No taxes, got it? Nothing that smells like a tax increase, looks like one, hints at one, or even contains the words, OK?

Even 55% of republicans now agree that a budget agreement should include a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases.  Yet so many of these freshmen Tea partiers have signed the goof-ball Grover Norquist no taxes / no way pledge that they now find themselves with quite a dilemma; they can’t do the right thing, even if they want to.  Pretty sweet, I think.   Brain dead hard line single issue politicians should stay home and run for the local community college board where the collateral damage from their stupidity can be limited. 

But it looks to me as if Obama has these chumps right where he wants them.   He has shown a willingness to compromise and the republicans have not, proving again that they are less concerned about actually getting anything done than about undermining Obama and continuing the rhetorical nonsense about how closing corporate tax loopholes will kill jobs, even as those corporations aren’t creating jobs and are just sitting in front of a vault full of cash.  68% of voters registered as independent favor a mix of cuts and revenue.   In general over 60% of the public supports this position.  But Boner walked away from talks for the third time, muttering darkly about Hobson ’s choice and November, 2012. 

Two things appear to be in play here; first, Boner is not in control of his own party in the House and so he cannot trust that a deal made with Obama wouldn’t blow up in his face when presented to the screaming rabble with the torches.  And second, if he compromises on the revenue piece – an otherwise entirely sensible thing to do – it looks, on some level, like Obama “won”.   Even as Obama is getting hammered by the left for his willingness to compromise, he still wins because the left isn’t going to vote for any of the current crop of republican candidates nor, for that matter, any potential republican candidate lurking in the weeds, (Sarah, this includes you…).  

This explains why they are peeing –their- pants scared of him.   But even republicans have to be scratching their heads over why this circus is still in town.  Obama offers a 3-1 ratio of cuts to revenue and it still isn’t good enough?  If they’re serious about long term deficit reduction, how can they turn that down?  The fact is, they aren’t as interested in the deficit as they’d like everyone to believe – not if it means the hedge fund manager on his 50-footer in Newport has to worry about paying more in taxes so that average people have enough money to buy the goods sold by the companies in the very fund he manages.  And no, that doesn't make sense.

Obama’s best move now is to lay that all out and tell them to pound sand and not bother him until they decide they’re serious.  The longer this goes on and the more damage is done, the more the republicans look like petulant, spoiled children who don’t really want a deal if it is in any way good for Obama.  They only want a deal that hurts him politically and furthers their real ambition – to destroy him and simultaneously take back the senate so a newly elected republican king can reign o’er the land.  (Shudder…)

The thing that bothers me and makes me uneasy about the whole nasty, silly drama is that Obama doesn’t seem inclined to put the hammer down on these clowns.  It’s as if he can’t believe what’s happening; he keeps expecting someone to man up, act like an adult, deal with the situation, and every time he thinks he has a deal, Boner shrivels up to the size of a raspberry and slinks off claiming with great, puffed up indignity that Obama has stabbed him in the back.  That this hilarious spectacle continues through another weekend, with the economy teetering again on the brink and desperate for political leadership, holds up a shiny fun-house mirror to the patriotic protestations of the tea-intoxicated bumblers trying to lead the loyal opposition.   Of course they don’t give a shit about the debt ceiling really; of course they will work something out so we don’t default; of course they hope to inflict as much damage as possible before doing so.   It’s up to Obama to make them pay for it - or I will be really disappointed.