For some reason, in December no one wanted to point this out. Today, Yglesias writes:

A movement that actually believed that reducing federal spending was extremely important would, it seems to me, be quite willing to make concessions in order to obtain large quantities of spending cuts. Viewed in that light, it’s not obvious to me that backing away from a $4 trillion deal primarily composed of spending cuts constitutes a “more conservative” option than saying yes. [. . . T]he GOP agenda consisted of aggressive tax cutting made palatable by refusing to pair the cuts with spending reductions. [. . . T]he [GOP] bargaining strategy is entirely built around a tax-focused goal rather than a spending-focused one.

No sh*t Sherlock. That is why giving away the store on the Bush tax cuts in The Deal in December was a terrible mistake. The GOP has what it wants. Does it want to cut spending? Sure. But NEVER EVER at the cost of raising taxes. If you give them what they want on taxes, you will never ever get a concession from them. So now Obama will reach a 2 trillion dollar spending cut deal to raise the debt ceiling, an unprecedented capitulation. No President has ever bargained with regard to the debt ceiling. And some will call this a triumph for Obama. An anti-stimulus plan a triumph for a President seeking reelection. There is only one word to describe this analysis- idiotic.

Speaking for me only

Deciding to pocket the 2 trillion in cuts President Obama has pre-conceded, House Speaker John Boehner says no to the "Grand Bargain":

Citing differences over tax revenues, House Speaker John A. Boehner on Saturday night said he would drop his push with President Obama for a far-reaching, $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan tied to a proposal to increase the federal debt limit.

Mr. Boehner issued a statement saying he would now urge negotiators to instead focus on trying to craft a smaller package more in line with the $2 trillion in cuts negotiated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! So Obama gets to be labelled as the guy who was willing to cut Social Security and Medicare while at the same time agreeing to slashing government spending that will hurt the economy. Well done. Political bargaining you can believe in. Not.

Speaking for me only

Former First Lady Betty Ford has died at age 93. This is a really nice op-ed by the Times, that shows her multiple interests, the hardships she overcame, her independence and flashes of her personality. R.I.P.

Atrios:

No I don't know precisely how the play ends, but here in Act II various players are stamping their feet and making demands, followed by the ultimate capitulation for the 'good of the country.'

And Obama will have "saved Social Security." Write it down. 2 trillion in cuts for raising the debt ceiling. Great negotiating there. Unless, Kevin Drum is right:

Kevin Drum pretends President Obama is fighting against cutting government spending:

[T]his poll does pretty clearly tell us [. . .] large majorities are pretty obsessed about cutting the national debt — and those large majorities cut across practically every demographic subgroup. If you want to know why President Obama is willing to cut a deal with Republicans to drastically cut federal spending, this is it. We liberals have miserably failed to make the case for stimulus spending, and as a result conservatives have spectacularly succeeded in reverting the American public to its default state of believing that the federal books should always be balanced, the same as household books. On this score, we've just been flatly outplayed over the past couple of years.

(Emphasis supplied.) What does Drum mean "we?" The President has not been willing, he has been EAGER, to cut government spending. He has been talking like this for over a year:

Paul Krugman and Noah Smith discuss the critic of Keynesian economics John Taylor's conclusion that Obama's stimulus of 2009 had too much tax cuts and too little government purchases. Smith writes:

[Taylor] suggests [. . .] that tax rebates and transfer payments don't make for particularly good stimulus, because in a balance-sheet recession people will just use the money to pay down their debts. [. . . T]his is a reason why Keynesians often argue that government spending is a better approach to stimulus than tax rebates. On that note, Taylor notes that federal expenditures didn't rise by very much due to the ARRA[. . . .] This precisely echoes the complaints that Keynesians had about the ARRA: not enough federal government purchases, not enough infrastructure spending.

In response to these points, Taylor wrote:

[E]xperiences from the 1970s raise serious doubts about the political and operational feasibility of such discretionary fiscal policy. ...In a simple Keynesian model, all the government has to do to combat a recession is quickly increase government purchases, but the difficulty with doing so in practice is one of the classic arguments against discretionary fiscal policy.

