Jon Walker at Firedoglake says that the negotiations on the debt ceiling keep moving right:
In the beginning, the idea that any political party would actively hold the debt ceiling hostage to reduce the deficit was considered absurd. Mainly because all the top politicians have admitted they don’t want the country to default and that actually forcing a default would have the exact opposite affect of sending Treasury bond rates up, making the deficit problem dramatically worse. Only a year ago, the idea the debt ceiling must be raised was not just the broad centrist position, and it has been the common sense position for decades.
Instead of holding a firm line and pointing out that Republicans were flirting with incoherent madness related to the debt ceiling, Democrats ,lead by President Obama, choose to feed the Republican deficit hysteria by actively refusing to take a stand. This moved the debate radically to the right. It made it acceptable to hold America credit worthiness hostage to demand deficit reductions despite massive unemployment.
John Amato at Crooks and Liars gives a tutorial in Negotiating for Dummies:
Every “cut” is on the table, but not revenue increasers. This is all kabuki and the debt ceiling isn’t the same type of game they played with as shutting down our own government was. But if Democrats use meaningless military cuts to justify massive cuts in education, food safety, health research and criminal justice as some kumbaya moment, then this will be not a deal, but a ritual sacrifice.
Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, Washington Editor of The Nation magazine, discussed the lengths to which the Republicans have gone to undermine President Obama, calling it “craven shameless, unprincipled partisan hackery”
At this point, I call it insanity on the part of the President and the Democratic leadership.
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