Oh, hello there! Remember this? Your Sunday Morning, quickly-typed, snap-judgment infused semi-live blog of the terrible political chat shows? Well, my name is Jason and it, along with me, has returned from vacation. Did you miss me? Were you happy I was gone? Either way, I'm so, so sorry.
For the past two weeks of Sundays, your trusted liveblogger has been on vacation in the United Kingdom, doing things like "overdosing on quaintness" and "looking for the M4." I spent ten days in the U.K. -- some of them in England, a few in Wales, most of them at Heathrow Airport standing in lines -- and while that's not nearly enough time to make a thorough cultural inventory in order to make substantive comparisons, I was able to discern a few differences between the United States and the Home of Pipp-ahhh Middleton.
The most glaring difference of course, was the weather. My God! Did you all know that some people on Earth spend the summer not being made to feel like their faces have been swaddled in damp athletic socks straight from Dante's Inferno? It's true. I actually wore coats!
But most importantly, from what I gather, in the U.K., they do not have a "debt ceiling." Or if they do, they do not have "morons" maintaining that debt ceiling. Or if they do, their lawmakers aren't the "Second Rate Traveling Geek Show Circuit" brand of morons that our lawmakers are. They seem, over there, to be capable of having a few conversations in public, in which they do not piss themselves.
It was a pretty naive belief that this whole debt ceiling fiasco would have ended while I was away, I know. There are reasons for that. First: nothing whatsoever is at stake! Both sides of the debate have privately assured Wall Street that in the end, it will be raised and we'll avoid default. So there's actually no hostage being held. There is a danger that their act might be so convincing that a credit downgrade occurs, but my concern there is that the last things I remember having pristine ratings were the very derivatives that turned out to be stuffed with horsemeat and bilgewater. If America is rated AAA, I don't believe it. Ever been to Las Vegas? That place is definitely the "mezzanine tranche" of this great nation.
But I digress! What are these debt ceiling negotiations, anyway? Who knows! But it's very clear that somehow it's been decided that the only way to "win" the negotiations is to lose the negotiations. In this hostage crisis, the masked gunman keep passing the guns to the captives, demanding to be shot.
It was impossible to not remember this last Friday, when John Boehner was carrying on in the well of the House of Representatives, yelling like an angry drunk, as if the neighborhood kids had batted a baseball through his bay window. Boehner gave a wondrously melodramatic performance, that at times came close to convincing me that he almost believed something was at stake. (The fact that an hour later, the House was back to naming post offices after their cronies was a dead giveaway that this wasn't the case.)
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What can you do? How is the country supposed to function if the Democrats can't do what they do best, i.e. "surrender?"
I also had to laugh when I heard that the White House was looking to give Obama a "Jed Bartlett moment," referring to the pretend Democratic president from teevee's The West Wing. Here's a pro-tip, White House strategists! The "Jed Bartlett moment" you were looking for happened about two months ago. That's when you should have gone to the gates in front of the White House, and hung up a sign that read, "IF YOU DON'T HAVE A CLEAN BILL FOR ME TO SIGN THAT RAISES THE DEBT CEILING, THEN TURN AROUND AND GO THE F**K ON HOME."
At any rate, this has a few more days to go before the magical deal that everyone hates is wrought and we lapse back into a government that works 24-7 to get re-elected and zero hours trying to solve the massive unemployment crisis. In the meantime, you just know that this particular day of political talk shows is going to be the shallowest and most insufferable one in recent memory. As always, you should feel free to leave your teevee off, leave a comment, or send an email. You can also follow me on twitter, if you, for some reason, want my real-time, emo reactions to world events and Project Runway episodes.
Gah, let's get on with it.
FOX NEWS SUNDAY
Bret Baier is here, because not even Chris Wallace can pretend anymore. Gene Sperling is here, to talk about the economy. Then Dick Durbin will yell at celebrated American liar Jon "Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement (NITBAFS)" Kyl, who will probably tell America untruths and then attempt to "revise and extend" his remarks. Also, Kevin McCarthy, will add his prattle to what's already turning into a seven-layer dip of uselessness.
Ha! In light of the new, terrible GDP figures (which come with new, terrible revisions of past terrible GDP figures!), they will also ask a panel: "Have the debt ceiling negotiations have made the economy worse?" and "Will their resolution make the economy better?" Hmmm! Tough question! What happens when you're in the middle of an unemployment calamity, and all the lawmakers are dry-humping each other in Kabuki makeup, and finally everyone achieves release? You get the answers "Yes" and "No" to the two underlying questions.
So, Baier says that "significant progress" has been made toward a "deal." Goody. Guess what! It involves more special committees! When lawmakers just give up, they form committees. And then they get re-elected, somehow! You know how much better our government would be if we made "suggesting we form a special committee" a criminal offense?
Anyway, Sperling says the White House wants to make spending cuts, and then cut some more from entitlements, and then have "something that forces all of us to get our work done." (Like a "conscience?")
Reid wants this commission and Obama supports it, so there are the Democrats outsourcing the responsibility for making tough choices about the future. (Also, I can't keep track of whether "trigger" and "enforcement mechanism" mean the same thing or are, in fact, two different things, as their names -- and the rules of physics -- suggest.
Sperling says that the White House will "brief the American people on what will happen if we do not raise the debt ceiling by the deadline." Isn't that all the White House has been doing, for months? Sperling says, "I don't know how much harder this President could have tried to get a bipartisan deal." I am sympathetic, in some ways to this. As Sperling points out, the President had a plan -- it did not sit well with anyone who enjoys programs that keep old, poor people from having to crawl off into the woods to die -- but it existed and it included $4 billion in cuts and included entitlement reform and, if I recall correctly, a path forward on tax reform as well. So, when Boehner yammered on and on about there being no "White House plan," Boehner was lying.
(Boehner's real problem with Obama's plan is that it went much further than the GOP's own plan. Remember, the goal, in this debate, is not to achieve an outcome, it's to lose and blame the other side. So when Obama's debt reduction plan upped the ante, the GOP had to find fault with it, because the last thing they want are actual serious cuts to spending -- they need to preserve that issue in perpetuity to win elections. By the way, the White House knew this, which is why they made the offer in the first place. Remember: this is a debate in which both sides are trying to out-insincere each other!)
Also, when you hear Boehner whine about the White House getting a "blank check," remember that the only person who's offered that is Mitch McConnell!
Meanwhile, GDP grew at 1.3%, and the Q1 figure was rated down to an anemic 0.4. Sperling says that this shows that Obama inherited the worst six months of growth ever, and the hole was deeper than anyone knew. (This means that the stimulus package, which should have been bigger in any event, DEFINITELY should have been bigger.)
Sunday Talking Heads
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Oleh
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