I am a cynic. I have been a cynic since before I knew what the term meant. Most of the time my cynicism leads me to conclusions that prove out (or at least appear to prove out). And when my cynicism does lead me astray it seems to most often be due to my overestimation of the people involved. For example, for much of Bush the Younger’s second term I was convinced that sooner or later he would face a massive insurrection from Congressional Republicans. I figured that they would value their own cushy government jobs over his and toss him overboard in an effort to save their own skins. Sadly their stupidity trumped their self interest.
And so it is with mixed feelings that I anticipate this evening’s Presidential Address. On the one hand it has been heartening to see the Obama Administration at least appear to realize that their opposition is wholly disingenuous and uninterested in anything but winning at the ballot box. On the other hand their chosen vehicle of theatrical political symbolism is the wildly irresponsible “spending freeze”. That most recent fallacy-du-jour is financially insignificant when excluding Medicare and the War Department. Yet it is also politically tone deaf for the simple reason that mouthing a provably stupid Red fallacy does nothing but reinforce the illogical foundations upon which it rests.
Being in favor of “deficit reduction” is akin to being in favor of puppies, sunlight and blowjobs. It is a meaningless position open to anyone. The question is not whether you think the American government should balance its books, but how the American government balances its books. A “spending freeze” that excludes all but a tiny slice of the budget ignores the how completely, it’s like saying the Titanic needed more life preservers. Yeah it might help, but the overall horror isn’t going to be seriously affected.
So if they’ve truly adopted a nonsensically puny “spending freeze” that is both bad politics and bad policy, where does that leave us? Well, on the bright side it means that they may finally be willing to adopt the kind of crass political whoring that is probably required of any modern Administration. On the dark side there’s the whole thing about this particular crass political whoring not having a snowball’s chance in hell of working.
And on that note my cynicism reaches the end of its road. I don’t have enough facts to reach a supportable conclusion. Nor do I have inside information on the people, the dynamics, or the thinking of either the Obama Administration or the Democratic Party in general. I do know that the current political situation is untenable. The Reds represent a minority of the population (via) and yet continue to obstruct anything and everything. Either they will win enough seats in Congress to assume control of one chamber or the other, or the Blues will wise up and begin pushing them aside with base disregard.
Tonight’s speech is not a make or break moment for the Administration. Barack Obama is going to be with us for quite a while and the midterm elections are still a very long ten months away. But sometime between now and then the Blues are going to have to make a choice. They are either going to abandon the facade of bipartisanship, do what they can, and let voters judge them on what they’ve done, or they are going to turtle and let voters judge them on what they haven’t done. Self interest predicts the former, stupidity predicts the latter. I would only point out that the latter is what cost the Reds the government.
