Paul Krugman:A Hostage Situation

[cal04]

There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met.

If this were a normal political dispute, Democrats in Congress would clearly hold the upper hand: by a huge margin, Americans say they want a timetable for withdrawal, and by a large margin they also say they trust Congress, not Mr. Bush, to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq.

But this isn’t a normal political dispute. Mr. Bush isn’t really trying to win the argument on the merits. He’s just betting that the people outside the barricade care more than he does about the fate of those innocent bystanders.

What’s at stake right now is the latest Iraq “supplemental.” Since the beginning, the administration has refused to put funding for the war in its regular budgets. Instead, it keeps saying, in effect: “Whoops! Whaddya know, we’re running out of money. Give us another $87 billion.”


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http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/04/paul_krugman_a_.html

[Phredicles]

1. Recommended - here's hoping congress recognizes this for what it is,

that The Decider is CRAZY.:scared:

[patrice]

2. I'm starting tosee the non-binding timeline in a different light now.

Everything depends upon what the Democrats do when the pResident vetos this bill.

[cal04]

3. Did Harry Reid Intend to Create a Firestorm?

Harry Reid created a frenzied storm amongst the Beltway bloviators when he made these remarks:

"This is the message I took to the president," Reid said at a news conference.

"Now I believe myself ... that this war is lost, and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," said Reid, of Nevada.

"I know I was like the odd guy out yesterday at the White House, but at least I told him what he needed to hear, not what he wanted to hear," he added....

Reid said he did not think more U.S. troops could help. "I think it's failed, I say that without any question," he said of the troop increase.

Some have questioned his rhetoric and his choice of words, calling it a gaffe. But what if Reid had carefully chosen his words? What if his intention was to spur debate, or even further, to forward the debate beyond the question of this supplemental funding bill and the squabbling over it?

The situation we face now is, as Paul Krugman describes in his NYT column tomorrow:

a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met....

The whole situation brings to mind what Abraham Lincoln said, in his great Cooper Union speech in 1860, about secessionists who blamed the critics of slavery for the looming civil war: "A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!’ "

Perhaps what Reid is doing is trying to create awareness that President Bush is holding our troops hostage in Iraq for a lost cause, the Iraq war. Harry Reid obviously can read a poll. And the polls are saying, as William Schneider points out (via Atrios), that the American people want the occupation of Iraq to end.

more
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/22/232927/385

[TahitiNut]

4. "Give me a hundred billion dollars or they die!!"

That's EXACTLY what he's said. :grr: :grr:

[The Count]

5. For some reason this image popped into my mind:

and this smilie:

[BlooInBloo]

6. America is lucky to have Krugman. Unlucky he works for the Times, who doesn't want to share him.

[GreenTea]

7. The great & excellent Paul Krugman.

[orleans]

8. i heard someone say ("predict") the dems would cave and just

give the fuckhead the money

it was either on olbermann or spitball last week.

that really pissed me off--wish i could remember who said it. (it wasn't keith or tweety btw)

[Senator]

9. The Third Way to Describe: It is Another DemocRat's Maze

The troops are certainly hostages. But not to this funding farce.

Like the rest of us, they're hostages to the DC Dems failure to stand up to the regime in a substantive way. They continue to play political patty-cake under the delusion that the old rules still apply and there's are electoral bounty to come.

The minute the DC Dems "funding fever" subsides and it no longer works as a distraction, he'll take whatever they sent up and "signing statement" it into whatever he wants it to be. But they won't ever actually do anything about it.

The same is true of Gonzo-gate. The DC Dems are all happy to take their public shots a his pinata-pawn, but no one is saying a word about actually removing all the election thieves they've got sitting in US Atty offices nationwide.

It's likely that Condi is up next as whipping post.

(Forget the Euphemedia crap about "loyalty." He enjoys watching their pain. That's what sociopathy is all about.)

It's all a DemocRat's Maze. And Only Impeachment is The Cheese.

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