Saturday Open Thread [3.14.15]
Jonathan Chait has a great exit interview with White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer.
“The original premise of Obama’s first presidential campaign was that he could reason with Republicans—or else, by staking out obviously reasonable stances, force them to moderate or be exposed as extreme and unyielding. It took years for the White House to conclude that this was false… If you had to pinpoint the moment this worldview began to crystallize, it would probably be around the first debt-ceiling showdown, in 2011, when Obama tried repeatedly and desperately to cut a budget deal with House Speaker John Boehner only to realize, eventually, that Boehner did not have the power to negotiate. The administration has now decided that in many cases, even adversarial bargaining fails because the Republican leadership is not capable of planning tactically.”
Explained Pfeiffer: “You have to be careful not to presume a lot of strategy for this group. I’ve always believed that the fundamental, driving strategic ethos of the Republican House leadership has been, What do we do to get through the next caucus or conference without getting yelled at? We should never assume they have a long game. We used to spend a lot of time thinking that maybe Boehner is saying this to get himself some more room. And it’s like, no, that’s not actually the case. Usually he’s just saying it because he just said it or it’s the easiest thing to solve his immediate problem.”
Paul Waldman: “It’s safe to say that no president in modern times has had his legitimacy questioned by the opposition party as much as Barack Obama. But as his term in office enters its final phase, Republicans are embarking on an entirely new enterprise: They have decided that as long as he holds the office of the presidency, it’s no longer necessary to respect the office itself.”
If there ever is another Republican President, I can promise you he or she will get the same treatment from liberals, progressives and Democrats. Hell of a precedent the GOP has set for themselves.
WISCONSIN–SENATOR–Public Policy Polling: Fmr. Sen. Russ Feingold (D) 50, Sen. Ron Johnson (R) 41.
A new poll by Beyond the Beltway found that most American voters – 72 percent – supported expanding travel and trade by Americans to Cuba and having diplomatic relations with Cuba. Of those, 64 percent of Republicans under the age of 50 agreed that the recent policy changes “are in the best interests of the U.S. and Cuban people.” No shit.
Eugene Robinson‘s take on the SAE fraternity scandal:
See, I keep telling you that old-fashioned racism is alive and well in this country. After the fraternity bus sing-along at the University of Oklahoma, do you hear me now?
Frankly, the happy-go-lucky bigotry of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity brothers — captured on video and shown to the world — shocked even me. And I was raised in the South, back in the days when Jim Crow was under assault but still very much alive. […]
Now, I realize that these soft, pampered, privileged, ridiculous frat boys are not likely to attempt actual violence against black people. But they wouldn’t have to. The attitudes their words reveal can, and probably will, show themselves in other ways.
