Earlier this week the NY Times' Jackie Calmes wrote with astonishing bluntness about the GOP's otherworldy threat to the nation's economic welfare, which ranges from appalling ignorance to even more appalling indifference:
Many Republicans have ... made comments indicating that they do not understand or do not care that an increase in the debt limit is needed not only for new spending but also to cover Social Security checks, military pay and myriad other obligations previously agreed to, as well as for payments to creditors holding Treasury bonds.
Observes Politico: John Boehner "is not among them. Boehner acknowledges that the debt limit has to be increased at some point." And yesterday he moved to the potentially untenable position -- untenable among his radical freshmen, that is -- that "this really needs to be done over the next month if we’re serious about no brinksmanship, no rattling investors."
Can you hear Wall Street's monstrous footsteps behind him? Boehner sure can. He's caught between his party's bombthrowing grotesquery and his party's stability-at-all-costs paymasters, and I'd venture the rather unhazardous guess that the paymasters triumph.
Don't you think President Obama thinks what I think John Boehner is thinking? -- which puts Boehner at a debilitating disadvantage in budget negotiations? The speaker may yet lose his leadership position over his browbeating by Wall Street, but he possesses only a Hobson's choice here. Which puts Obama in the catbird seat.
Did Boehner and the rest of the alleged republican leadership not realize what they were getting into when they spent the last two years pandering to the crazy base to win elections?
Posted by: Anne Johnson | June 02, 2011 at 11:29 AM
Boehner blinked a few weeks ago. On one of the Sunday shows he said that he thinks a deal should be made now and not at the 11th hour. I took that as sign that he might not have the guts to drag this out.
Posted by: Alli | June 02, 2011 at 02:31 PM
Anne, I suspect that the "leadership" (the bumblers deserve the air quotes) assumed that they could ride their whipped-to-frenzy tiger as long as it brought them short-term results, then hop off and put the tiger back in its cage when they no longer needed it, no sweat.
Surprise, surprise.
Posted by: janicket | June 02, 2011 at 03:24 PM
Janicket,
I agree. Republicans as far as I can remember (post Nixon) have never been very good at seeing things long term. They seem more concerned with short-term victories with no interest in long-term governing. When will people start to question why a bunch of government haters want so badly to be in government?
Posted by: Anne Johnson | June 02, 2011 at 03:44 PM
Funny that Obama doesn't have to do anything to get a "win" on this. Congress needs to raise the debt limit and Moody's just said they'll downgrade US credit rating mid-July.
No amount of tanning is going to keep Boehner from turning pale during the next six weeks.
Posted by: Elisabeth | June 02, 2011 at 04:38 PM
Elisabeth. Nice one. I will have remember that line.
Posted by: Dorothy Rissman | June 02, 2011 at 04:45 PM
Boehner's tan may turn pale in the run-up to July, but I suspect his underwear turned quite another shade at Moody's pronouncement.
Posted by: janicket | June 02, 2011 at 06:06 PM