|
|
May 25, 2013
|
|
|
|
 Obama Benefits From Republican Civil WarPosted on Dec 23, 2011Finally. After a year of artful camouflage and concealment, Republicans let us glimpse the rift between establishment pragmatists and tea party ideologues. There may be hope for the republic after all. Forty Republican senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, joined Democrats in voting for compromise legislation providing a two-month extension of unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut. The bill passed by 89-10, the kind of margin usually reserved for ceremonial resolutions in favor of motherhood. Senators clearly were confident that House approval would quickly follow. But it didn’t, because House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t get his tea party freshmen to go along. The result was a kind of intramural sniping among Republicans that we haven’t seen in years. “It angers me that House Republicans would rather continue playing politics than find solutions,” said Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts. The stalemate “is harming the Republican Party,” said Sen. John McCain of Arizona. “Are Republicans getting killed now in public opinion? There’s no question,” said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who urged House Republicans to just “get it over with.” But Boehner hung tough, not out of principle but because he had no palatable choice. He didn’t dare bring the Senate bill to the floor for a vote, fearing that non-tea party members of the GOP caucus might defect. So he did nothing for four long days—and let the Republican Party be portrayed as so out-to-lunch that it would blithely raise taxes on 160 million Americans. The week before Christmas. As we roll into an election year. Advertisement In the current imbroglio, nothing resembling a principle was involved. Boehner said that House Republicans wanted to extend the payroll tax cut for an entire year, rather than just two months. But even if you accept his claim at face value, it ignores the fact that the two-month deal was approved by the Senate for one reason only: to allow time for negotiation of a one-year extension. In other words, the measure that House Republicans were so reluctant to pass, or even vote on, was crafted as a step toward the specific outcome that House Republicans claimed was their goal. Boehner’s calls for compromise were absurd. The Senate bill was itself a bipartisan compromise, reached after tough bargaining and many concessions. Democrats abandoned their proposal for an income tax surcharge on those earning more than $1 million a year. President Obama accepted a rider forcing him to make a decision on the controversial Keystone pipeline project before the November election. Republicans had already won the negotiation—until zealots in the House threatened to scuttle the whole thing. McConnell maintained a steely silence until Thursday, then built a ladder for Boehner to climb down. He proposed that the House promptly enact a “short-term” extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance while at the same time working on a one-year measure. Within hours, the House caved. This glimpse of honest debate among Republicans won’t last long, I predict. They’ll try their best to resume the practice of absolute anti-Obama unity, which has worked quite well for them. But no one can erase what voters have seen this week, and it wasn’t pretty. There are only two possible reasons for House Republicans to behave the way they did. Maybe they are so blinded by ideology that they no longer care about the impact their actions might have on struggling American families. Or maybe their only guiding principle is that anything Obama supports, they oppose. The week’s events offer a lesson for Obama, too. One reason for all the Republican angst was that public opinion has become more sensitive to issues of economic justice. This may be partly due to the Occupy protests. But I’m convinced that Obama’s fiery barnstorming in favor of his American Jobs Act has played a big role. People are hearing his message. The president has been on the offensive. It’s no coincidence that for the first time in quite a while, Republicans are backing up.
 TAGS:
|
Marching in Chicago: Resisting Rahm Emanuel’s Neoliberal Savagery
 . '/' . substr('9781594487842',-6,3) . '/' . '9781594487842' . '.jpg'; ?>)
Email 
Print
Share
Email to a friend
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
Tags|Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|FAQ: Comments and Moderation | Google+
© 2013 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.
By bpawk, December 27, 2011 at 4:10 pm Link to this comment
Obama and Romney are very much alike on most issues (bailouts for the risk-taking corporations, favourable tax breaks for the wealthy, involvement in expensive wars in other lands, eroding civil rights etc.) - I think we might as well call a spade a spade and refer to them as Republocrats - why waste time ‘debating’ when you agree on almost everything!
Report thisBy Marian Griffith, December 27, 2011 at 8:11 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
@Michael Cavlan RN
—-Like for example- This nonsense, Obama apologist corporate shill that is allowed ink at TruthDig.—-
Yes, well ... Truthdig is (what passes for) left leaning news in the USA and so it makes sense that they support the (what passes for) left wing party rather than the opposition that is leaning so far to the right that it would be beyond the horizon, if not for the fact it is also so out of touch with reality that it forgot to follow the curve of the planet.
