You know what the administration reminds me of? Those crazy, dysfunctional households that are in utter chaos before Jo, the Super Nanny, arrives. "We have to let the kids stay up all night because if we don't, then they'll scream and no one will get any sleep." Reinforcement of negative behaviors to avoid short-term disruption because YOU DON'T HAVE CONTROL OF YOUR CHILDREN.
So every time they scream, you give them what they want because you don't know how to say no. Any lessons there, I wonder? Of course not.
Senior Advisor to the President David Plouffe conceded this morning that some of the cuts the White House agreed to in order to avoid a government shutdown were draconian. In an interview on “This Week” with anchor Christiane Amanpour, he called the cuts both “draconian” and “historic.”
“The Senate majority called what the Speaker was asking for, just in February,” Amanpour said, “he called it ‘draconian.’” She pointed it the cuts were now being called historic. “I mean, which is it? Is it draconian yesterday and historic today?” Amanpour pressed.
“Well,” Plouffe replied, “some of the cuts were draconian. Because it’s not just the number, it’s what composes the number.”
“So in this budget deal,” he said, “the President, Senator Reid, you know we protected medical research, community health centers, kids in Head Start. We were not going to sign off on a deal that cut those things,” Plouffe said. “The President was comfortable with the composition of this deal that, again, there were some tough cuts in there…but in these fiscal times, everyone is going to have to make tough decisions. So it was a historic deal for the American people.”
Plouffe insisted the budget that the White House, the Senate and House agreed to preserved the country’s ability to invest in and “win the future.”
No, no, no, David. Let's be clear. The only really tough decision people have is now convincing themselves to vote for a president who rode in on a wave of high hopes, and floats out as the mere lesser (barely) of two evils. Because this budget crap is campaign kabuki, and you insult our intelligence by pretending otherwise.
This morning the New York Times praises Pete Peterson as the prescient man who saw the budget debate coming, never quite drawing the obvious conclusion: He dedicated $1 billion to manufacturing the budget "crisis."
We're surrounded by brazen liars and craven fools.
