Update at the bottom.
After the Annointed One stormed out in a huff over the Republicans’ refusal to raise the already sky-high debt ceiling, conservative journalists have told the GOP to call his bluff.
Some excerpts:
From David Limbaugh
Ordinarily, I’d have difficulty grasping the magnitude of arrogance driving President Obama in budget negotiations that could determine the survival of our nation, but after several painful years of observation, I’ve come to expect it from him.
Obama’s personality type does not well handle opposition, so when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor refused to budge on Obama’s unreasonable demand that the GOP agree to raise taxes during these economic hard times, which would not raise revenues, Obama blew up and “stormed out of the room.”
Cantor suggested that the parties opt for a short-term deal to avert the debt ceiling deadline, but Obama adamantly refused. “Enough is enough,” said Obama. “I’ve reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this.”
Why is it acceptable for Obama to be overtly uncompromising but express outrage that his GOP opposition is unyielding? It’s as if he’s saying, “How dare you be as intransigent as I’m being.”
Obama also warned Cantor, “Don’t call my bluff.” Notice all the I’s and my’s in Obama’s threatening language. Did anyone ever tell this narcissistic man “no” before he became president?
He acts as though the United States is his personal chattel to do with as he pleases, and no one (including members of the coequal legislative branch) and nothing (including the Constitution) dare get in his way. He masquerades as a mere bystander in all this instead of the primary mover in accelerating this financial catastrophe and the primary obstructer of the reforms necessary to avert it.
……Obama owns this economy and the alarming explosion of the debt in recent years. He is the one whose reckless policies have greatly exacerbated our dire financial condition. He is the one whose unconscionably wasteful and irresponsible economic policies have tanked the economy and suppressed employment. He is the one who, along with his party, has not presented a budget in 800 days. He is the one who formed a bipartisan deficit commission and then ignored its findings. He is the one who hasn’t presented a concrete budgetary plan. He is the one who refuses to reform entitlements despite objective evidence that if we don’t, the nation will go belly up. Yet he is the one who is pointing all the fingers of blame against the Republicans as if they were the culprits.
Republicans, choose your spokesman (Rep. Paul Ryan would be a good choice), and call daily pressers to make your case instead of always ceding that turf to Obama.
http://www.creators.com/conservative/david-limbaugh/gop-please-do-call-his-bluff-and-man-your-battle-stations.html
From Charles Krauthammer
……The meme having been established, Republicans have been neatly set up to take the fall if a deal is not reached by Aug. 2. Obama is already waving the red flag, warning ominously that Social Security, disabled veterans’ benefits, “critical” medical research, food inspection — without which agriculture shuts down — are in jeopardy.
The Republicans are being totally outmaneuvered. The House speaker appears disoriented. It’s time to act. Time to call Obama’s bluff.
A long-term deal or nothing? The Republican House should immediately pass a short-term debt-ceiling hike of $500 billion containing $500 billion in budget cuts. That would give us about five months to work on something larger.
The fat-cat tax breaks (those corporate jets) that Obama’s talking points endlessly recycle? Republicans should call for urgent negotiations on tax reform along the lines of the Simpson-Bowles commission that, in one option, strips out annually $1.1 trillion of deductions, credits and loopholes while lowering tax rates across the board to a top rate of 23 percent. The president says he wants tax reform, doesn’t he? Well, Mr. President, here are five months to do so.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/call-his-bluff/2011/07/14/gIQAfzFyEI_story.html
Not only would I call his bluff, but I would pound it into the heads of Americans that the reason our economy is in such crappy shape, is because of the wild-assed spending that keeps busting through whatever debt ceiling we have, from administration to administration. Obama took our country to hell in a socialist handbasket with hostile government-forced takeovers of 2/3rds of the auto industry and the engineered collapse of the banking infrastructure.
He took a bad economy and made it worse by destroying America’s financial stability. To justify his tactics, he holds up seniors and the disabled as a fear factor. We are in serious trouble. Moodys and Standard & Poor’s keeps raising their own red flags with the looming threat of losing our AAA rating.
The last time we lost our high credit rating was just after Pearl Harbor. Obama has created his own Pearl Harbor with a kamakazi-style attack on our Democratic Republic. His visceral hatred for successful entrepreneurs and support for union thugs—not the working people who struggle through life under the strain of increasing government intrusion—is reflected in every one of his domestic policies.
A $14 trillion dollar debt, uncontrolled borrowing and spending, higher taxes on the horizon, the economy in a nosedive, high unemployment, a lengthy history of government mismanagement, and a Marxist regime that refuses to stop gouging people for their class war.
He has no fucking bluff to call.
UPDATE:
Well, well. It looks like the Republicans grew a backbone and told Mr. Pouty Pants, “We not only see your bluff, we’ll raise it”.
Contrary to some expectations that the end of the week would see some resolution in the ongoing Washington soap opera, or at least provide some hope for a weekend meeting, things keep deteriorating after the adversarial language in DC keeps escalating, in what appears set to be an epic Nash Equilibrium showdown. To wit: even Jim DeMint just tweeted that Boehner has just called “Obama’s Bluff” confirming that the prevalent of the charade is nothing more than a game of cards. From Bloomberg: “The U.S. House plans a vote next week on a measure that would raise the government’s debt limit by $2.4 trillion, cut spending, cap government expenditures and propose a balanced-budget constitutional amendment, Republican Representatives Sean Duffy and Billy Long said.” Per Reuters, “House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Friday that deficit reduction legislation due for a House vote next week is “a solid plan” for moving forward toward an increase in the U.S. debt limit. The legislation, favored by Tea Party-backed lawmakers, would cut and cap federal spending while calling for adoption of a balanced budget amendment. “We’re far from the time for a last-ditch effort,” Boehner told a news conference at which he criticized Democrats including President Barack Obama for producing no “real plan” with serious spending cuts.” If nothing else, this indicates that the Cantor wing in DC continues to usurp power from Boehner, and while this is certainly nothing more than power politics at their best (or worst) the one direct impact of all of this is that the outcome of a US technical default, so dreaded by all, could be the reset switch that was so needed to be pushed after Lehman, yet was merely kicked perpetually into the future: a path that is guaranteed to have a catastrophic ending. Yes, the pain would be acute, but like Iceland, America will survive, and yes: the current status quo will be wiped out. But the country will have a literal and figurative “fresh start.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/republicans-call-obamas-bluff-schedule-vote-next-week-deficit-cut-and-cap
In other words, the spending cuts match the debt ceiling increase.
Bluff called.