

The other option is to take a pragmatic approach that allows for ideas rooted in any ideological framework - as long as you can demonstrate they will work. As you embrace a wider range of the political spectrum, your opposition has to chose whether to take your outstretched hand or paint themselves into an ever more extremist corner.

Of course PBO chose the latter option. He knows that those who oppose him are not doing so for ideological reasons - its a power play. And he's played this all so well that the House R's are about to throw themselves off the fiscal cliff in an attempt to deny him a win - even one you find to be weak tea.

I'm not suggesting this has all been a bluff. I think the president would have actually preferred that the R's accept his outstretched hand. But he's willing to let them make fools of themselves if that's what they are determined to do. He "wins" the overall battle either way eventually.

So enough already with the luck. If you can't embrace my rationale, as a white man please at least take a moment to think about what it means for you to accuse the first AA POTUS of being lucky. It reeks of privilege.

Thank you.

[Jason]

Smartpants, good comments until the very end. Once you got into the racial game, you lost me. Pray tell, how exactly does it reek of privilege for a middle-class, little-known political blogger to claim that the effing President of the United States got lucky in a financial negotiating squabble? Ordering white people to handle minorities with rhetorical kid gloves is just the sort of self-indulgent, condescending paternalism that makes liberals look bad.

[Beulahmo]

Jason,

Chill dude. You don't need to break out any kid gloves.

First, I have an idea that PM and Smartypants respect each other quite a bit, so she's speaking to a colleague whose opinions she values. She's not asserting that a "little known blogger" LITERALLY has privilege over the President of the United States. She's appealing to PM's empathy -- to take some time to consider that the man who is our president is the first African American to be so politically successful that he won election despite the increasingly overwhelming obstacles that have been thrown at him. And throughout his political rise, he's dealt with all the built-in social obstacles that a black man *would* face, not just over the last few years, but throughout his career. He's been "negotiating" with people invested in causing his failure for a long time -- and he's done it as a black man. I guess what I'm saying is that, keeping that perspective in mind, I personally am a lot less likely to view him as a hapless negotiator who's somehow constantly blindsided and sandbagged by malevolent colleagues, but somehow happens to get good results through "luck". For me, trying to accept the notion of President Obama as a hapless and naive yet successful politician, especially since he's achieved such enormous success as a *black man*, just doesn't seem plausible.

I'm being HELLA presumptuous, but I think it's just the "luck" part that Smartypants is asking PM to reconsider, for the reasons I just explained.

[Jason]

Hey Beula,

With hot tottie in hand (shut up--I like hot totties!), I'm plenty chill.

I totally agree with Smarty's and your assessment that Obama isn't a hapless negotiator who got lucky but is really a shrewd, calculating political ninja.

Still, there's nothing racially out of bounds about PM remarking that the Prez got lucky. Whether Smarty and PM respect each other is beside the point. She didn't need to go there with the race issue. It didn't contribute to her otherwise valid point, and it made her sound like another one of those tiresome academics who reduce humanity to race, class, and gender, viewing women and minorities as perpetually and totally oppressed.

[Smartypants]

Thanks Beulahmo. You expressed my thoughts really well.

Jason - The fact of the matter is that, as white people, we're all privileged - whether we like it or not. The trouble is, we're often blinded to how we assume that privilege. I do it all the time. What I hope is that someone comes along to help me see it. That's usually the only way I have of opening my eyes.

That's what I was attempting to offer pm in my comment.

[Jason]

Smarty,

I hear ya. Also, I look at the comment threads on here as like a grad seminar. Nothing personal. Just good, feisty debate, so please take what I say in that tone.

The sentiment that whiteness itself equals privelege is an old leftist trope (speaking as a leftist myself). If that's still true, it's considerably less so today to the point where such privelege is nearly moot. More so, the relationship between race and social privelege is so complex, fluid, and contextual that to say that whiteness equals privelege is not just oversimplistic; it's a distortion of so much of social reality.

Still, even if whiteness equals privelege in some sort of permanent and totalistic fashion, that still doesn't mean that there's anything racially maloderous with pm saying the Prez got lucky. White people should not feel the need to tiptoe around minorities. If they do, it will only make racial tensions worse. And besides, to do so is totally insulting to minorities.