Matt Yglesias seconds that emotion. The argument appears to be that the United States is ungovernable in a crisis that requires something other than a war. That our government is incapable of implementing the proper policy at this time. Indeed, that our government will implement that absolutely incorrect policy at this time. No one thought this before the past 3 years it seems to me.

Speaking for me only

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo did a great thing when he maneuvered the New York State legislature into approving gay marriage. Part of why he did it, in my view, was a question of political positioning. Aside from the accomplishment, what was Cuomo looking for? In my view, stories like this one by Nate Silver:

[T]he type of leadership that Mr. Cuomo exercised — setting a lofty goal, refusing to take no for an answer and using every tool at his disposal to achieve it — is reminiscent of the stories sometimes told about with President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had perhaps the most impressive record of legislative accomplishment of any recent president. It’s also a brand of leadership that many Democrats I speak with feel is lacking in President Obama.

There is, in my view, a fatigue building among Democrats regarding President Obama's political style, his vaunted Post Partisan Unity Schtick (really just a variant on the old Clinton/DLC Third Way Schtick.) Obviously that is not meaningful to 2012 in terms of who the nominee will be - the President will not be challenged. But it is meaningful for 2016. Thus, when Silver writes:

In New York, now gay persons can be as unhappy in their marriages as straight people.

I kid. A great day for human rights.

A Dkos commenter writes:

If we couldn't do anything useful in Libya -- as is certainly the case in Saudi Arabia and probably the case in Syria -- that would be one thing. But that argument is not being made. It's just that "this is not worth American blood and treasure" -- [. . .] Well, one can't right every wrong in the world. One can't protect every innocent. But when there's something that we can do and choose not to, people can goddamn well own this expression of their priorities.

[People] may not like Qaddafi shelling Misrata and invading Benghazi and Tobruk to clench an iron fist around his subjects collective throat -- but [they] can live with it. [They] won't lose sleep over it. It's not worth American blood and treasure. If he argues that we can't achieve anything there, that's a different matter. It becomes a different argument. But what we can achieve is not part of this debate. It's whether we should try.

I think this raises the question why are we not doing more - not just in Libya, but everywhere. We can do more. Not just in Libya. But let's start with Libya for discussion's sake. Is there any doubt that we could take Tripoli in a month? Sure that requires ground troops, but so what? Are we gonna be "objectively pro-Qaddafi?"

By now you may have figured out that I have begun the process of reductio ad absurdum. It could end at asking why we have not invaded Cuba or Myanmar. It could go further and ask why we are not at war with China. More . . .

Gators lead Vandy 3-1 in the 6th at the CWS. Go Gators! Update: Gator pitching blowing it. Now tied at 4 in the 8th, Vandy has the bases loaded with 1 out.

Gators Win! Will play in the CWS 3 game series final starting Monday night. Go Gators!!

Open Thread.

Via Atrios, Glenn Greenwald catches Secretary of State Hillary Clinton doing her George Bush imitation:

But the bottom line is, whose side are you on? Are you on Qadhafi’s side or are you on the side of the aspirations of the Libyan people and the international coalition that has been created to support them? For the Obama Administration, the answer to that question is very easy.

Shameful. Via Doug Mataconis, Hillary back in the day, on the GOP New McCarthyism on the Iraq Debacle:

“I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic, and we should stand up and say, ‘WE ARE AMERICANS AND WE HAVE A RIGHT TO DEBATE AND DISAGREE WITH ANY ADMINISTRATION!’ “

Speaking for me only

NYTimes:

The House Friday resoundingly rejected a measure that would authorize the United States’s mission in Libya, with 70 Democrats deserting President Obama on an issue that has divided their party and became a major Constitutional flash point between Congress and The White House. The resolution — one of two that the House took up Friday — failed 295 to 123, with 70 Democrats joining an overwhelming majority of Republicans in rejecting it. Only eight Republicans supported the measure, which was based on a Senate measure introduced Tuesday by Senators John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona that has yet to be voted on in that chamber.