The idea that Kevin Mccarthy is running rings around biden is downright silly and part of the breathless pundit tendency to evaluate results well before they've resulted. We're either going to end up with a deal that avoids default- at which point there is no blame game - or the freedom caucus blows a deal up, at which point Biden makes a big speech and blame is clearly assigned.
And he has to take criticism from every media outlet, from every angle, unlike conservative folk who have their media praising almost everything they do and castigating Democrats no matter what.
Biden has to give poor McCarthy something to crow about as a тАЬwin.тАЭ The White House knows itтАЩs all about strutting and PR and trying to keep his job for McCarthy, who is very proud now that he тАЬmadeтАЭ Biden negotiate.
I think that an Oval Office talk would spook the markets even more plus stimulate the House crazies. House Republicans will make excited, excessive, truth-challenged claims no matter what happens because thatтАЩs how radicalized the House and their base are.
I think we have to wait to see how this shakes out before we judge.
People seem to have forgotten that Biden already, quite publicly, cornered Republicans into taking cuts to Social Security and Medicare off the table. In so doing, he very considerably reduced the field of play for their subsequent hostage-taking.
Whatever they agree to now, McCarthy knows he canтАЩt get passed without some DemsтАЩ support. He also knows thatтАЩs the only way heтАЩll survive a vote on a motion to vacate the chair.
It was pretty impressive, and frankly surprising, when the infrastructure bill got passed. Hopefully, this is another example of BidenтАЩs quiet effectiveness.
I wish you were correct but the fact is the republicans having their face on TV constantly even if it is telling absurd lies gets the attention. There should not a day pass that democrats are not telling the country how disastrous what the GOP is asking for would be to the economy, I think everybody knows how disastrous default is. One of the most effective ads is McCarthy in the side by side talking about the debt ceiling in 2017 and today.
Agreed. Unfortunately, appearance matters. And Biden does not look as good as he needs to at this time. Going into a holiday weekend with this hanging looks weak. He should address the peopleтАФtoday.
I agree with EA Bare, the White House is totally losing the messaging battle. It's not a matter of "sinking to their level," it's a matter of getting your message out. Even House Democrats are saying they don't know what the White House strategy is.
The lack of a coherent message, heck ANY message, is almost political malpractice.
Democrats can't message if their lives depended on it, and that's a huge part of the problem. They control a podium that all news networks will air live if they ever decide to use it. They just don't. The GOP uses their much smaller media microphone *constantly* when they're in the minority. Biden needs to get in front of the cameras a lot more often and leverage his podium.
The messaged pretty well in the 2022 midterms. They kept the GOP House margin to nearly single digits when a whole lotta people were expecting a red wave.
Strong disagree. You can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. And if you're not messaging about your successes then nobody will know about them. "Trying to get an agreement/busy governing" = negotiating with economic terrorists and caving into their demands. They're continuing to set an awful precedent of allowing budget negotiations to commence at gunpoint outside of normal budgetary sessions. We already have a time for budgets. The GOP is using non-budgetary time windows to claw back demands they couldn't pass during budgetary time windows. And dems are letting them do it via active negotiations rather than saying "This shit stops now, and if you send us into default because you didn't like the spending you already signed off on then that default will fall squarely on your shoulders." Instead, they're doing the usual weak-kneed Dem bullshit and playing right into the GOP's hands. If you cave to screaming and ranting children you only encourage more screaming and ranting in the future from the children who will always be thinking about what they want next.
By negotiating with the terrorists you're already platforming them for doing something absolutely asinine (pointing a loaded gun at the economy and demanding budget cuts in return). It's not like this is the part where the dems are just play-negotiating with the terrorists to give the SWAT team time to go in and waste all the terrorists and save the hostage. There are only two ways out of this:
1) The dems cave to demands and make a deal that may or may not even pass in congress
2) the dems call the GOP bluff and say "go ahead and blow up the economy if you want, you'll own that fallout."
Joe will cave, and by doing so he'll be giving the GOP exactly what they want: demands met over the threat of economic catastrophe. Even worse, his party won't use the precedent set by the GOP. When it's a GOP president in power and dems in control of congress do you think they'll utilize this new precedent to demand tax hikes on the rich in order to pass the debt ceiling under a GOP president? Of course not. Why? Because they really really suck at figuring this game out for themselves. They'd rather be in the victim's seat every single time.
