Before the policy choices have to be weighed and the hard decisions have to be made, can we just take a month or two to contemplate him the way we might contemplate a painting by Vermeer or a guitar lick by the early-seventies Rolling Stones or a Peyton Manning pass or any other astounding, ecstatic human achievement? Because twenty years from now, we’re going to look back on this time as a glorious idyll in American politics, with a confident, intelligent, fascinating president riding the surge of his prodigious talents from triumph to triumph. Whatever happens this fall or next, the summer of 2011 is the summer of Obama.
Hot Air today: “Oh my: Angry Obama storms out of debt-ceiling negotiations:”
Cantor said he told the president that the two sides remain so far apart at this point that he doubted they could get to $2.5 trillion in cuts (to match the debt increase requested by the administration, enough to get through the 2012 election) given the time available. President Obama has said he will not sign any increase to the debt ceiling less than that amount, and Cantor had previously insisted that the House would vote no more than one time to increase the debt limit. Cantor said he was willing to abandon his position in order to allow some kind of short-term measure to increase the debt limit and reassure credit markets while negotiations continue, and asked the president if he would be willing to consider this option.
At this point, Cantor explained, the president became “very agitated” and said he had “sat here long enough,” that “Ronald Reagan wouldn’t sit here like this” and “something’s got to give.” Obama then told Republicans they either needed to compromise on their insistence on a dollar for dollar ratio of spending cuts to debt increase or agree to a “grand bargain” including massive tax increases. Before walking out of the room, Cantor said, the president told him: “Eric, don’t call my bluff. I’m going to the American people with this.” He then “shoved back” and said “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The 2008 myth of “No-Drama Obama” could not be reached for comment.
Update: “Who knows what’s going to happen next? Nobody. But it sure is epic,” Richard Fernandez writes at the Belmont Club.
This is above my pay grade, but it is fun:
They told me if I voted for John McCain, the president’s moody obstinance would cheapen the office: And they were right!
Take it to the American people?
He’s stupidly forgotten that in November of 2010 the American people took it to him, but good.
How was the crease in his trousers as he left?
So long as the debt limit is not raised, Obama has to do what he hates: Cut Government.
If he defaults, then he can’t borrow any more, and he has to cut government.
If he doesn’t default, then he has to cut government in order to not default.
And he has to explain why he cut what he cut. Make the case that he kept the EPA bureaucrat, rather than mail out 10,000 Social Security checks. I want to hear that one.
Dollar for dollar cuts and increases?? Baloney.
“Eric, don’t call my bluff.”
Hmmm….
I think he’s discovered that “I won” does not mean he gets whatever he wants.
And he really doesn’t like it.
It’s almost as if he’s gotten his own way his entire life, and now somebody is finally telling him no.
Sounds like Obama is going batsh*t.
I honestly think the pressure is getting to him. I know he hates his job and he would prefer to be on vacation but he either rises to the occasion or he breaks.
I bet he breaks.
Someone, anyone, left or right, please tell me what Esquire was talking about. What?????? Esquire pioneered the New Journalism, “non-fiction novel” stuff but that quote is like hallucinatory acid trip alternate universe gonzo crazy.
The New Journalism-era of Esquire was 45 years ago. The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby is up on cinder-blocks gathering rust these days.
Esquire got bought somewhere around 1980 and the new owners instantly lowered the standards. Never has gotten back its reputation, unfortunately.
Obama is a one-trick pony. The only card he has to play is the bully card. He played it against Rick Wagoner and took over GM. He played it against the TARP bank executives, and took effective control of the banks. He tried it against Benjamin Netinyahu with comically disastrous results, and I think that was the turning point. Netinyahu showed the world how to stand up to Obama — with his press conference lecture and subsequent speech to Congress.
At that point, I think Obama lost his ability to intimidate. But it’s all he has, so he uses it again and again. He knows full well how to acquire power as a “community organizer”, but he has no idea how a chief executive gets things done. At last, he is being faced with Republican leadership that will not be bullied, and Obama looks more and more like a man who could snap at any moment. Nothing is working and he is in trouble. What does a community organizer do in this situation? What?
I don’t think Obama understands how negotiation works. What exactly is he offering the Republicans in this “bargain” of his? Higher taxes? No dollar for dollar spending cuts?
The Republicans should call the jerk’s bluff; and if he isn’t bluffing, even better. Kiss the office goodbye!
Hey, Lightnin’. Long time, man.
Ah, yes. Stormy Weather…I remember it well.
Barack, we don’t care if you go away mad or not as long as you go the hell away.
“Ronald Reagan wouldn’t sit here like this”
No, he never did sit in the oval office with unemployment at 9+ percent for two years and a national and world economy at a standstill, foreign policy rapidly turning into a laughingstock, etc.
Not Reagan, he wouldn’t put up with that kind of crap.
Actually reagan did inherit a wrecked economy and foreign policy, much worse than Obama had inherited. But in 3 yrs Reagan had fixed the economy, and by the end of his term had won the cold war, with constant opposition from a dem congress. In 3 yrs Obama has done nothing but make things much worse, even though his party had control of everything for 2 yrs and he could get whatever he wanted. Reagan negociated constantly with a tough dem congress, and while he didn’t always get what he wanted, he always got what he and the country needed. Obama on the other hand looks like a petulant child.
Wow – that Esquire article (I read the whole thing, albeit with difficulty) is the worst piece of sycophantic crap I have seen, right up there with the kids singing hymns about Obama after the election… Click on it, but keep barf bag nearby.
He’s already “taken it to the American people”. But he said the American people aren’t really paying attention…Don’t go away mad barack, go away crazy.
Mr. President, I voted for Ronald Reagan, I remember Ronald Reagan, and you are no Ronald Reagan.
The Esquire article has to be satire.
It simply has to be. My entire view of the human race depends upon the fact that, while one can still be a supporter of this President if that’s your thing, but to actually write those words and believe them is simply outside of the realm of human existance.
Ergo, it is satire.
Sorted.