It's taken me a little while to get started this year. My family has been hit by a series of ailments, and I was among those hit. But now that those are in the past ...
It's a little depressing to observe (as if I had a choice) how little seems to have changed in the New Year, at least on the political front. Obama won re-election, and is now paired with a Congress with more Democrats (including an enlarged Senate majority). All of this would seem to presage less Tea Party nonsense, and greater progress for the American people.
Then again, on the other side, we are talking about Republicans, the party defined by its inability to learn anything. Including, on some issues, what century it's living in.
I'm going to overlook the opening week nonsense of introducing bills that have no chance of passage (e.g., Bachmann's introduction of yet another attempt to repeal Obamacare, a.k.a. the bill that is actually reducing the number of uninsured). Instead, I'm going to focus on something the Republicans can actually use to damage all of us, for both the short and long run.
I'm talking, of course, about the debt ceiling.
I can't even begin to put into words how angry I am about the weaponizing of something that has always been beyond partisanship. I'm sure that there are Democrats kicking themselves, thinking "Why didn't we use the debt ceiling as a way of stopping Bush in Iraq?" I wouldn't have advised it. I'm sure that the full weight of the VRWC and its press organs would have been brought down on them.
And, in the end, I don't think it would have worked.
Because, had they done so, it would have damaged the U.S. credit rating (as was the case last summer when the G.O.P. first decided to play this card). It would have put the country in financial and military jeopardy. It would have damaged the government's credibility, here and abroad. And, for all of the forgoing reasons, the Democrats would have been forced to cave.
And Barack Obama knows this.
Which is why I think he's wise on this issue to take a page out of Michael Corleone's negotiating book, and give John Boehner and Mitch McConnell exactly what they and the rest of us deserve:
Nothing.
The Paul Krugmans of the world don't want Obama to negotiate. They're right. And that, by far, is the biggest problem with gimmicks like this (apart from the fact that they're gimmicks): the minute you start using them, you're negotiating. Not negotiating means doing only one thing: nothing. That puts the weight of the issue exactly where it belongs: entirely on the side of the people who are begging you to kneel so they can hit you over the head with a club.
Trust me. The rest of us may get hit, but Obama won't. The "fiscal cliff" negotiations, and the early nominations for the next Cabinet, point toward an Obama who's learned how not to give away the store to those who are determined to be "unreasonable." He's learned that he needs to fight. And he understands that the best way to fight is to not look like you're doing it.
I don't know exactly how the road ahead is going to run. I'm not sure Obama does. But I do believe he knows how to walk it.
Which is why we should still follow him. And be grateful he's still in a position to walk for us.
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