It's a madhouse over at Ace's place where the opinions seem more divided than at other blogs, such as at The Other McCain, who along with the vast majority of his readers seem solidly on the Tea Party side of the current Debt Ceiling debate.
Me, I think the Tea Party has fucked up a golden opportunity.I made no secret back a couple of weeks ago of my heartfelt belief that it would be best to Give Obama What He Wants. Granted, on the face of it, it might seem capricious, and duplicitous. Sometimes, however, a "principled" stand is not always the best one. We are now-to paraphrase Little Carmine of The Sopranos-"standing at the crossroads of a giant precipice".
You know what the worst thing about this shit is? Number one, basically the Tea Party people are right, and I mean R-I-G-H-T! But that's irrelevant. You can be right and you can be obstinate about it too. It's hard to justify hijacking the entire government process when you only control one third of it.
Now for bad news number one. If our credit rating is dropped, that means we're actually going to be paying MORE for interest on the debt, so all of this haggling over "principle" has been counter-productive, to put it charitably.
Bad News Number Two gets even worse. At this stage of the game, its probably too late to keep our credit rating from dropping.
Bad News Number Three-The Tea Party might well get the Lion's Share of the blame. They don't deserve the Lion's Share, but they do deserve at least, oh, maybe a third of it. Even if they end up getting no more than the share of the blame they deserve, that's still bad news for the Tea Party due to reason Number Three, which is-wait for it-
The Tea Party is as we speak shitting away what chance they ever might have had to wrest control of the Republican Party from the entrenched self-interest of the Beltway Establishment RINOs that now and probably at this point will forever control it.
What does this all mean? Just that a great many Tea Party Congressman who manage to win their primaries might not have such an easy time of it in the General Election when the Independent voters have their say in the matter. And as for those Tea Party candidates who might have been thinking about "primarying" current GOP politicians? My advice to them is, take up a new hobby. Macrame' might be fun.
Its too late for mine or any other solution, at this stage of the game we're fucked. But if I had to offer an alternative solution, just off the top of my head, it would be that if our credit rating is dropped, we might as well go ahead and default on the debt. But you know that's not going to happen because Obama is the one who is going to decide who and what gets paid. And he damned sure is going to make sure the interest on the debt is paid, because, of course, he wants to keep borrowing, even if it is at an increased rate of interest.
Oh, and by the way, that thing about him deciding who or what gets paid and doesn't. I think you can count on severe, serious cuts in border security.
Actually, I think we're already over the edge of the precipice, falling with no parachute, with nothing in fact but the wind at our backs to hurry us down. It's a long, hard fall, and I can see the nation's life flashing before my eyes. The future might well be one hard, painful SPLATT!
