Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary Magazine
2/21/2013
Republicans are experiencing a serious problem as they attempt to stand up to President Obama’s pressure to give in and raise taxes again in order to avert the sequester budget cuts. In spite of the fact that the idea for the scheme originated in the White House and that it is the president’s intransigence in insisting on more taxes rather than a spending solution, the public isn’t buying the GOP’s argument. Two new polls show not only that the president’s job approval rating is at its highest mark since his 2009 honeymoon, but that more people blame Republicans for the sequester and the damage it will do to the economy and national defense than blame Obama.
Democrats claim this is because they have the better argument when they put forward their so-called “balanced approach” to the deficit that calls, at least in theory, for both cuts and increased revenue. But though there may be some truth to this, when one looks deeper into the numbers it’s not clear this assertion stands up to scrutiny. As was the case last year when the country’s weak economy and the administration’s meager accomplishments seemed to guarantee the president’s defeat, Republicans are discovering anew that a situation that might sink another president is not hurting the incumbent’s public standing or giving them any leverage to resist his demands. The rules are just different for Barack Obama–and the sooner the GOP comes to grips with this reality, the better off they’ll be…
…Obama’s identity as the man who makes Americans feel good about their country renders all other factors irrelevant. This is something that conservatives struggle to understand primarily because they are immune to the president’s personal charm and speaking ability. But it is a fact they must accept if they don’t want to spend the next four years banging their heads against a wall. That’s why the GOP must stop focusing so much on trying to attack a president who is impervious to criticism and concentrate on the sort of big ideas about growth that made them the party of ideas in the ’80s and ’90s…
Read the complete article at Commentary Magazine.
H/T Ace of Spades HQ
Also at Ace:
Warning: this photo is Texas Chainsaw massacre/ slasher stuff. Depicts “massive” cuts from #sequester. Scary. twitter.com/GroverNorquist…
— Grover Norquist (@GroverNorquist) February 23, 2013
The Heritage Foundation has a sequestration graphic here.
From Reason.com White House Report Claims Sequestration Will Affect Federal Department That No Longer Exists
And, Setting The Sequester Narrative: Blame the Tea Party. Naturally.
…“This will be the first significant Tea Party victory in that we got what we set out to do in changing Washington,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas. Meanwhile, Speaker Boehner is still standing in front of the doomsday clock and giving President Obama the photo-op of a lifetime…
Related: The United States is a Euro-Socialist Nation
On stage in Washington D.C., starring Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and the supporting cast — the mainstream media, is the 21st sequel, since 1995, of imminent Armageddon if government spending is reduced. This award-winning production currently retitled: “Sequestration, or The End of Compassion”, has been enormously successful as its plot of good (the American left) versus evil (conservatives and Republicans) has captured the imagination of a majority of the audience.
This theatrical offering is but one element of the overall strategy to attain the primary stated goal of the American left, which is to transform the United States into a Euro-Socialist democracy. The need to reprise this production is really unnecessary as, under the direction of Barack Obama, the so-called Progressives are well on the road to achieving this long sought-after objective, and in fact they have achieved this end…
…Unbeknown to the vast majority of Americans nearly all the nations of Europe are presently mired in a second recession in a matter of just three years accompanied by unemployment well into the double digits throughout the continent. Public unrest, while contained for the moment, is beginning to bubble just under the surface. The United States has thus far avoided an official plunge back into a recession, but that is due primarily to the Federal Reserve essentially creating money out of whole cloth as they have increased their balance sheet by nearly $3 Trillion since the beginning of 2008 through buying U.S. government and mortgage debt…
Also, for history buffs, the timely discovery of the remains of King Richard III: Obama’s Tudor Tutor
There’s a lot of Henry VII in our current president, not to mention the host of mini-Shakespeares covering for him.