Thread: Who else but Republicans would give a standing ovation to coach who led to defeat?

Boston herald Op-Ed columnist Michael Graham
Friday, October 18, 2013

“They’re Republicans. They’ll find a way to screw this up.”

Who else but Republicans would give a standing ovation to the coach who just led them into a humiliating defeat?

It happened Wednesday, as some Republicans saluted U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and patted themselves on the back for being willing to lose a fight over principle. “We won a moral victory,” one GOP lawmaker said.

And what do you call a politician who just won a “moral” victory?

A “loser.”

Which is why good ol’
“Bipartisan Barack” relished the chance to mock the GOP yesterday with his comment: “Don’t like a particular policy? ... Go out there and win an election.”

Enjoy the moment, Mr. President. If the GOP is dumb enough to lose on purpose, you deserve it.

But I predict that — like the phrase “If you like your health coverage, you can keep it. Period.” — this will come back to haunt him.

At this moment, the GOP is at its lowest point and the Democrats are at their highest. President Obama is gloating over a political win handed to him by Republicans who picked a stupid fight (ending Obamacare immediately) and used stupid tactics (tying it to the debt ceiling).

But what did Democrats actually win? Did the president get a blank check? Is Obama-care beyond the reach of this Congress or the next?

Those two fights are ideal political territory for the GOP.

I don’t even have to write about how dismally awful the Obamacare rollout is going. Hilariously, Democrats are telling themselves that, by next spring, it’s going to look much better.

Uh ... guys? You haven’t even started forcing people to buy it yet. And already, according to Kaiser Public Opinion, 54 percent of Americans have a “very unfavorable” view of the individual mandate.

And guess which specific part of Obamacare the Republicans just forced every Democrat in the House and Senate to explicitly vote in support of?

Bingo.

Between now and next November, millions of Americans are going to find out that a) they’ve lost coverage they like; b) their premiums are going up; or c) both. Even the “Friends of Obama” will be getting bad news that their special-interest delays and exemptions are ending.

To paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke: If you think people hate Obama-care now, wait until they have to write a check for it.

Then there’s the debt and spending. Polls show that a majority of Americans would rather bust the debt ceiling and default than add to Obama’s record-setting deficits. Do they really mean it? No, but it shows how much Americans hate this debt — hate it at the political cellular level.

Hey, didn’t members of one party just spend weeks outraged over their inability to get a “clean” debt ceiling increase? Doesn’t one party truly own the “borrow more to spend more” mantle today in a way they didn’t just a few weeks ago?

Ask yourself: A year from now, when the stupidity of the shutdown fight is long gone, who would you rather be: Team “Obamacare Sucks And We’ve Got Too Much Debt”?

Or Team “I Voted to Shut Down the Government Rather Than Change Obamacare or Spend Less Money”?

I know what you’re thinking, Democrats. “They’re Republicans. They’ll find a way to screw this up.”

And two months ago, you’d be right. But Tea Party politicians are still, in the end, politicians.

And to quote U.S. Rep. Trey Goudy (R-S.C.), a former prosecutor and current Tea Party fave: “I didn’t lose many cases in court, and I haven’t won many cases here in Congress. It’s time to re-evaluate my tactics.”

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