Apparently this is our new standard for what's considered "reasonable" by the Villagers in our corporate media. Shutting down the government and putting the credit rating of the United States at risk are finally a step too far for Republicans to go. But if you want to gut the social safety nets for the millions of people who rely on them so you can keep giving tax cuts to your rich campaign donors, well that's just good policy that you should be rewarded for.
So says Bloomberg's Mark Halperin during a discussion on whether President Obama and Republicans are going to work together or not now that the Republicans have regained control of the Senate on this Sunday's This Week.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And Mark, I know one of the ways you put it -- and I think it's a good way to look at it is are Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell willing to take risks? What are they willing to risk to get these bills passed?
HALPERIN: They're going to have to take some risks -- risk of dealing with the president, risk of being the party who are for fundamental restructuring of entitlement programs, the risk of trying to pass immigration reform for the good of their 2016 nominee, the risk of standing up to the Tea Party caucus and talk radio. There's tons of things they can do.
They are unified. These are not guys known as bold risk takers who go out in public and throw down the gauntlet. They're going to have to if they want to do what's good for their politics and good for the country.
HEILEMANN: And they're really -- the risk on one of those, because really an obvious risk right now, because you've already seen the last five days as McConnell and Boehner have been talking about at least some degree of compromise you hear the base and Republican -- the right most quadrants of talk radio already braying at the notion that do not do deals with Barack Obama, do not legislate. This is not what this election is about, this election is about saying no to Barack Obama and repealing and investigating and so on.
That voice is -- those voices are already very, very, very loud right now.
BRAZILE: And at 14 percent of public approval, I doubt very seriously the Republicans are going to do anything that will further damage their brand. They're going to try to make some inroads, try to move more to the middle and hopefully to try to get better position for 2016.
VAN SUSTEREN: And to make the president look unreasonable.
HALPERIN: Biggest thing of the week, Mitch McConnell who is underrated took off the table shut down, took off the table playing with the debt ceiling, that...
STEPHANOPOULOS: But he didn't have much of an uproar in response, at least not yet.
HALPERIN: He took the risk, and the upper is minor and these new members like Cory Gardner who you talked to all are going to be part, in the Senate at least, are going to be part of what do we do that's reasonable for the party image and to try to make deals?
Look for lots of foot stomping from the pundits in our corporate media if President Obama doesn't go along with Republicans. We all know the only time they believe someone has a mandate after an election is when Republicans win them.
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