Expecting Truthdig to enthusiastically endorse republicans or dismiss any democrat candidate is about as realisitic as expecting O’Reilly to join a hippy commune in California.
Report thisBy Wallace Fraser, December 24, 2011 at 10:52 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Truthdig, is this the best you can do - Eugene
Robinson? Oh, sorry, I forgot, he also has a
Pulitzer “Prize”. More bullshit. I’m sure it wasn’t
for his front-running story on the Duke Lacrosse
scandal about five years back, you know, the
“privileged white kids who play lacrosse” scandal.
Robinson is an MSNBC hack.
OK then, let’s talk about “Obama benefits”. This is
Report thisclassic TPM stuff, so if you need to be deep in the
political weeds, or for some strange reason an Obot,
or really cool and snarky, go post at TPM. That’s
where this story belongs. I thought Truthdig was
more a big picture site where critical thinking was
required. You know, “big picture” stuff like who
gives a damn if Obama or the opposition benefits or
not. WE LOSE either way! And what is all this wasted
energy about? CRUMBS, fucking crumbs, that’s what. An
extra $20-25 bucks a week in some working stiff’s
pocket is going to do exactly what - by a three extra
topping pizza on Friday night or take the family out
for breakfast after Sunday church. The middle-class
stay distracted, the DC messengers continue to do
their corporate bidding, and this epic legislative
“battle” over crumbs is worthy of what? Someone
enlighten me.
By oddsox, December 24, 2011 at 10:08 am Link to this comment
“Bob Corker of Tennessee ... urged House Republicans to just “get it over with.”
That’s the problem. It’s never “over with.”
We get to do this all over again in 2 months.
And the Bush/Obama tax cuts come up in just over a year.
It’s all designed as part of the political soap opera that puts fleeting partisan advantage ahead of the best interests of the People.
Report thisBy Rixar13, December 24, 2011 at 9:05 am Link to this comment
“But it didn’t, because House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t get his tea party freshmen to go along. The result was a kind of intramural sniping among Republicans that we haven’t seen in years.”
Report thisWe will Re-elect President Obama in 2012… wink
By Rixar13, December 24, 2011 at 9:00 am Link to this comment
“But it didn’t, because House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t get his tea party freshmen to go along. The result was a kind of intramural sniping among Republicans that we haven’t seen in years.”
We will Re-elect President Obama in 2012… wink
Report thisBy Michael Cavlan RN, December 24, 2011 at 1:00 am Link to this comment
Like for example- This nonsense, Obama apologist corporate shill that is allowed ink at TruthDig.
Can ya truth-dig it?
Report thisBy Payson, December 23, 2011 at 9:04 pm Link to this comment
“One reason for all the Republican angst was that public opinion has become more
sensitive to issues of economic justice. This may be partly due to the Occupy
protests.”
I am not so sure. The actions of the “Tea Party” politicians who took advantage of
public disillusionment and ignorance have made a much greater impact than
occupy protestors. Why? Because they promised fiscal change and instead
brought about evangelical war on the freedoms of anyone not like them. As far as
fiscal change, the Tea Party has allowed corporations to tell them what to do.
The so-called Republican civil war is simply the result of a two-party facade
Report thisshowing its true colors as a fraudulent and ineffective freak show that cares
nothing for “real Americans.”
By H. B., December 23, 2011 at 5:57 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
You can’t ever convince a person with an absolutist mindset to even make a small concession, let alone convince him of anything he doesn’t want. The entire GOP, and its precious “base” are people with absolutist mindsets, one and all - just on differing issues, like faux religion, guns, guns guns, racial and gender hatred, seizing power for an elite ruling class, and, of course, making monetary obeisance to the very, VEDDY rich.
This “concession” had more to do with getting home for Xmas than with those “principles” which the GOP bunch keep drumming about.
The GOP can get away with its candidates’ lies and callousness toward “we the people,” because their “base” is too ignorant to realize that they’re dupes (except for the neocons, who are the mind-manipulators among them). They THINK their GOP leaders will attend most solicitously to their own personal agendas (absolutist religion, guns, racism et al, and serving the mega-rich/neocon set), but the reality is that only the LATTER group’s agendas will be given real service. Most neocons despise the “whacked-out” constituency, but because it is very large, and VERY absolutist, lip service adequate to need must be given. That doesn’t mean the holy-roller goal to turn us into a nation, of, by and for holy-rollers, will be given to them. Even on the far right, not all of them ARE holy-rollers. Yet.
