Defenders of the people
by digby
One more time with feeling:
“President Obama was in agreement with the grand bargain that the two of them negotiated last summer,” Pelosi said. “He knew where he was on it, but I think it was important for him to know that we were with him, as we had said all along we are for a grand bargain. You can do many things and the difficult choices that are there if you also have revenue. And I know that the president agreed with that, and that the Republicans walked away. They are trying to revise history now, but it just ain’t so. … It is cute, but it isn’t true.”
I'm not sure why the Democrats think it's such a great idea to say over and over again that the Republicans refused to sign off on a plan to cut the hell out of the most popular programs in America while the Democrats were downright eager to do it, but apparently they continue to believe this is a big winner for them.
I've been thinking up to this point that our great hope was that the Tea Partiers would continue to be completely unreasonable, even if it meant losing the best chance they've ever had to destroy the New Deal and blame the Democrats for the suffering that follows. Now I'm seriously wondering if they knew they could get the Democrats to totally enact their unpopular agenda if they just held out long enough. After all, the leaders of the Democratic Party are constantly touting their willingness to slash the government to the bone, even today. They say they were "with the president" on all of it and the Republicans balked simply because they didn't want to give the president a "win."
If new negotiations begin with the Democrats already agreeing to the bargain the President and Speaker Boehner reached, the only thing that can happen is that the Dems give up their symbolic tax increase. But that's ok now. They have set it up so that they can call the Grand Bargain a huge win for the Democrats no matter what's in it. After all, the main issue is that the Democrats are the "reasonable" Party who were for this all along --- and they will have "forced" the Republicans to come around to something they didn't want to do. Vic-to-ry.
And that's if President Obama wins re-election. If history is any guide, if Romney wins, the Dems will be lining up not only to sign off on the Grand Bargain, but there will be more than a few who'll vote for the Ryan budget and probably any social issue the GOP wants to throw on the table. Unlike the Republicans, when they lose big elections they don't double down. They immediately surrender.
The best hope remains for Tea Partiers to be so insane that they vote against anything the the Democrats are for even if it's their own agenda. It's the best case scenario. Pray for crazy.
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