Ted Cruz: ‘Why is President Obama threatening to shut down the federal government?’

[pampango]

18. Krugman's insight:

Greg Sargent finds Marco Rubio trying to redefine the nature of budget blackmail, declaring that it’s not about Republicans threatening to shut down the government unless Obama defunds heath reform; it’s about Obama threatening to shut down the government unless he gets to implement the law. No, really. Rubio:

I think the real question is: Is Barack Obama willing to shut down the government over ObamaCare? In essence, I think we should pay our military. I think we should fund the government. I just don’t think we should fund ObamaCare. And what the President is saying is we either fund ObamaCare or we don’t fund anything. And I think that’s an unreasonable position. And that’s the position he’s taken and the Democrats have taken.

So, where have I heard that before? In Lincoln’s Cooper Union address, in which he talks of slave interests declaring that they will break up the Union if Northerners vote in a Republican, which will make secession the fault of … anti-slavery forces:

That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!”