[wtf]

Obama attended an exclusive private prep school in Hawaii from 5th grade until graduation. This idea of him as a disadvantaged black kid who pulled himself up by the boot straps is a fiction. He's been a very good lap dog to the white elite and if anything "reeks of privilege" it's his cavalier attitude towards the middle and working class--black, white, latino, et al--in America.

Looks like he's going to get his bill passed, then it's on to the crocodile tears of cutting entitlement benefits and raising eligibility ages in March. He's promised entitlement cuts for the past eight years and that is one promise he will keep.

[Beulahmo]

Jason,

Yeah, I wasn't giving you background on the relationship between PM and Ms. Pants in order to make any kind of counterpoint to your comments; I prefaced with that so you could better understand why she was calling PM's attention to it *at all*. Alas, I didn't make that sufficiently clear.

So since I do better when I describe things from my own perspective, please let me try again. I'm white and I always appreciate when I get good-faith feedback from a trusted source that is meant to enlighten me (as opposed to accusations meant to shame me). I accept, without shame, the reality that I can never fully know the experience of living as a person who has less social privilege than I have. But I CAN cultivate a better understanding (through mindfulness) of lives experienced from other areas of social privilege, and so I appreciate -- even when it's a bit uncomfortable for me -- getting feedback that helps me to that end. And since I am absolutely certain Ms. Pants means to enlighten, not shame, I thought it was useful to point out the previously established mutual respect underlying her comments to P.M.

Seriously, it's not about "whining" about being oppressed -- it's about addressing the completely understandable reality that our lives are experienced quite differently, depending on the level of privilege society accords us. Mindfulness about that doesn't necessarily require any action (let's face it, action's not always possible), but the differences are *always* relevant and worth considering.

[Jason]

P.S. So back to the original post.

I haven't shared PM's gloominess, because so far, everything seems to be going exactly as expected. First of all, on nearly everything, Obama has frustrated the left, because--let it be said once and for all--OBAMA'S NOT A LIBERAL! He's a decent guy for a politician, far better than many alternatives, but in the end, he's a Wall Street-friendly member of the upper sociopolitical echelon, completely cut off from the lives of ordinary people. So, I never expected him to really fight hard for our needs anyway. I figured we'd get a little help--more than we would under a Romney--but little that would majorly improve our prospects.

Second, I think it's been Obama's intent from the beginning to use the recent economic squabble to show the country how insane the Republicans are. He knows (like everyone else by now should know) that the GOP House will never, ever vote for any law that raises taxes. And yet, they will also never, ever specify any significant spending cuts. They'll rage and sputter over small items like public broadcasting and NEA grants, but nothing that would make even a dent in the deficit. So, Obama offers them a dream deal, knowing they'll still balk, and thus demonstrating for all to see their fathomless nitwitness.

That's always been Obama's political strategy. He just keeps giving his opponents more rope to hang themselves with.

[Smartypants]

Jason @ 7:02

I simply disagree with the idea that privilege is an old liberal trope or moot.

The data on racial disparities on everything from health to education to our justice system indicates that the deck is still pretty stacked.

Let me give you an example. An AA co-worker of mine recently told me that she made her son cut his dreadlocks when he turned 13 because she thought they made him too much of a target for the police. She has very good reason for her concern - even though she lives in a pretty affluent suburb (that actually increases her cause for concern).

What white mother of a 13 year old boy has to incorporate that kind of fear/concern into her parenting?

That's just one small example from my own experience recently.

I'm glad you don't think that white people should tip toe around people of color. I don't. The point is not to be careful - but to be open.

[MinneapolisPipe]

What's interesting is that the usually mercurial Andrew Sullivan is serenely calm about all this while the usually calm are quite not. His commentary is well worth the read:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2013/01/the-long-game-revisited.html

Jason, I respect your argument but disagree with you about whether Obama cares about ordinary people. Ordinary people aren't really the ones that are analyzing every Washington development on the blogs (left & right). They're just trying to take care of themselves and their families.

The last time he got a lashing from the left during the deal of December 2010 (which the left typically misunderstood as a loss), this was Obama's response (Andrew Sprung brought this up on his Xpostfactoid blog):

"We’re going to keep on having this debate [over appropriate tax rates]. We’re going to keep on having this battle. But in the meantime I’m not here to play games with the American people or the health of our economy. My job is to do whatever I can to get this economy moving. My job is to do whatever I can to spur job creation. My job is to look out for middle-class families who are struggling right now to get by and Americans who are out of work through no fault of their own.

