The Rude Pundit: Agree With Him or Not, President Obama Can Still Fuck Your Shit Up

[meegbear]

Let's put aside everything else - economic reality, intraparty disputes, real and legitimate reasons to be pissed off at the President - and focus solely on the politics of what Barack Obama has done to Republicans in the last couple of weeks. In essence, Republicans challenged the President to a game of chicken, two cars heading towards each other on a dark night late in the year 2010. But, see, they thought the road was shorter than it actually was. They thought that the game ended with the tax cuts. It didn't. It was really just the beginning.

There's many ways in which Obama has fucked their shit up. See, no matter how much Republicans attempt to call these "Bush tax cuts" or "Republican tax cuts," all that matters at the end of the day is that the President signed them into law. They are "Obama's tax cuts," with all the rhetorical and political good that does in the short term (remember: we're not talking about the actual effects of the shitty new tax laws). Oh, sure, Republicans will keep trying to claim them, but how many people remember No Child Left Behind, for instance, as Ted Kennedy's baby? (Yeah, you do, but you should get your head out of the internets for a while.) For most everyone, for good and ill, that belonged to George W. Bush (who, by the way, didn't even think his tax cuts should now be called the "Bush tax cuts," but they were). Besides, by definition, as the Rude Pundit has been insisting, the Bush tax cuts end on December 31. Any new tax cuts signed into law by this President belong on his tab.

So once Obama quickly negotiated an end to the tax cut debate (even though we wished and still wish he had fought more), Senate Republicans were left with their proverbial little dicks in their hands. They had released their grand and mighty statement about how nothing, no-how was gonna get done in the lame duck session unless rich people got more cash. Here's what they wrote: "(W)e will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers." So they got the their tax cut, and they decided to say, "Fuck the omnibus budget bill we initially agreed to." And now? Well, shit. With their threats met, and plenty of time left in the session, and plenty more to do, well, there's a point where you're just a pathetic back-of-the-bar cocksucker (a line that most of the Republican caucus crossed a long time ago) if you don't act on shit. You can bet they were hoping for a prolonged fight, with the greater hope that Democrats in the House would kill the tax cuts. Then they'd have had all winter break to bitch about how much Nancy Pelosi hates everyone. But all those arrows had to be left in the quiver. It was as if Jimmy Carter had just decided to bomb the American embassy in Iran back in the day, killing everyone inside, and denied the Ayatollah over a year of free propaganda. (Note: this would have been a bad idea.)

And the election is over, so the posturing can die down for a little while. It's like a few moderate Republicans said, "Why the fuck not? Let's do some shit." Putting aside Republicans deciding to punish children by filibustering the DREAM Act, all of a sudden, we got the DADT repeal, we're gonna get START, and, possibly, only thanks to the work of a Jon Stewart, the 9/11 responders bill. These are all no-brainers. The only vaguely liberal thing in there is the DADT repeal. But politics is all about perception, motherfuckers, and what President Obama showed is that he's willing to get shit done. It's a reclamation of the momentum he had at the beginning of 2009.

Oh, sure, next year, they're gonna be a giant sack of dickheads. But, for now, Republicans in the Senate were like a middle-aged man hiring a hooker and paying her in advance for an entire night of making his deepest, most perverted fantasies come true, but, midway through his first diaper change, he blows his wad and doesn't know what to do the rest of the evening but order out for Chinese. By giving in to their greatest desire, Obama was able to change the post-midterm narrative (with vast, huge amounts of help from Harry Reid). And all it took for the President to get some of his goals accomplished was to bribe wealthy Republicans with two years of free money.

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

[kentuck]

1. OMG! I am fucked!

I have been channeling the Rude One.

[gateley]

2. K&R! nt

[sofa king]

3. Brilliant!

Not only that, but the Obama tax cuts are completely out of reach to the Republicans until the lame duck session of 2012, and if we stomp 'em that November, we'll simply wait them out.

We have a great chance of stomping them because every single returning Republican in Congress has a vote on his or her record that shows they were willing to hold up tax cuts for a hundred and seventy million voters so that they could line the pockets of three million people who already have lined pockets. That genie is out of the bottle until after the next election.

Democratic leadership in the Senate and President Obama will have the new tea party mob in the House tripping all over themselves within weeks of the start of the new session. By then, all of us here and most of the reasonable voters in America will have a year of red meat to tear at with the introduction of dozens of batshit crazy bills that have a shot at clearing the House, and vexing Republican obstruction and delay in the Senate.

And all the time, the Democrats get to build a legislative agenda and campaign platform to hold up to the voters, as the only ones with a real plan to fix things, if only we can run the vultures off for just two years. If it all goes right, by the spring of 2013 all that legislation that got held up in this Congress will go down as easily as champagne on New Years. And if we're lucky, it won't be a totally sh!tty legislative plan.

It's true we had to give up a lot to lure the ferret into the potato chip bag, but now it's time to take Nixon back to his cage.

[travelingtypist]

4. That has put me in an excellent mood.

Thanks RP.

[Romulox]

5. LOL. Obama "wins" by out-Republicaning Republicans! Brilliant!

If he only does exactly what the Republicans demand, and then takes credit for it, he will have out-Triangulated everyone! :silly:

[Laelth]

6. +1. n/t

-Laelth

[loudsue]

7. That's what Clinton did, too. How clever he was to give us NAFTA

and set us up for a complete loss of American jobs and money to the Chinese, Indians, and everyone else that wanted a piece of us.

Isn't it great having Democrats in the white house?

[voteearlyvoteoften]

8. am rec

happy effin holidays rude dude!