There is a sort of comedy within the netherworlds of the Conservative media on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (commonly and crudely referred to as “Obamacare“, and which I’ve tended to call DoleRomneyObamaCare).  Every single glitch gets magnified and pounded upon.  This is indeed funny — a showcase of stock images of happy kids within the government’s material on the exchanges — but in the end, pretty damned meaningless.

Given the nature of the act and the high amount of deference it gave to state implementation, I had understood that the thing would work well enough but imperfectly  in states whose governors care to implement it (every state with a Democrat in the governor’s seat and every state where a Republican governor has to fret about a possible loss to a Democrat), and not terribly well in those states that don’t care to implement it (erm.  Largely the South.)  Regrettable all this, but I can only shrug on that score.  Interestingly, I see a convergence of arguments on the act — where some conservative commentators (George Will and Charles Krauthammer) have long argued that this is but a halfway measure to the dreaded single payer system, liberals are now pointing to their fellow “ugh.  Just a boon to Insurance Companies” partisans that this act is best seen as but a halfway measure to the glorious single payer system.

The unforeseen wrinkle has been lobbed: Republican Irresponsibility.  A product, and I see this explanation from a source that is highly sympathetic with it (Reason Magazine) of Citizen’s United bringing about a force that supersedes Republican Party Whip, gerry-mandered districts that puts a large number of Republicans in a position of having no left flank to worry about, and the Hastert Rule — informally reasonable proposition of Majority of the Majority needing to agree on the bill before it gets to the floor — but in the guise of the moment flexibility is imperative.

Counter to this otherwise fine dailykos post How A Bill becomes a Law — it’s not an ill-gotten majority the Republicans have in the House; it’s ill-retained.  Regrettable feature of a Census year victory.  (This is a better summary.)

And now I see this smattering of smug “nope.  Not affecting me” commentary — from people sort of on record as considering anyone who a shutdown of the government in immediate tangible norms (as opposed to your equivalent of “a bit more flight risk”) as — well, as Alan Greenspan wrote the NYT on Atlas Shrugged — “parasites”.  (Maybe a riot coming, unlike previous shutdown occurrences, because of our increased level of socialism.)

Your bit of a political calculus — quite apart from the fluctuating poll numbers and the insulation of the individual House members.  Obama’s numbers are doubtful to go up, even if the Congress goes down, and the Republicans go way down.  Which leaves to doubt that this would imperil a House majority significantly.  Put another way — if you lose a few seats in the midterms, who cares?  Did the Republicans really get smacked in the 1998 midterm elections… really?  And unfortunately, it’s hard to figure out how the party would lose much more than that.  This may be the more real meaning behind the point that Lemmings don’t commit suicide.  So, actually, even under that debunking of myth, the analogy still holds.

And then there’s this curiosity.  Why it’s Obama’s fault.  The Reason writer should know better than the simplification of an “Obama can drone strike abroad”, which is the libertarian equivalent of the Republican hoo-haing of “Sure, he can negotiate with Iran’s President, but not Boehner?”  Boehner states that at the end of the day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be calling Obama to ask “What the Hell is going on?” and not Boehner.  History records these years as being under the directive of Obama.  Lazy history, of course, but history nonetheless.
Recently I overheard a conversation of a Republican trying to convince an apolitical person with soft support of Obama of the wrongness of Obama.  And I heard this quick jab, “Well, we got our nation’s credit rating knocked down.”  Indeed, one of the Credit Agencies.  The report on the current decision mostly (though not entirely) blamed Republican intransigence as the immediate cause (the long term reasoning goes back further than Obama, of course).  Another credit agency stated earlier they’d follow suit with a Government shut-down — too many signs of institutional dysfunction.
The good news on this score, is to look back to history — see: The Government Shutdown of 1879.  No one much remembers Hayes, and what history books record are societal changes.  Reconstruction is over… corporate hegemony falls into place.  AND…

To sum up what of Obama as of now… Basically I think it’s time Obama follows Bill Clinton’s prior call to invoke the 14th Amendment.  If not that, there’s the Trillion Dollar coin.  Both ideas are asinine, but asinine times call for asinine measures.

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