Depends on which TV channel you are watching. McCarthy and his ilk know full well they can say anything in front of a camera and not get ANY pushback from the people with the mics. They have their favs who will push a narrative for them.
Agree. The situation is very volatile. If Biden does a national address from the Oval right now, he risks being accused of crying wolf if things take a sharp, unexpected turn. Unfortunately, he probably won't be able to go to the cameras until the last minute. We aren't there yet, and Biden shouldn't look too eager for a bad deal.
The incentive structures in today's GOP bears no resemblance to the D's during Reagan presidency. I live in Mike Lawler's district and much as I wish I could count on him to work with the D's to pass a clean debt ceiling, I don't see it happening, even if the WH pressured him. He is not going to risk becoming a pariah in the GOP like LIz Cheney; he knows that the D's are gunning for his seat in 2024 and he knows that the RNC is prepared to fight just as hard. (Ronny McDaniel was in Westchester last week for the opening of an immigrant services center posing along with Lawler and they both leaned heavily into registering R voters., turning CD17 into a reliable R district.)
How many months did Obama waste trying to get supposed reasonable chuck Grassley on board with the aca? The gop is a leninist party that practices democratic centralism where deviation from the party line is punishable by primary challenge from the right. On non-critical matters, some deviation is allowed but this ain't that: I personally wouldn't waste a second on a pursuit of gop votes on this.
Just how is it working? More attention? More noise? As Howard pointed out, results haven't resulted yet. I'm thinking back to last fall when just about every head in the punditry ( except Liberal Cynic ) warned of a colossal red wave and I personally got all funked up and then when the results resulted they weren't that result. I think we're a bunch of backseat drivers, and the actual driver and his team have steered this country very well indeed and maybe they aren't stupid and are not operating with the goal of getting their noise and faces on screens.
Republicans are getting budgetary concessions outside of normal budget negotiations aren't they? The hostage takers are getting their demands--at a minimum--partially met. Dems should have held the line that budget discussions should only occur when they're passing a budget. Instead, we get budget negotiations 2 times a year now instead of just one--all because dems caved to the economic terrorists when they pointed a loaded gun at the US economy. And this only ever happens when there's a dem in the WH because dems love to cave to GOP hostage-taking and then never fight fire with fire by demanding taxes on the rich when they have the majority under a GOP president. So not only do dems allow the precedent to set in, they also never take advantage of it to get their own demands met even after they allow the precedent to be set. That's called getting suckered and being weak.
Sorry but have you thought this through? This is a game of chicken. Biden is best saying little and getting McCarthy to blink. Sadly the GOP wants nothing. They are like a whiney bteenager who would cut off her nose to spite her face.
It is not that Dems love to cave but the weaker party is the one who wants something - like to pass good legislation.
Is it really? GOP tried this with the mediaтАЩs help when Obama was in the WH and with Clinton and it backfired. Did you just notice GOP is always on TV because they are. Media covers their every utterance. Dems can call a million press conferences but the media wonтАЩt respond the same way they do to the GOP. They love to do the spin. Imagine if a Dem talked openly about extracting concessions from a тАЬhostage.тАЭ That would be the lead story for days. The GOP says it out loud and itтАЩs crickets. Blame the media. They have been doing this for years.
Republicans are getting the negotiations they demanded for budgetary purposes outside of normal budget negotiations aren't they? Dems should let them send us into default and hang this around their necks rather than entertain negotiations with hostage-takers. They only encourage more of this in the future and numb the public into normalizing this behavior by agreeing to negotiations.
Copying Republican pandering to assign blame for the debt-ceiling debacle would be like killing for peace - you would destroy that which you would create.
How can you work a deal with a party not interested in governing in the first place? They were only ever going for ratings and trying to assign blame. Maybe focus on not letting them play that game with impunity.....again....for the thousandth time it seems?
The idea that Kevin Mccarthy is running rings around biden is downright silly and part of the breathless pundit tendency to evaluate results well before they've resulted. We're either going to end up with a deal that avoids default- at which point there is no blame game - or the freedom caucus blows a deal up, at which point Biden makes a big speech and blame is clearly assigned.
I think Biden is trying to avoid a default instead of playing political games like McCarthy is doing.
Hopefully he will succeed.
