{"id":42196,"date":"2011-07-26T16:10:35","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T20:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=42196"},"modified":"2011-07-26T17:00:35","modified_gmt":"2011-07-26T21:00:35","slug":"kicking-the-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/kicking-the-can\/","title":{"rendered":"Kicking the Can"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been following the debt ceiling crisis, watched the President’s speech and the response to it by House Speaker John Boehner, you’re observing what is known in political circles as kabuki , <\/em>a form of Japanese theater using dance-drama, and known for its highly stylized theatrics and elaborate make-up worn by its performers.<\/p>\n

And here’s your kabuki theater review, from Politico’s Playbook<\/em>:<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A top Dem’s view of last night:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>“Speaker Boehner had a tough day yesterday. The right of his caucus bailed on his plan instantly and then CNN reported that S&P thinks his plan would lead to a downgrade, while Reid’s wouldn’t. So the right thinks it doesn’t go far enough, and those looking for a solution that protects our credit rating have no reason to support. And his speech was an amazing tactical blunder. Who gives a speech designed to impress his caucus to the entire country? His base may think compromise is a dirty word, but they are the only ones. It ended up being the perfect contrast for the president. Boehner essentially validated everything the President said. It is very unclear whether he can cobble together the votes to pass it. Even if he can, the senate won’t pass it, so the choice is his — reasonable compromise or default. Hopefully he chooses helping the country over appealing to the far right of his caucus.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

From\u00a0TNR\u2019s (The New Republic) Jonathan Chait: <\/em><\/strong>\u201cI’m not really sure what Obama was trying to accomplish in his speech. I thought he would try to find some kind of lowest common denominator between the Reid and Boehner plans that would stand a chance of passing Congress. He didn’t. Instead he appealed once again to the Grand Bargain. If Obama thinks Congress will pass something like that, he’s nuts. \u2026 The most rational explanation for Obama’s speech is that he’s positioning himself for failure. He’s explaining his position so that when Congress fails to lift the debt ceiling, Americans will blame the Republicans and not him. \u2026 I expect a week from now we’ll be bracing for disaster.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s been difficult to watch the debt ceiling negotiations go on and on without resolution. The US Ascendant and Pluto are in semi-square, which means paranoia, anxiety and power struggle.\u00a0It’s obvious that the theatrics are aimed purely towards gaming the 2012 elections, not solutions. And this should be a no-brainer. The debt ceiling limit has been raised seven times since 2001.<\/p>\n

I’m feeling frustration so deep today I want to find a church to scream in. I’ve seen this kind of political bullshit time and time again throughout my professional life in the public sector. But here’s the real story, from Josh Marshall, a DC veteran, and editor-in-chief of Talking Points Memo<\/em>, one of the more balanced political websites on the net:<\/p>\n

It is not partisan or spin to say that the Democrats have repeatedly offered compromises. The real driver of the debate is that the fact that Republican majority in the House can’t agree to win. Even Fred Thompson is\u00a0urging Republicans\u00a0to declare victory and get out. But that’s the point. Their leaders cannot control their caucuses. The real problem at the moment isn’t that neither side’s caucus can accept the other side’s ‘plan’. The real issue is that Speaker Boehner\u00a0doesn’t have the votes\u00a0in his caucus for\u00a0his own ‘plan’<\/span>.<\/p>\n

That tells you almost everything you need to know about what’s happening and where we’re going. And journalism should be about communicating these highly salient facts to people who come to news organizations seeking to understand what’s happening in the world they’re living in.<\/p>\n

A week or so back I was talking to a guy who’s a big time investor. The sort of person who has more money than you or I could ever imagine — and knows all the market side of this stuff — but doesn’t have an intimate feel for Washington. And this person basically asked: What’s the story? What’s actually happening here? Is this theater? Are they actually going to do this? Run us off this cliff?<\/p>\n

I hemmed and I hawed because I’d been thinking about the question myself for so long and I wasn’t sure I had any good answer. And what I finally came up with was this. Yes, at some level it’s a game of chicken. Something we can all understand pretty intuitively in human nature and game theory terms. But to really get what’s really going on you’ve got to understand one key point: one of the two cars doesn’t have a driver in it. Which changes everything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See the full article at Talking Points Memo.<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been following the debt ceiling crisis, watched the President’s speech and the response to it by House Speaker John Boehner, you’re observing what is known in political circles as kabuki , a form of Japanese theater using dance-drama, and known for its highly stylized theatrics and elaborate make-up worn by its performers. And … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}