Spin, spin, spin

The political world is spinning like crazy.  And the politicians in DC think that it spins around them.

The debt limit spin needs to be dissected like a frog in a lab in order to see what's going on in there.  Let's get beyond the spin, shall we?

The Democrats want to blame the poor economy on GOP obstruction.  They want to blame everybody and everything else for the failure of their program.  So, the weak economy is the fault of the GOP's obstruction on the debt issue in 2011.  Obama got "burned" for negotiating with the GOP, so the lesson learned was not to negotiate at all.

The crucial point about this outcome, should it happen, is that it will be the direct result of the decision by Dems — in the last two debt limit fights — to refuse to negotiate with Republicans. That was a major course correction on Obama’s part in which he learned in office from failure. After getting badly burned in the 2011 debt limit showdown — which left us saddled with the austerity that continues to hold back the recovery---Greg Sargent

The truth is that the GOP got little in exchange for their obstruction--neither in 2011 nor in 2013.  They only thing the GOP got was sequestration, and they just gave that up too.  Bascially, Obama is getting what he wants.  Hard to see how it can be the GOP's fault for anything.  They aren't even making much of a dent in spending at all.

The GOP establishment is rolling the dice.  They expect the recovery to still be weak and ObamaCare to be an issue come the fall elections.  They don't want the Democratic rhetoric to gain any traction.  They don't want to be blamed for the failure of this regime any more than what they are going to get blamed for anyway.


Update:

Also, there would not have been any default unless the Democrats wanted one.   They want to blame the GOP for that if it were to happen, just like they want to blame the GOP for the shutdown.  The Dems are just as much to blame for the shutdown as the GOP.  It takes two to fight.

The Dems shut down the government in their budget battles with Reagan.  It wasn't such a bad thing back then.  The thing to know about the Democrats is that they would default if it came to that.  The GOP won't and they just proved it again.  Reagan negotiated, Obama didn't.

The Dems are more ruthless than the GOP, there's no question about it.