And he has to take criticism from every media outlet, from every angle, unlike conservative folk who have their media praising almost everything they do and castigating Democrats no matter what.
Life ain't fair. No point in railing against it.
Biden has to give poor McCarthy something to crow about as a тАЬwin.тАЭ The White House knows itтАЩs all about strutting and PR and trying to keep his job for McCarthy, who is very proud now that he тАЬmadeтАЭ Biden negotiate.
I think that an Oval Office talk would spook the markets even more plus stimulate the House crazies. House Republicans will make excited, excessive, truth-challenged claims no matter what happens because thatтАЩs how radicalized the House and their base are.
I think we have to wait to see how this shakes out before we judge.
Extremism sucks.
People seem to have forgotten that Biden already, quite publicly, cornered Republicans into taking cuts to Social Security and Medicare off the table. In so doing, he very considerably reduced the field of play for their subsequent hostage-taking.
Whatever they agree to now, McCarthy knows he canтАЩt get passed without some DemsтАЩ support. He also knows thatтАЩs the only way heтАЩll survive a vote on a motion to vacate the chair.
Man, talk about taking a radical position in America these days. Wait and see before rendering a final judgement? What kind of whackadoodle are you?!?
I've already made up my mind. Don't confuse me with the facts.
/s
BidenтАЩs secret superpower is that everyone other than, perhaps, his inner circle underestimates him.
It was pretty impressive, and frankly surprising, when the infrastructure bill got passed. Hopefully, this is another example of BidenтАЩs quiet effectiveness.
I wish you were correct but the fact is the republicans having their face on TV constantly even if it is telling absurd lies gets the attention. There should not a day pass that democrats are not telling the country how disastrous what the GOP is asking for would be to the economy, I think everybody knows how disastrous default is. One of the most effective ads is McCarthy in the side by side talking about the debt ceiling in 2017 and today.
Agreed. Unfortunately, appearance matters. And Biden does not look as good as he needs to at this time. Going into a holiday weekend with this hanging looks weak. He should address the peopleтАФtoday.
I think a look at his schedule will put that to rest !
Actually, the deal reached on Saturday put that to rest.
I agree with EA Bare, the White House is totally losing the messaging battle. It's not a matter of "sinking to their level," it's a matter of getting your message out. Even House Democrats are saying they don't know what the White House strategy is.
The lack of a coherent message, heck ANY message, is almost political malpractice.
Democrats can't message if their lives depended on it, and that's a huge part of the problem. They control a podium that all news networks will air live if they ever decide to use it. They just don't. The GOP uses their much smaller media microphone *constantly* when they're in the minority. Biden needs to get in front of the cameras a lot more often and leverage his podium.
The messaged pretty well in the 2022 midterms. They kept the GOP House margin to nearly single digits when a whole lotta people were expecting a red wave.
Strong disagree. You can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. And if you're not messaging about your successes then nobody will know about them. "Trying to get an agreement/busy governing" = negotiating with economic terrorists and caving into their demands. They're continuing to set an awful precedent of allowing budget negotiations to commence at gunpoint outside of normal budgetary sessions. We already have a time for budgets. The GOP is using non-budgetary time windows to claw back demands they couldn't pass during budgetary time windows. And dems are letting them do it via active negotiations rather than saying "This shit stops now, and if you send us into default because you didn't like the spending you already signed off on then that default will fall squarely on your shoulders." Instead, they're doing the usual weak-kneed Dem bullshit and playing right into the GOP's hands. If you cave to screaming and ranting children you only encourage more screaming and ranting in the future from the children who will always be thinking about what they want next.
By negotiating with the terrorists you're already platforming them for doing something absolutely asinine (pointing a loaded gun at the economy and demanding budget cuts in return). It's not like this is the part where the dems are just play-negotiating with the terrorists to give the SWAT team time to go in and waste all the terrorists and save the hostage. There are only two ways out of this:
1) The dems cave to demands and make a deal that may or may not even pass in congress
2) the dems call the GOP bluff and say "go ahead and blow up the economy if you want, you'll own that fallout."
Joe will cave, and by doing so he'll be giving the GOP exactly what they want: demands met over the threat of economic catastrophe. Even worse, his party won't use the precedent set by the GOP. When it's a GOP president in power and dems in control of congress do you think they'll utilize this new precedent to demand tax hikes on the rich in order to pass the debt ceiling under a GOP president? Of course not. Why? Because they really really suck at figuring this game out for themselves. They'd rather be in the victim's seat every single time.
