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Tut Tut, Stacy: Let’s Not Stand Here Bickering And Arguing
Over ‘Oo Voted For ‘Oo

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by Smitty

In a rare moment of disagreement with the marquee name on the blog, I don’t think taking swipes at any repentant, legal voter over the 2008 election is helping matters.

  • History is immutable. If someone made a rational decision, based upon imperfect information, then that should be respected. Bainbridge ran the Philadelphia aground on an uncharted reef; sometimes, it happens.
  • Sometimes worse is better. They told me that if I voted for McCain, and McCain won, that the ru[b|d]e awakening would be put off another four years, and I replied: “Nice counter-factual!”. In other words, the come-to-Beavis meeting the country has needed would have been less likely in a McCain Administration. From that perspective, BHO ain’t no bug; he’s a feature.
  • The Progressive Project to wreck America did not begin under BHO. BHO is perhaps the icing, but he is not the cake. The upshot here is that since we’re pretty much all at least little guilty of insufficient civic participation, we can dispense with the finger pointing. I’m neither Jewish nor Roman Catholic; this point is not a guild projection. Quite the opposite. Anyone willing to come to their senses and realize that Statist Idolatry of the Progressive flavor is a Bad Thing, and repent, should be the last target of guilt. Anyone still clinging bitterly to their unaffordable Utopian ideals (and I know one or two) merits a gentle hug. You can’t get into recriminations without resembling the Wisconsin teachers union or a pack of clowns, insofar as the two categories differ.

While I hate to see anyone suffer, I also don’t hope we recover so quickly as to blow by the structural causes of the current crisis: centralization, Socialism, the Iron Law of Bureaucracy, and civic laziness. The people have quietly endorsed the Progressive project through inactivity. We have to reclaim Liberty and gently refuse to let any silver-tongued devil promise some cheap substitute for Liberty and go unchallenged.
That is all.

Fold? Call? The Preshizzle Holds No More Than A Pair Of Salted Nuts

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by Smitty

Protein Wisdom has right around zero confidence in the Speaker of the House. In contrast, the Gray, room-temperature Lady quotes Boehner has having slightly more sack:

The president and leaders of the House and Senate are scheduled to meet on Sunday to review proposals to reduce the deficit. But Mr. Boehner’s remarks suggested that it was unlikely that a quick deal could be struck, and Mr. Obama gave no indication to the contrary, even as he urged a speedy resolution.
“The sooner we get this done,” Mr. Obama said, looking grim as he commented on weak employment data that was released a few hours earlier, “the sooner that the markets know that the debt limit ceiling will have been raised and that we have a serious plan to deal with our debt and deficit, the sooner that we give our businesses the certainty that they will need in order to make additional investments to grow and to hire, and will provide more confidence to the rest of the world as well so that they are committed to investing in America.”
Mr. Boehner stretched his arms wide to symbolize the scale of the differences dividing Republicans and the president, and said: “I don’t think things have narrowed. I don’t think this problem has narrowed at all in the last several days.”

While this is not an explicit debate in the series for next year, one hopes that Mr. Boehner understands that he was elected to carry out the restraining order. This is the moment. The very reason that the House turns over every two years is so that the Will of the People can provide the course correction to an Execute running amok. The Constitution has been essentially turned into a urinal cake by the Progressives; to budge now is to admit that the century-long project to undermine the fabric of the country has been successful.
Call BHO’s bluff, Boehner: we offer support and more tissue than even you can run through.

Quoting his Insta-badness quoting Felix Salmon:

Treasury will send out checks anyway because it can’t stop. “It’s far from clear that it’s even possible to stop making the 3 million payments that Treasury makes automatically every day. Doing so involves a massive computer-reprogramming effort which I’m sure could not be implemented overnight — and for political reasons nobody is going to get started on such an effort until after all hope is lost for a deal in Congress.”

Nonsense: you secure power to the presses and the servers, and there will not be bit #1 emitted. This is more of a junkie/needle problem than a technical one.
Krauthammer is sanguine:

Look, all of this idea that the liberals [are] in a frenzy and pushing back — on what? What exactly has Obama offered on entitlements? I know it’s in the headlines. I know it’s been heavily leaked in advance of this meeting today. I know it’s what Obama wants everybody to think, that he’s prepared to be the grand — the national savior, the compromiser. . . .

But what exactly is on the table? … I would say if Obama wants to show he’s serious about entitlements, he needs to offer a structural change, let’s say in Medicare. There is a rumor that it’s going to be means testing, meaning the rich will pay more and the elderly poor will pay less, which I think is eminently reasonable. But why would a liberal resist that? Isn’t that what liberals are arguing, for fairness in having the rich contribute more?

What’s interesting here is that the Progressive sacred cows were previously unmentionable. The fact that they are being circulated at all is at least some measure of improvement. Don’t back down, Boehner!

Prediction: BHO Does Not Even Complete Term, Much Less Run For Reelection

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by Smitty (h/t Instapundit)

This prediction is served without malice. I feel nothing about the Commander-in-Chief, one way or the other.

  1. The economy appears to be dead in the water, but are only that good if you squint and believe government figures which, unexpectedly, are later adjusted down.
  2. Government actions, like those of the EPA, are inimical to economic recovery.
  3. As the third year after winning the election closes, BHO’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll remains mired in the negative teens.

Against those, and other equally negative inputs (Pigford), BHO will have to arrive at a means to avoid losing the election. I predict Eric Holder will be the vehicle, or, rather, dude going under the vehicle, to achieve this. The means to avoid losing in an election BHO cannot win will be to resign, Nixon style, because the integrity of the administration has been unexpectedly (did I already use that word in this post?) tarnished.
This occurs at the point where the maximal amount of cash has been squeezed from the donors. Of course. “BFD” Biden generates a bit of work for the portrait guy, and finishes out the term. It’s not as classical as OediPUTUS Wrecks, but there you have it.