The morning after his televised address it is becoming increasingly clear this the president’s goal was to position himself for defeat. It may have marked his final end- game play before the Treasury declares national default.
Among the most compelling post-speech assessments this morning is that of The New Republic’s senior editor Jonathan Chait. He concludes that last night Obama merely was “positioning himself for failure.”
Here is a portion of Chait’s unsettling but on-target analysis:
“I’m not really sure what Obama was trying to accomplish in his speech. I thought he would try to find some kind of lowest common denominator between the Reid and Boehner plans that would stand a chance of passing Congress. He didn’t. Instead he appealed once again to the Grand Bargain. If Obama thinks Congress will pass something like that, he’s nuts. … The most rational explanation for Obama’s speech is that he’s positioning himself for failure. He’s explaining his position so that when Congress fails to lift the debt ceiling, Americans will blame the Republicans and not him. … I expect a week from now we’ll be bracing for disaster.”
The president may try to blame recalcitrant Republicans, fellow Democrats, Congress or the Tea Party. But it happened on his watch. He is the President of the United States, not a referee.
If Chait is right this could be the most spectacular Oval Office economic failure since the Great Depression.
If you want to read something bizarre read the comments to Chait’s piece and this is the New Republic. “Invoke the 14th ammendment”. I must live on a parallel universe.
Or worse, he wants us to fail. He is not a man who loves this country.
Shot his wad, should’ve held his fire, but got nervous. Now what’s he gonna do? Ask for prime time again for yet another address? Doesn’t look like leadership.
Chait’s assuming that Americans want to blame somebody for not raising the debt ceiling. That couldn’t be more wrong. They’d prefer, ceteris paribus, no increase in the ceiling or the debt. Now Americans will blame somebody for a partial government shutdown which certainly would follow a failure to increase the limit. And Americans will certainly blame somebody for a downgrade in our sovereign credit rating and any ensuing economic chaos, confusion and downdraft. But it looks like that will come, sooner rather than later, no matter what passes or doesn’t pass Congress. Chait fails to see this distinction.
If Chait is, however, right about Obama’s motives, then Obama is truly delusional. Obama cannot and will not escape blame for either debacle, especially a badly managed shutdown and any economic fallout from a ratings downgrade. Whether the public blames House Republicans more than the President is almost irrelevant. The Hell that will rain down on him will finish him. Remember Obama’s not running against the House GOP in 2012, he’ll be running against a Republican nominee who had no share in this mess and who will beat him daily like a red-headed stepchild with it throughout the campaign.