Greg Sargent gives us the helpful suggestion that what the GOP is actually doing-in an inverted way-is crying out for help. What else would you call it when someone continues to engage in self-defeating behaviour that never works out?
I mean this is not the first time. They have no excuse, they've done this before. Circa 1995, New Gingrich forces a government shutdown in trying to blackmail Bill Clinton. Guess who lost-big-politically on that one?
In 2011 the GOP was at it again playing debt ceiling chicken. Another big political defeat. To this day most people think Obama gave away the store there, but I think otherwise. The only one who's ever made sense about this was Laurence O'Donnell-and David Corn in his book describing the Obama team's strategy for 2011 after the "shellacking"-called aptly enough Showdown.
http://www.amazon.com/Showdown-Inside-Fought-Against-Boehner/dp/B00AKQJYEC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357400390&sr=8-1&keywords=david+corn+showdown
The fact is that whatever you thought of that deal it could have been much worse. And why do you think the Dems had such good leverage for the fiscal fight-which they also scored a major victory despite all the liberal hand-wringing? Largely Obama's very deft performance in 2011. People forget now, but the President had very low political capital in 2011 which was more or less the nadir of his Presidency. Back then he had to at least seem to be taking the Republican rhetoric about austerity seriously.
In any case, the GOP lost big on that one politically as they did in 1995. It was the start of their long march to disaster and defeat culminating in November 6-which they never saw coming. So for those of you who think that the debt ceiling is their leverage-as they quite brazenly tell us-it is outrageous that they see damaging the full faith and credit of the United States government as leverage to achieve a partisan agenda-consider the fact that they've tried it twice and failed both times.
In both cases they had considerably more political capital than they do now. Now they have none. In both cases though they wildly overreached. They overestimated their political capital. However, what can they possibly hope to do now?
With such self-defeating behaviour, Sargent has suggested that we treat them exactly like hostage takers. He spoke to a. guy with a large background as a hostage negotiator. The suggestion is that the Republicans' fatal mistake-as all hostage takers make-is that they assume they have a lot more control over the situation than they do-a hostage taker thinks he has all the control in the situation. The job of the negotiator is to show him that he hasn't. In this case, President Obama is the negotiator.
"The use of hostage-taking imagery to describe the coming debt ceiling crisis is now so ubiquitous that I thought I’d ask a veteran police hostage negotiator what he thinks of the looming standoff.
His advice: Obama must have a trump card in his back pocket that will resolve the situation without the GOP’s help, if necessary. One of the most important goals is getting the hostage taker to realize that ultimately, he’s not in control of the situation."
"There are two possible trump cards for Obama. One is the “platinum coin” option, in which the government mints a trillion-dollar coin and uses it to pay its debts, which is currently getting a lot of blogospheric love. (Josh Barro explains how this might work; Kevin Drum dissents.) There’s also the 14th Amendment option, which some legal observers believe empowers the President to ignore the debt ceiling."
"Obama appears cool to both ideas. But Scott Wagner, a former NYPD homicide detective with extensive experience negotiating hostage crises, says the President needs to at least hint at a willingness to pursue an alternative endgame. A hostage negotiator needs to persuade a hostage taker that he is totally isolated and that the negotiator is the only one who holds the key to his way out — that “deep down, he is not in control of the situation.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/01/04/a-veteran-hostage-negotiators-advice-on-handling-the-gop/
I don't get the President's apparent reticence to go 14th or do the platinum coin. The reader Greg gave us the link to petition for the White House to respond to a request that they consider it. Here is the link.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/direct-united-states-mint-make-single-platinum-trillion-dollar-coin/8hvJbLl6
Last I checked we have almost 22,000 signatures-all we need are 25,000 and then the White House has to respond, so I'd urge you to consider signing.
In any case, even without the 14th or going platinum the President has plenty of leverage-the American people. If the GOP thinks the blowback was bad last time let them actually try to carry out their outrageous threat. Like all hostage takers they need to get that they don't have control.
Yet their most recent antics suggest that they are becoming more delusional and deranged. You have Jon Cornyn suggesting that a "small government shutodown' could be just what the country needs, and that defaulting on the debt ceiling "might not be so bad."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/01/masked_desperation.php?ref=fpblg
Which suggests that their need for an intervention is just getting worse. The last thing we can do in anyway enable this with even the idea that they can get anything through these tactics.
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