“I haven’t seen a meeting like this in my 35 years in Congress.”

[Hissyspit]

Yes, this IS the Post, but what DID happen yesterday and what IS going on?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/debt-talks-bring-tensions-between-democrats-obama-to-surface/2011/07/21/gIQAXeVnSI_story.html?hpid=z1

Debt talks bring tensions between Democrats, Obama to surface

- snip -

Just as Senate Democrats were sitting down Thursday to a scheduled meeting with White House budget director Jacob J. Lew, rumors of a new debt-limit deal between President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) flashed across their BlackBerrys.

- snip -

The Democrats were winning, the senators said. The American people were with them on tax increases for the rich and the notion of “shared sacrifice.” Why give up now? Why cut a deal without guarantees of new tax revenue?

For 45 minutes, the cross-examination went on, with few details offered. When Lew left, Mikulski turned to her colleagues and said, “I haven’t seen a meeting like this in my 35 years in Congress.”

- snip -

With more concerns than details, Democrats lashed out, saying that deep cuts to federal agency budgets and entitlements were too steep a price to pay. They questioned whether Obama shared their core values, and they sought reassurance — at a hastily arranged evening meeting at the White House that lasted nearly two hours — that the final legislative package would be the balanced approach that the president had promised.

MORE

From today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/us/politics/22fiscal.html?_r=1&hp

- snip -

The president worked to ease concerns from members of his party, inviting Democratic leaders to a  White House meeting on Thursday evening that lasted nearly two hours. The participants would not comment afterward.

MORE

[kentuck]

1. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...

It's happened before.

[rurallib]

5. three months ago Paul Ryan handed the Dems 2012 on a silver platter

This may be the biggest fuck up I have ever seen in my life.

[Donnachaidh]

14. +1000. nt/

[Liberalynn]

15. +++++++++++++++100000000000

[Doctor_J]

18. Yep. It definitely is the biggest fuck-up I've ever seen. Unless..

he really isn't a Dem, and was allowed to win the WH to finish off the New Deal.

[CrispyQ]

27. It's becoming harder & harder not to think along those lines. --nt

[Lorien]

23. I guess that they believe that corporate donors and diebold alone win elections.nt

[divvy]

32. It worked twice with shrub

[mdmc]

7. 1

[valerief]

8. That's the Feudalism Way and that appears to be our future. nt

[boston bean]

2. "They questioned whether Obama shared their core values, and they sought reassurance"

Stop seeking reassurance, look to past actions where he Obama made you eat a deal he constructed with the Republicans. Public Option..... Bush Tax Cuts.....

[myrna minx]

4. ...Expanding the maw of the war machine...n/t

[digitaln3rd]

13. Sadly, this is true.

I'll vote for everyone else but President in 2012 - I'll just leave it blank, since there will be no one from the Democratic Party on the top of the ticket.

I don't really feel that he deserves a vote or mandate if he's just going to be a Republican.

[surrealAmerican]

17. It's just a bad way to frame the issue.

It doesn't matter what his "values" are; what matters is what he actually does.

[myrna minx]

3. It's unbelievable. It's surreal.

:puke:

[no_hypocrisy]

6. This reminds me of a law client I had years ago. We successfully sued his landlord and were ready

to collect $14,000 the next day in court ($1,000 a day for two weeks of contempt of court).

The night before court, I was on the phone with my client and he announced that his call-waiting showed the landlord was on the other line. I instructed him not to get the call, not to speak to the landlord until after court when we got the $14,000.

You guessed it. I hung up, landlord kept calling, client took the call, and the next day . . . right before court,

--- wait for it ---

my client announced that he had "worked out a compromise" with the landlord where he would withdraw his contempt of court plea and the landlord would give him access to his equipment on the landlord's property.

I begged him not to do it. Gave him all the legal reasons, all the ethical reasons. Told him he could keep the entire $14,000, that I relinquished my legal contingency fee to the money, any payment at all to me.

And yes, he went through with it. I told him to fire me in front of the judge as I wasn't going to be responsible for his demise.

