A and B sit down to negotiate the sale of a house. A offers to buy the house for $200,000.
B is well advised, according to some, to instead demand $5,000,000, plus the right to fuck A’s wife, because then A will settle for a million dollars and a handjob.
Oh, yeah, that’s the way the real world works. :rolleyes:
Why is the font all jacked up in the OP?
The repeal of DADT is another big achievement for Obama. Without his laying the groundwork by winning the support of Robert Gates and the military it wouldn’t have happened. It’s quite staggering how much legislation he had managed to push through in two years. If START gets the 67 votes it truly would be the icing on the cake.
Normally I am not a fan of Charles Krauthammer. However, he wrote an articletoday that I think is very interesting.
In it, he says that this week was the beginning of the comback of Obama, and that it now looks more likely than ever that he will be reelected. Although he had a bad November, he has shown that he can return and defeat his enemies when it counts.
Some quotes (I hope this doesn’t go over fair use):
“Holding no high cards, he nonetheless managed to resurface suddenly not just as a player but as orchestrator, dealmaker and central actor in a high $1 trillion drama.”
“Despite this, some on the right are gloating that Obama had been maneuvered into forfeiting his liberal base. Nonsense. He will never lose his base. Where do they go? Liberals will never have a president as ideologically kindred - and they know it. For the left, Obama is as good as it gets in a country that is barely 20 percent liberal.”
"The greatest mistake Ronald Reagan’s opponents ever made - and they made it over and over again - was to underestimate him. Same with Obama. The difference is that Reagan was so deeply self-assured that he invited underestimation - low expectations are a priceless political asset - whereas Obama’s vanity makes him always needing to appear the smartest guy in the room. Hence that display of prickliness in his disastrous post-deal news conference last week.
But don’t be fooled by defensive style or thin-skinned temperament. The president is a very smart man. How smart? His comeback is already a year ahead of Clinton’s. "
Does that mean his impeachment will be a year ahead, too?
Interesting to be able to read something by Krauthammer that isn’t flecked with the spittle of partisan rage. Maybe there are still a few cells the Kool-Aid hasn’t reached yet. Doesn’t mean his judgment is worth a shit, though.
Trebuchet MS fascist!
MicrosSoft Facist? Its not that annoying paper-clip with a Hitler 'stache, is it?
I don’t mean to be flip but welfare and food stamps are there for a reason. If the theory is that we have to give the Republicans whatever they want every time they threaten unemployment benefits then what exactly is the point of having the majority again?
So what you’re saying is that we didn’t actually put it to a vote.
We might just stay home on election day. I have trouble seeing how the deal would have been any different if Grover Norquist was President.
I must admit, it does take some creativity to make an animated paperclip look like something you can’t trust.
DADT was repealed today only because it was the one worthwhile thing this Congress could get done in its last session without spending money.
Reagan had to deal with Democratic majorities in the House his entire term. Reagan had THREE tax cuts. The first tax cut was was a real reduction in revenue and the next two shifted taxes from one group of people to another group of people (the top marginal rate kept falling so you do the math), in now way was the federal income tax increased (yeah he increased the social security tax (which only affected the first 50K or so of income, you do the math)).
Are you under the impression that the drug care bill was forced onto Bush?
Conservatives never really cared about reducing the size of government. They only cared about reducing the size of welfare programs and they have gone about as far in that direction as you can go before families start living in tents in public parks.
They didn’t need Nelson, they just couldn’t afford to lose two votes and if push came to shove, I don’t know that they would have lost two votes.
If it were a choice between Obama and Palin, would the left really stay home?
Not this more-or-leftist!
This would have been a spectacular failure. I think the “ask for the moon so you get the stars” tactic can work in closed-room situations where both sides need a resolution, but not in the political sphere. If Obama did that, we would have seen large numbers of Democratic lawmakers abandoning him, along with a GOP in hysterics, except in this case their rhetoric would have been the truth. You can’t start legislative negotiations with a stance like that. It wasn’t like this was a divorce proceeding where some resolution had to be reached. When your opponents are quite happy with the status quo, proposing something that far away from it gives them perfect cause to get up from negotiations and never come back.
Politicians don’t determine what they’re willing to settle for by looking at how much they’re willing to give in relation to the other side’s starting position. Your theory makes it sound like there was some scale with “British-style system” on one end and “laissez-faire health care policy” on the other with notches in between, and the Republicans would have said “OK, we’ll only accept something that’s three notches to the right of what Obama proposes, regardless of what that is.”
As for the tax cut package, I actually blame Pelosi and Reid much more than Obama. Why? Because they should have forced votes on that before the election, when some Republicans might have been too scared to actually vote against a middle class tax cut. That was their opportunity. Frankly, I’m amazed the White House got what it did after waiting until after the “shellacking.”
I also don’t buy the (somewhat paranoid, IMHO) argument that the payroll cat cut is letting the GOP get its foot in the door with regard to destroying Social Security. First, that would be politically stupid. Second, Obama’s team knows that they’ll have MUCH bigger fiscal fish to fry when they decide to address our serious long-term deficit issues. All of this that happened this month has been tinkering at the margins that will be completely subsumed by much, much larger changes in a few years.
This bears repeating. The tax deal this month was done (on POTUS’ part) for only two reasons: concessions by GOP for more stimulative measures the White House wanted along with UI extension, and movement on the rest of the legislative agenda (DADT repeal, DREAM, START). Obama could afford to concede the extension of the upper bracket tax cuts because, as he said in that post deal press conference that the ‘professional left’ only saw as a chiding, “I’m playing the long game,” and “I look forward to seeing [the Republicans] on the field of competition.” I don’t know exactly what that last comment means, but I’m guessing it’s not a capitulation.
My bet? He’s been listening to Horndog Bill. Downside: don’t want no more goddam menshevik “centrist” BLue Dead Dog Clintonistas! Upside: Horndog is a tactical genius, politics wise. Bill spoke, Barry listened.
He’s counting on the Pubbies to overreach, and lose their shit. Then he’s counting on the rest of us to remember that for more than a year. That last part is shakier than a new-born lamb with malaria, but the first part is a mortal lock.
There is always the chance that the Republicans don’t nominate the craziest among them. I might stay home if Chris Christie is the Republican candidate.