Mirror, mirror on the wall, who was the most "childish" of them all?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Is the "half-trillion" deal still possible? It's the best option on the table for Obama, I'd say. Too bad Plouffe and company must be advising him to rule it out because of electoral reasons. The main risk in taking the McConnell plan is that the economic damage and anger at the entitlement cuts that would come with the incremental budget cuts would be mostly focused on Obama. After all, his administration would be the one proposing them. That plan is just a no-go for Obama. If I wasn't so scared of a Romney presidency, I'd support it because policy-wise it would lead to the best outcomes. It would also make Obama an almost guaranteed one term president.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Obama will have to swallow spending cuts on and some restructuring of entitlements anyway; he will be in hot water with his base for accepting those, and he has, according to his public statements, expressed willingness to take that hit.  The reason the Boehner deal is better than the Reid one for Obama is that the former has revenue enhancements, the latter doesn't.  If Obama takes the Boehner deal, he can at least say he got them, which will at least play some with the Dems and even independents, who favor by around 60%, some revenue enhancements.  If he takes Reid, he gets no revenue enhancements just in trade for not being hit with the debt-ceiling threat again; there's not nearly as much upside, nobody will give him much credit for that.

Do you think there's any meat to the Obama administration's argument that a short debt ceiling extension would cause economic instability and bond problems? To me those claims sound strike me as an half-assed explanation to avoid the electoral problems a Boehner deal might entail. I don't think the President has any other option but to take the deal, Boehner's rhetoric is pretty strong and would win popular support if Obama doesn't take it and we get close to the deadline.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

It's a sad day to be a Democrat when your leaders consider $2.7 trillion in cuts and no revenue a "win".

Amen.

Go to DailyKos and notice the absurdity as the site tries to promote a proposal that last week would have been considered a dream compromise concocted by Grover Norquist and Eric Cantor. Talk about cognitive dissonance, it feels like many progressives at this point are just trying to justify opposition to anything proposed by a Republican even if on the merits it might be the best deal policy-wise.

I'm really sick of the political posturing and electoral calculus, at this point I'm starting to think that a government shutdown would force these vain fools to come to a serious agreement that isn't rooted in gimmicks or scapegoating.