Imagine you're a kid, riding in a car with your dad. Suddenly, a minivan is barreling toward you like Diane Schuler speeding the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway. With sure death hurtling at you, it seems to take forever for your dad's reflexes to kick in. But finally they do, and he swerves safely onto the shoulder. The minivan zooms by. Eventually, it will crash in white-hot flames, but not before taking a few victims along with it. Meanwhile, you're so relieved to be alive that your first reaction is to be mad at Dad.
Your car is the United States. President Obama is your dad. And the minivan, of course, is the Republican Party — with the teabaggers at the wheel.
Yep, in their refusal to raise the debt ceiling — the equivalent of driving southbound in the northbound lanes of the American economic highway — this is what the right-wing crazies in the House were willing to do: Destroy the United States in order to "save" it from a decisively elected African American President whom they loathe. We cats are not amused.
In fact, as we write this, the debt ceiling deal that leaders in Washington brokered last night hasn't yet been passed. But that's supposed to happen later today. Nevertheless, the chattering class's post mortems have already begun. Who won? Who lost? The scorecard is all the pundits care about. But overlying all that is a sinking feeling (no pun intended) that the country has struck some sort of economic and political iceberg — and there's no going back to the good old days.
Okay, we're mixing our metaphors. But here's what we cats care about.
Barring Congressional disaster, the debt ceiling will be raised. Yes, we're irked beyond words that it was an issue in the first place. But as with the NATO intervention in Libya, it will be hard to prove after the fact that one has averted certain doom. (You will not see panicked people taking sledgehammers to their ATMs.) Second, this ghastly nightmare will not be repeated in the middle of next year's Presidential election. (We haven't yet visited Free Republic to see how the teabaggers are reacting to that, but we assume they're furious. Which would be a good thing.)
We can only assume that the White House once again decided to take the long view: That political pressure for finally letting the Bush tax cuts expire in December 2012, and for corporations and the rich to pay their fair share, now can be brought to bear. They may be right. Because ironically, this whole ridiculous argument has served the very useful purpose of making it clear anew that our society cannot function without tax revenue. So while the execrable Grover Norquist may be tempted to pop Champagne today, we caution him to remember that all glory is fleeting.
Meanwhile, though, the entire exercise was a maddening farce. Knowing that our side has been less than perfect, we cats nevertheless lay the whole mess at the feet of: 1) George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, for squandering the Clinton surplus, 2) the teabaggers who hate government almost as much as they hate Barack Obama, and 3) Republican party leaders, who are too weak and ineffectual to keep their crazies in line.
Oh, and that fiery crash with the teabaggers at the wheel? Look out, GOP. If we were you, we'd buckle up. Big time.
(PHOTO: Alan Zale / The New York Times)
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