I agree... And reminding people that the debt ceiling is about paying for costs that Congress already voted into law.
Depends on which TV channel you are watching. McCarthy and his ilk know full well they can say anything in front of a camera and not get ANY pushback from the people with the mics. They have their favs who will push a narrative for them.
The game is not over: let's not evaluate it until we get a final score. Bear in mind exactly how few people watch TV news anymore.
Agree. The situation is very volatile. If Biden does a national address from the Oval right now, he risks being accused of crying wolf if things take a sharp, unexpected turn. Unfortunately, he probably won't be able to go to the cameras until the last minute. We aren't there yet, and Biden shouldn't look too eager for a bad deal.
The incentive structures in today's GOP bears no resemblance to the D's during Reagan presidency. I live in Mike Lawler's district and much as I wish I could count on him to work with the D's to pass a clean debt ceiling, I don't see it happening, even if the WH pressured him. He is not going to risk becoming a pariah in the GOP like LIz Cheney; he knows that the D's are gunning for his seat in 2024 and he knows that the RNC is prepared to fight just as hard. (Ronny McDaniel was in Westchester last week for the opening of an immigrant services center posing along with Lawler and they both leaned heavily into registering R voters., turning CD17 into a reliable R district.)
Alternately, there are no gop votes to get.
How many months did Obama waste trying to get supposed reasonable chuck Grassley on board with the aca? The gop is a leninist party that practices democratic centralism where deviation from the party line is punishable by primary challenge from the right. On non-critical matters, some deviation is allowed but this ain't that: I personally wouldn't waste a second on a pursuit of gop votes on this.
Well said.
And yet, it's working for the infant republicans now isn't it?
Just how is it working? More attention? More noise? As Howard pointed out, results haven't resulted yet. I'm thinking back to last fall when just about every head in the punditry ( except Liberal Cynic ) warned of a colossal red wave and I personally got all funked up and then when the results resulted they weren't that result. I think we're a bunch of backseat drivers, and the actual driver and his team have steered this country very well indeed and maybe they aren't stupid and are not operating with the goal of getting their noise and faces on screens.
Republicans are getting budgetary concessions outside of normal budget negotiations aren't they? The hostage takers are getting their demands--at a minimum--partially met. Dems should have held the line that budget discussions should only occur when they're passing a budget. Instead, we get budget negotiations 2 times a year now instead of just one--all because dems caved to the economic terrorists when they pointed a loaded gun at the US economy. And this only ever happens when there's a dem in the WH because dems love to cave to GOP hostage-taking and then never fight fire with fire by demanding taxes on the rich when they have the majority under a GOP president. So not only do dems allow the precedent to set in, they also never take advantage of it to get their own demands met even after they allow the precedent to be set. That's called getting suckered and being weak.
Sorry but have you thought this through? This is a game of chicken. Biden is best saying little and getting McCarthy to blink. Sadly the GOP wants nothing. They are like a whiney bteenager who would cut off her nose to spite her face.
It is not that Dems love to cave but the weaker party is the one who wants something - like to pass good legislation.
Is it really? GOP tried this with the mediaтАЩs help when Obama was in the WH and with Clinton and it backfired. Did you just notice GOP is always on TV because they are. Media covers their every utterance. Dems can call a million press conferences but the media wonтАЩt respond the same way they do to the GOP. They love to do the spin. Imagine if a Dem talked openly about extracting concessions from a тАЬhostage.тАЭ That would be the lead story for days. The GOP says it out loud and itтАЩs crickets. Blame the media. They have been doing this for years.
Republicans are getting the negotiations they demanded for budgetary purposes outside of normal budget negotiations aren't they? Dems should let them send us into default and hang this around their necks rather than entertain negotiations with hostage-takers. They only encourage more of this in the future and numb the public into normalizing this behavior by agreeing to negotiations.
Copying Republican pandering to assign blame for the debt-ceiling debacle would be like killing for peace - you would destroy that which you would create.
How can you work a deal with a party not interested in governing in the first place? They were only ever going for ratings and trying to assign blame. Maybe focus on not letting them play that game with impunity.....again....for the thousandth time it seems?