Debt Dealings
One can place editorial after editorial on the Debt Ceiling Deal and we’d come to more a conclusion about political punditry than political reality, or heaven forbid — policy implications. The Washington Times published an article by Emily Miller that claimed Obama won everything. This is an idea that is difficult to comprehend, but follows a familiar line. Charles Krauthammer claimed much the same at the end of the Lame Duck Congressional Session in 2009 that pushed forward the Bush Tax Cuts.
There are two swarming frets with these things. One is simply the hardline stance — if we define this as an Obama Victory, we can lurch for more. The other is the spectre of Obama winning — he looms large in the imagination, and must be outfoxing us, right?
I scratch my head at a metaphor which has floated through us for the entire Obama Administration. Mutli-dimensional chess metaphors. I want to know what the precise origins of this political negolism was — was there an editorial somewhere during the Obama Primary battle that specifically used “3 Dimensional Chess”, which was upped ever since (Usually, but not always, mockingly.) The current dilema Obama faces is a larger fault-line bigger than him — somewhere in the non-controversy about the use of the word “terrorist” to describe the “Tea Party Wing” — which I’d always just preferred the more mundane and accepted “Hostage Taker” metaphor. There’s an excellent piece in a recent Washington Monthly in what I call the “Old Timer’s Column” of Tilting at Windmills — read “Your Thoughts Please“. (Also for some further thoughts on his Peace Corp work and what it means to work with a political climate that won’t thrash when problems with agencies are raised here.)  It is not surprising that Obama made this announcment on contraceptives— a few more of these “deals” and Obama may just find a loophole to legalize gay marriage!