Politico: [The Obama budget] centerpiece is a highly controversial plan to trim Social Security cost-of-living increases — a move one longtime Obama adviser called a “goodwill gesture” to Republicans and liberals decry as a shocking departure from Obama’s 2012 campaign rhetoric, a betrayal that warrants retribution.Yes, we should rush to hold Republican policy positions because Republicans will eventually take back the White House. By this logic, we should be banning abortion and same-sex marriage, pitching poor families off cliffs, making practicing Islam illegal, instituting the death penalty for undocumented immigrants, and launching an immediate attack on Iran, North Korea and — oh, I don’t know — Canada or someplace. After all, Republicans will just do all this crazy-assed, stupid shit eventually, so it makes absolutely no sense not to go ahead and get it over with now. Let’s just go ahead and privatize Medicare and sell off National Parks, while we’re at it. I mean, it only stands to reason…
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That liberal anger — boiling to a level not seen since the fractious debate over health care reform — serves a tactical purpose for Obama. Taking a page from Bill Clinton’s 1990s playbook, Obama is courting public confrontation with his party’s powerful liberal wing to prove he’s willing to flout party orthodoxy in hopes of reviving the ever-elusive “grand bargain” to set the country on a sustainable fiscal path.
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“We’re not going to have the White House forever, folks. If he doesn’t do this, Paul Ryan is going to do it for us in a few years,” said a longtime Obama aide, referring to the 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate who proposed a sweeping overhaul of Medicare that would replace some benefits with vouchers.
I realize that this is just spin. But it’s the most idiotic spin I’ve seen in a good, long time — at least, from a Democrat.
And that it’s so hard to spin tells you all you need to know about how lousy the underlying policy is.