What bothers me most is that one can easily see their goal - the real one - if one only looks at it through a neocon mindset: the goal of the GOP (aside from getting that “N” out of the White House) is to destroy the middle class. TOTALLY destroy it.
Why? Because then the nation would be run either by someone from the very rich or from the very poor. In the latter case, think Chavez, and you’ll know what kind of rule the very poor would impose on us. In the former case, it’s what we’ve virtually HAD for decades, and it’s finally coming to roost - at the expense of every American whose income is less than a million (and even some who earn more). But neocons will never be satisfied until they ARE our rulers. They almost got the job done before Bush left, but are starting up again.
They’ve overreached. To the point where their greed and lust to remake America into something it was never intended to be, is becoming rather obvious, even to those who are normally rather ignorant about politics.
But it isn’t surprising. Greed, absolutism and powerlust never know any bounds, and thus will always overreach, sooner or later.
Obama is giving them as much rope as he can, with which they can - and surely will - hang themselves. He’s a superb strategist who knows how to bide his time. Many of his critics and “former supporters” do not, themselves, recognize what he’s doing. He didn’t turn out to be a superman, so they abandoned him. Even when he finessed the herculean feat of health care reform. Even when he nailed bin Laden.
The GOP is a party of the dead, in terms of brains and sense of responsibility toward “we the people.” In every neighborhood in which I’ve lived, there have always been one or two people who’d make better contenders for president than the GOP’s roster of the ignorant, corrupt, whacked-out and inept.
The Republican “base” is a constituency of superlative dupes. Their party leaders even got them to be activists against health care reform, a thing the majority of the “base” needed desperately! How can one get whole large populations of people to oppose what is VERY MUCH in their own best interests?
Maybe someone else can think of something, but I can only think of one thing that can bring off such massive mental manipulation:
Brainwashing. Maybe right-wing media are doing something…more than just reporting conservative viewpoints. And they have, right there in their own party, just the people who’d not only THINK of brainwashing but who would have access to the means of pulling it off. Start with people like Rove, Cheney…
Report thisBy Blueokie, December 23, 2011 at 4:18 pm Link to this comment
I see, forget about the NDAA and celebrate Obama’s win over the preschoolers. LOOK! It’s a shiny shiny ball!
All economies are planned. How many of you are going to be surprised in February when a deal is ‘reached’ that extends unemployment, but gives less and shortens eligibility, and a Social Security defunding scheme called a tax cut, in exchange for approval of Keystone XL and extension of the Obama tax cuts
for the rich, for a longer duration than unemployment and the ‘tax’ cut.
If an extra $20 a week is needed to save the economy, why not a 0.75 an hour jump in the minimum wage? How about doing what 80% of Americans want and raising taxes on the rich? Too simple, not part of the plan. Just be thankful and grateful for the last second ‘victory for the people’ our sage ruler has provided us.
I’m not saying the glass is half empty, I’m saying the glass isn’t there.
Report thisBy Outraged, December 23, 2011 at 3:19 pm Link to this comment
Quote: “This glimpse of honest debate among
Republicans won’t last long, I predict. They’ll try
their best to resume the practice of absolute anti-
Obama unity, which has worked quite well for them.
But no one can erase what voters have seen this week,
and it wasn’t pretty.”
You can say that again. They’ll invent, distort,
Report thisaggrandize, accuse and conjure up any measure of
irrationality that can be imagined. But the stark
reality is that Republicans protect big money 100% of
the time over the interests of everyone else.
By Paul, December 23, 2011 at 1:53 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I think this is another very public example of John
Report thisBoehner’s feckless and incompetent leadership as
Speaker of the House. His most important job as
Speaker is to get all his House troops on board with
the party agenda. Twice now he’s demonstrated his
inability to do so in a very public way. He proved
unable to produce the votes needed to pass the debt
ceiling deal he himself negotiated and now he failed
on the payroll tax cut extension. Less publicly, it
seems that he’s constantly dealing with “rebellions”
within his own party. Why is he still Speaker of the
House? Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled to watch him
destroy himself and his party. I’m just wondering how
long the Republican leadership is going to let this
continue.
