Politics for Popinjays

Let us begin, Mr. Bones, with the Washin’ton Neopost summatorial, filed under Slate :

The Los Angeles Times leads with its analysis of the implications of last week's highly partisan vote on the economic stimulus package. (...) The lopsided vote over the economic stimulus package proves Washington isn't ready for post-partisan politics and the LAT says the battle is just getting started. The paper argues that by voting against the stimulus measure, Republicans are betting that either the stimulus package will fail, or it will have significant drawbacks that will dry up its popular support. The article suggests that the fate of the GOP's 2010 comeback bid may rest entirely on whether the party guessed correctly about the stimulus. The paper says the vote sets up a precedent for similar party-line tactics for all of President Barack Obama's policy initiatives.

The summatorial scribbler is Neopostie J[esse] Stanchak, whom we have previously disgnosed as a borderline wingnut, mostly in conjunction with various overseas aggressions. Anyhow, look where the neocomrade got his "significant drawbacks" from:

[T]he Republicans seemed to bet the future on a daring gambit: [b]y unflinchingly opposing a popular president on the issue Americans care most about, they apparently hope to place responsibility for reviving the economy squarely on Obama's back. If his prescriptions fail -- or succeed, but carry unwelcome side effects such as inflation or higher taxes -- the GOP could say "We told you so" and bid for a return to power. If the president succeeds, or if the economy remains mired but voters decide Republicans placed partisan gamesmanship ahead of the public interest, the result could be long-term trouble for the party -- especially its conservative core, which has shaped the present strategy.

It sure looks as if both La-La-Land CA and Beltway City DC are full of hack journalists with incredibly little knowledge of High Mammonology in even its most elementary points. The chances that many customers will look at "inflation or higher taxes" and read the alone tertium quid between the lines are negligible. After a whole long degeneration of wombschoolin’ and neodumbin’, 1968-2008, it is a safe bet that scarcely a single neocomradess will mutter to herself: "Aha! The jackasses could also repudiate the national debt."

If the LAT hackess ("Janet Hook") had thought of repudiation, she would have stuck it in. Obviously she could not think of any less alarmin' alternative, for none exists, and so she leaves her corporation's customers clueless as to how she supposes i diavoli della Pelosi might manage to avoid paying back what we borrow in either real bucks or in Monopoly money. But J. Hook, bless her!, was obviously not sure that no ingenious gimmick exists -- maybe an MBS, or an MBA, or a NAFTA, or how about a G-20? -- that would allow the ungodly to do the impossible, so she keyboarded away blithely with the results exhibited above.

With all their faults, the Big Management Party neocomrades actually in the trenches on Capitol Hill are not plumb ignorant like J. Hook and J. Stanchak. They have consistently been barkin’ and bellowin’ about a pay-back in uninflated currency -- "burdenin' my grandchildren and my grandchildren's grandchildren with" et cetera. Understandin' about inflation may be rather an advanced accomplishment for members of that pack, but I daresay a few of ’em are up to it. Demonstrably a few agitprop neocomrades at Hooverville and Rio Limbaugh are aware, because for about every tenth or twelfth barbaric yawp about the grandkids, there has been one yawp or half a yawp about how the dollar will have ceased to exist well before Sonny Jr. gets mulcted for death tax on the Scrooge family conglomerate trust. It would be safest to assume that Neukamerad Obersturmführer von Cantor knows about the inflation card, but sees no point in playin’ it in the immediate wake of the Crawford Crash, when a few mammonologists are mumbling about deflation. But God knows best.

Moving right along,

Whatever the ultimate outcome, the debate upended many Washington assumptions about what the Obama era would be like. Many political analysts expected Republicans to be cowed by the new president's popularity and loath to oppose him aggressively at a moment of crisis. They were not. Some Democrats worried that Obama would have trouble keeping his own troops in line, as past Democratic Presidents Carter and Clinton did when Congress was controlled by their own party. He did not. Some Democrats were also uncertain whether Obama's talk about bipartisanship would keep him from playing hardball. It did not.

Many Washington assumers should have assumed better. They did not.

The stimulus debate gave important hints about how difficult the push for comprehensive healthcare legislation will be. Fights erupted over health provisions in the stimulus bill that had been considered consensus items: creating a nationwide system of electronic medical records, and comparative research about which medical treatments work best. There also was tension -- even among Democrats -- about efforts to expand Medicaid, which critics said was a step toward creating government-run healthcare. "The lesson here is that in healthcare nothing is easy, simple or widely agreed," said Robert Laszewski, a health policy consultant. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, predicts Democrats will have more success attracting Republican support if their initiatives are presented as individual proposals rather than sweeping packages like the stimulus bill. He pointed to the January vote to expand children's health insurance coverage, which garnered support from 40 Republicans. He expects a big bipartisan margin in an upcoming vote on a bill to require utilities to generate more electricity from cleaner energy sources. "As you take out each individual part, you get a response," said Markey. "People hate government but love the programs."

A sudden improvement in quality suggests to me that J. Hatch is actually interested in medicine, unlike economics. As to Representative Markey, I wonder if those sensible remarks can be taken to imply that he disapproves of the "fiscal responsibility summit" that is scheduled for next week (and that goes unmentioned by J. Hook despite its blatant salience.) Oh, well.

Over in the enemy bunker,

GOP leader McConnell left himself and his party an escape hatch, arguing that Republicans' strategy in the future will be dictated by whether Obama and congressional Democrats are more receptive to GOP views than they were on the economic recovery plan. "Obviously the president concluded it was easier to pick off a couple Republicans" rather than make big concessions to Republicans, McConnell said. "If he tries to go down the genuine middle, we're willing to engage."

Where Neukamerad Oberstgruppenführer von McConnell suppose "the genuine middle" to be located, who knows? Most likely he entertains thoroughly fantastic neocomradely and OnePercenterly ideas on the subject. In principle, though, it ought to be possible to line up all the Solons and Congresscritters from left to right and pick out the central fifty or sixty or howevermany percent of them that one desires to isolate for this or that specific purpose, and do it in a reasonably neutral or objective way. (Where are the social-scientizers when one needs them!)