And he dropped the contempt of court and he lost the $14,000. And the landlord reneged on his promise to allow access. Just the opposite: the landlord had a large metal dumpster hauled in front of the doors to the garage to prevent my client from moving any of his equipment.

My client went bankrupt and hasn't worked since 1997.

The moral: there are some deals you just don't make.

[valerief]

9. Good story, and giving up our entitlements is a deal those lunatics in DC shouldn't make. nt

[no_hypocrisy]

11. I beat myself up on this case, wishing I could have done more, but

a compatriot law buddy gave me a new perspective.

The reason why an attorney is sometimes called counselor is because our job is to give the best possible advice. We can't make the decisions for our clients. What I wanted was a different decision from my client and it was out of my realm.

Transferring my experience to the current malaise in D.C., the democrats have to take their best shot with making their case to Obama, not the other way around. And if he doesn't make the decision they want, the dems have to do what they have to do to preserve democracy as that's their duty. Not follow the leader. (Democracy is at peril whether it's defaulting on the debts or destroying the social safety net of vulnerable Americans.)

[coalition_unwilling]

29. You go to a professional for help, professional provides said

expertise, you then blow off professional's advice and assistance.

There's a sad story in there, in addition to your moral. Something about, "You can lead a horse to water . . . "

[adigal]

10. At this point, I am seriously considering spending all of my time

and energy fighting to win NY 20 back from Gibson, a new Republican who is leaning Tea Party. I don't think I am going to spend one dime on Obama, nor one minute getting him relected. I want the House and Senate Democratic, because they suck too, but not as much as he does. I am beyond disappointed and disgusted.

[Myrina]

12. It took him 2 hours to day "Uh, no, I'm not really a Democrat"?

That's a hell of a long appetizer course.

[Liberalynn]

16. and why did the Congressional Dems stay that

long just to have confirmed what they all ready know? :shrug:

What a colossal waste of time.

[WI_DEM]

19. I think Obama would really love to be the first Independent president of the USA

[sad sally]

24. Guess that would be a Joe Liberman Independent, not a Bernie Sanders one?

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. The problem seems pretty obvious:

In the first sentence of the NY Times story:
Obama and Boner "struggled against resistance from their respective parties "

and
"flak came mostly from senior Congressional Democrats, who are angry at some of Mr. Obama’s concessions and at being excluded from the talks."

So if the President is not listening to the Dems
and if Boner is not listening to the Republicans

they WHO are they taking orders from?

[Myrina]

22. Wall Street and other Big Money Exec's/Boards.

n/t

[woo me with science]

33. +1 nt

[Hissyspit]

21. Reuters - Aide: Obama failed to placate democrats at White House meeting Thursday night

Reuters: Obama failed to placate democrats at White House meeting Thursday night on possible debt deal: aide

[bvar22]

25. Obama on Transparency:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5t8GdxFYBU

I wish THAT guy was President.

[Marr]

26. Can anyone here even imagine GW Bush cutting deals with Democrats in private, then

outflanking his own party with them at the eleventh hour? Can you imagine if those deals contained things like tax hikes on the wealthy, or some other agenda items that are the ideological opposite of what Obama proudly concedes? Can you imagine if he "traded" things like that for temporary extensions of the basic functions of government?

They'd have thrown his ass overboard in minutes.

[Hydra]

28. Always surreal when we look at what it would look like if GW were doing it

The astounding thing is that it simply isn't registering to too many people.

I was discussing something oddly parallel with someone today- I commented that America is all about the image- the substance is meaningless to our culture.

Ergo, we are served shit, and it is called "The best in the world."

[Divine Discontent]

30. spot on, Hydra! If W. was doing this, we'd ALL be up in arms over it, but to many they think it's

just great what he's doing. When the deal gets done, and it will (I cannot believe TPTB want to lose their huge stock values they've been building up while the nation still sputters because the corporations are cost cutting to make big profits) and it shows a cut to the programs that help so many each of us know, or ourselves, then there will be a unbelievable amount of anger about his dealing with the "devil" (GOP House). His comment about being a one-term president seems interesting now, to say the least.

[divvy]

31. No, it MIGHT be a little less drastic.

We lost 3 toes and a finger is changed to we lost 3 toes and 1/2 finger