Might makes the right

I read the Post's Jennifer Rubin as one would a weather vane and a hospital vitals chart. Her public pathology reveals not only the symptomatic, gangrenous rot that defines our modern era's pseudoconservatives, but acts as well as a kind of wind-blown sewer from which we can smell the right's next, malodorous tranche of nation-screwing frenzy.

Her latest is a bittersweet paean to what could not be, for now, but might still be:

More was not possible [in the debt deal]. You can’t get Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform bill with only the House. You can't insure an adequate level of defense spending with only the House. You can’t get Medicaid and Social Security reform with only the House....

[A]t least we are moving in the right direction.

It's thoughtful of Ms. Rubin to send a pre-ransom note, about which just a couple of observations should be made. First, why do I get the feeling that her editorial "we" is far more exclusive than the usual "we" as a people? Why do I get the feeling that she is writing for the "we" of hers only; a narrow, shocktroop brigade whose revolutionary public-policy tactics stand foursquare opposed to authentic conservatism's primal requirement of broad social acceptance? Hence my above "pseudoconservative," by which the Post's editors should require Ms. Rubin to identify herself.

As notable is her implied confidence that we or you or a bicameral assembly of radical rightists will yet balance our books by breaking the coddled backs of the insanely privileged on Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. But the topper is her handwringing over an adequate level of defense spending -- the current level of which outpaces all the advanced world combined, plus the Klingons.

Thus we can see -- smell -- the right's next unholy creation of national hysteria: its righteous defense of defense and national security, which will play nicely into the right's need to compensate for -- meaning, more plainly, its desire to launch a vicious assault on -- President Obama's rather admirable national security record.

The NY Times' Joe Nocera smells what I do:

[T]he threat of defense cuts is supposed to give the Republicans an incentive to play fair with the Democrats in the ["supercongressional"] negotiations. But with our soldiers still fighting in Afghanistan, which side is going to blink if the proposed cuts threaten to damage national security? Just as they did with the much-loathed bank bailout, which most Republicans spurned even though financial calamity loomed, the Democrats will do the responsible thing. Apparently, that’s their problem.

And ours. The deeper problem is that one cannot honorably negotiate with dishonorable people.

In the last 24 hours I've read several distinguished commentators observe that although the debt deal was perhaps execrable in many ways, wasn't it delightful that the system worked? -- that those tea partiers showed everyone how to do it? -- that they agitated and campaigned and got themselves elected and then toiled for change? -- that that is how representative democracy is supposed to work?

No, not really. Representative democracy implies honor and good faith on the part of its representatives; and threatening to butcher one's violently seized captive is neither honorable nor faithful. It's just gangsterism.

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

As usual, I am the odd man out on this, but I don't see this as terrible as most.

The country put a large number of right wing fanatics into congress, and they promptly took over the majority party. Why should we expect Obama to stop them when Boehner, traditional GOP officials and Wall Street could not? Yes, they are hell bent on a nihlist burning of the city, and nothing much can be done for a year and a half except slow them down. The only way they can be stopped is to be voted out of office.

All the Dems and traditional GOP can do now is to play the role of the National Guard patrolling the city while the rioters run around burning down buildings and generally wearing out themselves.

I don't like this. In fact, I hate it. But they have real political power and unfettered by any sense of caution while using that power. I blame the fools who voted for them, and I blame those on the Left who stayed home during the 2010 elections and pouted.

I went out and voted for Democrats.

[MKS]

They're opposed to higher taxes? They want workers to keep more of what they earn? Why, those intransigient terrorists! How dare they hold the nation hostage!

[Susan SC]

If you need to find something positive about this mess, like I did, read this from the Atlantic...James Fallows wrote a scathing, damning blogpost about Obama definitely being a pawn, and not a chess master, and his readers gently rebuked him with some excellent points. My favorite paragraph "The plain truth is there are enough Republicans in the House that would vote against any bill that had been negotiated honestly. If the Speaker of the House can't get his plan passed, what hope is there the President could have? To reprise the analogy above, if you've got a crazy pilot willing to fly the plane into a mountain, the thing to do is get them away from the controls and make sure they don't have control of a plane in the future.http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/lets-look-on-the-brighter-side-more-on-chess-master-v-pawn/242918/

[Bulworth]

Tax cuts. Yeah, we didn't try those at all in the past decade (and still ongoing).

[Peter G]

Just so Susan SC. Many pundits lately have been quoting that old saw about not taking a hostage you aren't prepared to shoot. Well enough Republicans were prepared to shoot the hostage as to leave no doubt where this whole thing was heading. The people who are complaining loudest about this on the left were the hostages who were going to be shot. Not unexpected.

[Peter G]

Re: Nocera's take on defense spending. I think he is grossly oversimplifying that landmine. There ain't going to be any cuts in defense spending if you'll pardon the colloquialism. The entire MIC is physically structured to cover virtually every state. The big procurement contracts are so designed as to put jobs into almost every district. No one is voting against that. The day to day supply contracts are much the same but failing to vote for them entails the risk of being accused of treason on top of voting against the interest of jobs in their districts. Which means it is a non starter. Which means the cuts to Medicare that are part of this shotgun clause won't happen either.