By Robespierre115, December 23, 2011 at 12:35 pm Link to this comment
“There may be hope for the republic after all.” Hope for the republic was shot in the face when Obama agreed to the new laws which allow the military to detain anyone it labels as a threat within US borders without representation or trial for as long as it wants. Eugene is a sock puppet, Alexander Cockburn here tells us about the REAL WORLD:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/23/thud-of-the-jackboot/
Excerpts:
Too bad Kim Jong-il kicked the bucket last weekend. If the divine hand that laid low the North Korean leader had held off for a week or so, Kim would have been sustained by the news that President Obama is signing into law a bill that puts the United States not immeasurably far from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in contempt of constitutional protections for its citizens, or constitutional restraints upon criminal behavior sanctioned by the state.
At least the DPRK doesn’t trumpet its status as the last best sanctuary of liberty. American politicians, starting with the president, do little else.
The detention bill mandates – don’t glide too easily past that word - that all accused terrorists be indefinitely imprisoned by the military rather than in the civilian court system; this includes US citizens within the borders of the United States. Obama supporters have made strenuous efforts to suggest that US citizens are excluded from the bill’s provisions. Not so. “It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided to help Al Qaeda to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next,” says Senator Lindsay Graham, a big backer of the bill. “And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer.’” The bill’s co-sponsor, Democratic senator, cosponsor of the bill, Carl Levin says it was the White House itself that demanded that the infamous Section 1031 apply to American citizens.
Since 1878 here in the US, the Posse Comitatus Act has limited the powers of local governments and law enforcement agencies from using federal military personnel to enforce the laws of the land. The detention bill renders the Posse Comitatus Act a dead letter.
Report thisBy ardee, December 23, 2011 at 12:29 pm Link to this comment
BrooklynDame, December 23 at 8:28 am
Nice blog, gives new meaning to reading between the lines I think..
Anarcissie:
It should be easy for Mr. O and his fellow manipulators to split them apart.
One might think, but recent history provides a different viewpoint I fear.
Report thisBy gerard, December 23, 2011 at 11:01 am Link to this comment
Hear ye! Hear ye! “...public opinion has become more sensitive to issues of economic justice. This may be partly due to the Occupy protests ...”
Report thiswhich is entirely due to Obama and the Democrats doing absolutely nothing for years about economic justice, for fear of the rich ..
which is entirely due to their greed and cheating permitted by the corporatemilitary owned government ...
which is entirely due to the United States having sold all its democratic virtues to the neo-cons who
thought we should conquer and dominate the world ...
which any ordinary person with a grain of sense must have known was a very evil and destructive idea and yet most of whom did absolutely nothing ...
which was largely because they, too, thought the U.S.dominating the world was okay because the U.S. is the greatest… and anyway the Patriot Act is just too scarey, and protest is useless and crazy, and ...
So what else is new?
By BrooklynDame, December 23, 2011 at 9:28 am Link to this comment
The entire system is broken and needs realistic solutions (and truthful politicians)
Report thisto fix it. OK, I can dream, can’t I?
http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2011/12/fix-it/
By Fibonacci65, December 23, 2011 at 9:00 am Link to this comment
“Fiery barnstorming”? LOL, Mr. Robinson, best laugh of today! No, I believe the people, as in OWS, had more to with it than Obama. He is merely desperate for re-election so that he can begin his comfy caving as soon as possible.
Report thisBy Anarcissie, December 23, 2011 at 8:58 am Link to this comment
Probably, Robinson doesn’t understand the system systematically.
There are actually several tribes in the Republican camp, and they have little in common: Religious Right, business-interest ‘conservatives’, libertarians, bigots, neo-cons. It should be easy for Mr. O and his fellow manipulators to split them apart.
Report thisBy mouldingthefuture, December 23, 2011 at 8:30 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“necessary increase in the debt ceiling”!?!?
I will read no more of Robinson’s blitherings!
Report thisBy balkas, December 23, 2011 at 7:38 am Link to this comment
in ten words or fewer: robinson continues to talk
Report thisabout individuals only; never the system!
By bigchin, December 23, 2011 at 5:11 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Vote for JUSTICE - vote for ROCKY ANDERSON.
Obama is a fraud.
Report this