GOP Bad Beat

Like the song says, you've got to know when to hold them and know when to fold 'em. Republicans should be smart enough to figure out that they are playing a losing hand. Either cave now on taxes and revenue or watch all of the Bush era tax cuts expire next month.

Am I the only one who thinks that Rep. Boehner's tone towards the President is derisive, patronizing and dismissive? The President can't be serious, blah, blah, blah. Face it John, you are in an untenable position with the most conservative wing of your now splintered party. It's not the President's job to figure out a way for you to marshall your own troops support and get you out of your political crucible.

It is ridiculous for the Speaker to now demand that Obama delineate acceptable entitlement and spending cuts when your party standard bearers, Mitt and Paul, refused to do so for a whole election cycle.  Of course the really remarkable thing is how fast the GOP eats their own, Romney now put out to the same forgotten pasture as the last Republican president.

Neither party wants to lay out their cuts for a simple reason. Cuts are painful, they are going to hurt people. The American people see what's up they start getting freaked out. So nobody wants to be the messenger. Yet going on in our present course is no longer a viable option, with an aging baby boomer population getting fitted for depends.™The pain will have to be shared fairly between all segments of the country.

Elections have consequences, the GOP voiced its position and were resoundingly repudiated. George Bush won his first election and failed to carry the popular vote. Democrats didn't sit in the corner and cry like babies. Republicans are sore losers. They can't believe that a population that they castigated as a group of shiftless takers who only want presents from Santa would actually vote against them.

Candidate Obama was very clear about what his intentions were regarding taxing the upper two percent and growing the middle class. A plurality of the American electorate agreed with him. They rejected your approach, having seen it in play for several administrations. This stuff isn't some December surprise. So either secede like you have been threatening or stfu.

The upper two percent may indeed be the job creators. It is unfortunate that so many of the jobs occur in firetrap sweat shops in Sri Lanka or Mauritius, and that the same two percent is now incorporated in Belize and parking the booty offshore. Fine patriots.

It is time for the Speaker himself to get serious. You are engaged in a high stakes game of chicken and the cliff will have very negative consequences for a lot of american job sectors, including defense. You are holding no cards whatsoever except the obstructionists cards which gum up the engine and have the ability to sink our country into further paralysis.

We did not have this somewhat bloody election so that the President can now throw up his hands and suddenly adopt your positions. Lindsay Graham says that it is time for the Democrats to think big and adopt the GOP position. Another talking head at Townhall crooned that it would be wonderful if Obama would be magnanimous in victory and come to the other side and adopt their reasoning and position. As if the Republicans were ever themselves magnanimous when they had the stick and the bully pulpit. It's over, fellahs...

Such wishful thinking is simply not going to happen. Why doesn't the GOP delineate the specific cuts with which they wish to sodomize the American people so that their fat cat benefactors can continue to pillage and plunder and see what the American public thinks about them?

A bunch of GOP operatives are cloistered together trying to do a final post mortem figuring out exactly what went wrong. Called the Growth and Opportunity Project (get it?), these folks are huddled trying to make sense of the charred embers. The spokesperson says that it is a wonderful time of opportunity for the party. Please.

I can save them a little trouble. Don't antagonize the general populace. When Rep. Steve King likened latinos to dogs, Antonin Scalia equates gays with murderers, Mitt castigates 47% of the population as shiftless parasites,  Dana Perino believes that women who are victims of domestic violence are "not making good decisions," Ari Fleischer says that the GOP can never be the party for women's rights because it would inflame the religious right..., well I just sense a serious disconnect. Keep beating those war drums and let's see what happens.

Mr. Speaker, you have fought hard, your party has obstructed very effectively. Time to come forward and make a deal. It is your move. Dragging us over the cliff to assuage your wounded pride is not going to help anybody in this country and will drastically hurt many sectors, including defense. Many of the leading apex predators have already signaled that they don't have a problem with paying another two percent. You don't have to take us to the edge in this game of chicken to show everybody how tough you are. Time to put on your big boy pants and get serious.

We had an election. Your polling was off miserably, your ideas were found wanting and we all found out that America wasn't buying it. They were not as dumb as many thought they were, myself included.  You have a choice, double down in the corner with Mitch and wait another four years for a shot at the pinata or meet the opposition in the middle and get to work, do what you're paid to do.