Politics of the Moment

Things are happening (and not happening) fast in the debt ceiling drama.  The first major shift came in a CBS new interview, when in answer to a question (a repeated, specific question) President Obama said he could not guarantee that Social Security checks would go out as scheduled on August 3, if the debt ceiling isn't lifted by August 2. 

Though the interview itself will not air until Tuesday evening, this question and answer were released and played often during the day Monday.  It seems to have had an immediate effect on congressional GOPers.

The first effect was to press their "that's what you are, what am I" button, when John Banal blamed President Obama for what GOPers are refusing to do--raise the debt ceiling, as has always been done in the past, including 7 times during the Bush administration.

The second was the other shoe dropping in this GOPer strategy on the fly, when GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell threw up his hands and said no deal was possible because Obama wouldn't agree to GOPer demands, so he made a new proposal, already hotly debated and not always consistently interpreted.  Here's the NY Times interpret.

 It seems to me to be a combination of my resolution #1 (declare victory and go home) and the outcome President Obama predicted months ago: a series of targets for cuts with triggers if the cuts aren't made.  The outcome seems to be to give the President the responsibility while GOPers get to take symbolic votes to show their disapproval.  But it does solve the debt ceiling problem.  However, anger from the Rabid Right was immediate, so even though Grover Norquist supports it (and so quickly that it looks like Mitch checked with him first), it's so far only a new focus for even louder noise.

Now that the public is increasingly understanding what the debt ceiling actually is, and what not raising it might mean, the political floor under the GOPers, pretty illusory to begin with, is starting to cave and at least some of the congressional leadership knows it.  They want to resolve this before even more people hear about the checks not going out (as President Obama also said, it's not just Social Security.)  

This is likely to change hour by hour.  But..the baseball All-Star game starts soon, I haven't actually watched it in years but with several Pirates as well as Giants playing, I'm going to make the late political shows a secondary priority. 

Update: Congratulations NL!