A long political fight that carried over into next year might have been good politics, but it would be a bad deal for the economy and it would be a bad deal for the American people. And my responsibility as President is to do what’s right for the American people. That’s a responsibility I intend to uphold as long as I am in this office. ..."

[janicket]

Respectfully, Jason, to say that Obama is "completely cut off from the lives of ordinary people" ignores all the years he spent as a community organizer in Chicago, dealing with the gritty realities of lives perpetually on the edge of disaster. I daresay he hasn't forgotten what he saw on those mean streets.

What I would posit is that, in fact, Obama has experienced what life is like for a far broader swath of this nation's citizens than many of the legislators he has to work with, not to mention Beltway bigfoot pundits who blithely second-guess him from the safety of never having to put their prescriptions for him into practice.

[JTL]

MinneapolisPipe:

I would like to feel good about this deal as much as anyone, but perhaps the "usually mercurial Andrew Sullivan is serenely calm" because he's a conservative? While he is an Obama supporter, his priorities are quite probably not in the same ballpark as most of the President's base.

[wtf]

Janicket--"Gritty realities of lives perpetually on the edge of disaster"? Do you actually know anything about what Obama did as a "community organizer" or do you just imagine what he did? From what I read, he seems to have spent a fair amount of time working as a fixer for developers on those "mean streets." On behalf of developers he whitewashed/assuaged community concerns, thus enabling very wealth developers to get city approval for their deals. That's how he made his connections with Valerie Jarrett and the Pritzker family. Not exactly ordinary people, those "folks."

Don't fool yourself into thinking Obama is not a very ambitious social climber who has demonstrated early and repeatedly that he will do the bidding of the people who own this country.

[BobH]

The relative merits/demerits of our politicians aside, the bill passed the House, with ample help from the Democrats. Sanity, in short supply in that House, prevailed at long last.

Based upon the vote counts shown on C-Span, The Speaker was only partly in control of his caucus. Things will be better in the next Congress (fewer teapartiers, more Dems.), but he will still need Democratic help to get anything of consequence passed. Can we hope that the middle ground called "compromise" has returned?

The Bill, as passed: SS Contrib. (FICA) rates restored, AMT permanently patched, Dr's. Medicare reimbursement issue fixed for now, tax cuts preserved for middle class (rationale- the economy is still weak),increase in rates - restored for upper income levels T/Ps, extension of FUTA benefits. Not too bad.

The deal, is OK, for today.

[MinneapolisPipe]

JTL,

Your point is taken, but I do question the label Sullivan is given. He is pro-civil rights, anti-torture, anti-Chrisitan fundamentalist, pro-Obamacare, etc. I would say he is quite a far distance away from the Republican party.

He does, however, care about deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility. But by those standards, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have been the most "conservative" presidents of the last 32 years, and good ones at that.

The notion of the "base" is fascinating in that Obama has quite a diverse coalition that is truly his base, including people like Sullivan. It's not just people on Moveon.org's email list.

[Peter G]

Well MinneapolisPipe, I have always found it strange that so many of the people who despise Obama publicly and vociferously with one breath will assert that he owes them his very job because they are his political base with their next breath. One has to make the distinction naturally between irrational anger and justifiable criticism but the people who think that way never do. Hence their criticism begins I have heard....or From what I have read....

[Peter G]

I will argue the opposing view, this is good for your country. First let me deal with the taking point currently circulating that this deal raises he deficit by 4 trillion. That is largely bullshit. It is essentially the amount of the tax revenue foregone if the middle class tax cuts were to continue for a decade. It takes no account of what other tax revenue might be raised nor the revenue lost to the reduced growth of a second recessionary cycle. It takes no account of the reduce spending that will now be possible. To my mind there is little difference between this argument and the one advanced by Republicans that austerity is needed in the middle of a rescession. Politically the Republicans have been dealt a serious blow. Their caucus was broken and the leverage they have for the coming debt ceiling debate is illusory. They have made the argument that it is social spending that needs to be cut and now they will have to say exactly what those cuts are to be. Which third rail do you think the'll prefer to kiss? Medicare or SS. How is their problem different? How are they going to persuade the Democrats to take the heat for what they themselves want to do? Are they gong to shoot the hostage they dare not shoot? The chuckle heads may not know what the economic and political consequences of that would be but I'm pretty sure Boehner and McConnell do.