Dealing With The Kids

by Steve

"Really, what this is all about is negotiating and finding common ground. This looks like a window to be able to do that, and I’m supportive."
--Tea Party GOP Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, today, who months ago was a caustic Obama critic

Finding common ground? It's amazing what a week of catastrophic poll numbers and Wall Street warnings will do to change the political dynamics in Washington. After demanding the repeal of Obamacare, then the delay of Obamacare, then unrelated fringe ideas, then the default itself, now suddenly the Tea Party simply wants Obama to talk with them.

“When you’re genuinely convinced your own constituency — Democrats or Republicans — are beginning to waver, then that’s when you start closing down and moving forward,” said Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, who is running for the Senate.

He said that had not happened yet, "but I do think that what reopens shutdowns more than policy are polls."

[snip]

"We would get a commitment from the president, a concession, to sit down and talk with us, to negotiate before we go to a yearlong debt ceiling increase,” said Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana. “There won’t be a vote on a temporary extension of the debt limit unless the president agrees this afternoon to sit down and talk with us."

See, it's a "concession" now to the Tea Party if Obama agrees to talk with them, even though the Senate has been waiting upon the House to engage in a budget conference committee since the spring. These guys are simply children who want to talk with The Man rather than have to deal with the Senate. Obama was already willing to give them the chained CPI and Medicare means testing before we got to this point. So they can talk with The Man now, directly, and feel good about themselves. It means nothing.

But if that is what it takes when dealing with children, then so be it.

Graphic courtesy of PollingReport.com