GOP Senator Roy Blunt seems a bit perplexed by this whole showdown over Obamacare that has to date shut down much of our government’s key functions and may yet involve the debt limit, thereby risking global economic security. He’s got a problem because he needs the GOP’s wild and stupid wing if he is going to remain a senator; there’s no way a coalition of GOP moderates and centrist Democrats would get him re-eleted – like a nineteenth century  ingénue, coyly lifting her skirts to reveal a bit of ankle, he’s let a little too much corruption show. While that may titillate the big money boys, it does nothing for voters who pride themselves on their sober good sense. Which leaves Blunt, who is actually a smart man, doing a balancing act with the stupid as he attempts to navigate the potential pitfalls of indulging the latest GOP dumb-as-mud rampage.

As the clip below (h/t The Turner Report) shows, Blunt is trying to solve his problem by looking sage while offering a logically incoherent and historically inaccurate apologia for the GOP shutdown tactic:

Blunt’s rationale for the shutdown seems to hinge on three related assertions:

1. Republicans are just acting out because they didn’t get much say abut how the law was passed.

2. They are hurt that they didn’t get to amend or modify the law after it was enacted (he dubs it “unamendable”).

3. The President gets to unilaterally modify the law; Blunt’s evidence is that the administration has delayed the employer mandate. Ergo the GOP wants to delay the individual mandate in the name of fairness or something incoherent to do with which group would pay the most in penalties.

To answer Blunt’s first objection, you have only to remember when congress was involved in the endless process of healthcare “sausage making.” It was endless because of all the efforts to bring along Republicans; hopeless efforts because, far from being excluded from the legislative process, the hormonally challenged mental adolescents of the GOP were refusing to play; they were already involved in a separate game of kill-the-bill.

You don’t believe me? Remember the Gang of Six? After numerous delays to give the group, specifically the GOP members, time to come to agreement, the Chair of the group, Max Baucus, had to give up because the GOP members were “being told by the Republican Party not to participate.”

Blunt’s second claim ignores the fact that the GOP has consistently refused to work with Democrats to make the law better, opting instead for non-stop, futile efforts repeal the law or defund it. As a Los Angeles Times editorial  observed today, there are “several things that members of Congress could be doing now to make it [i.e. Obamacare] work better, if Republicans were interested,” adding that:

In fact, when Republicans complain that Democrats won’t negotiate about Obamacare, what they’re really saying is that Democrats won’t agree to kill it, delay the insurance reforms and subsidies until after yet another election, or undermine the law in a way that could send premiums for individual coverage through the roof.

The GOP’s clear objective is to dismantle the act, not to improve it – and the single-minded focus on that goal is what has led to the partial government shutdown that began Tuesday. Democrats can hardly be blamed for refusing to bargain over how to sabotage the law before it fully takes effect.

The quote above also puts a spike in the heart of Blunt’s whine about the fact that the GOP “offer”  to release their hostage in return for delaying the individual mandate was summarily rejected. It’s not, as Blunt seems to think, a question of fairness or a matter of revenue. It’s a question of the law’s success.

The employer mandate can be delayed, giving the government time to address problems, since it affects relatively few businesses and the delay will have little impact on the law’s implementation – a one year delay won’t, as Blunt claims, lead to many large business abandoning their employee health plans.However, delaying the individual mandate would “undermine the law in a way that could send premiums for individual coverage through the roof.” Obamacare cuts costs and can offer lower premiums because the individual mandate guarantees the big risk pool that is the holy grail of private insurance.

What Blunt’s actually arguing is that after the GOP refused to play the game, their Monday morning quarterbacking should entitle them to a do over – and if they don’t get it, they’re justified in shooting the umpire. Or, to quote Post Partisan‘s James Downie, ‘Republicans are acting like the little kid in a toy store who won’t take “no” for an answer.” Sadly for the GOP, that’s not the way things work – at least as long as the adults – the Democrats in this case – continue to act responsibly. And finally, no, Roy Blunt, these are not smart arguments for a smart man to make – no matter how he tries to obscure the embarrassing meaning of the things he’s saying with mumbly gobbledygook.  

We are not worthy:

Oct 1, 2013

The Reign Of Morons Is Here

By Charles P. Pierce at 9:10AM

….In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them. There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress — or, more precisely, in a single House of the Congress — a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one, which has arranged to shut down the federal government because it disapproves of a law passed by a previous Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that does nothing more than extend the possibility of health insurance to the millions of Americans who do not presently have it, a law based on a proposal from a conservative think-tank and taken out on the test track in Massachusetts by a Republican governor who also happens to have been the party’s 2012 nominee for president of the United States. That is why the government of the United States is, in large measure, closed this morning….

….We did this. We looked at our great legacy of self-government and we handed ourselves over to the reign of morons….

….Among other things, the Library Of Congress is closed as a result of what the vandals have done. Padlock study and intellect. Wander aimlessly down the mall among the shuttered monuments to self-government. Find yourself a food truck that serves monkey brains. Eat your fking fill.

Go. Read the whole thing.

I’ve been energized and frequently convinced by the what The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky writes about the GOP shutdown. Today, for instance, he argues that Boehner will eventually have to “buckle down” and let a clean CR pass the house, ending the shutdown. To back up this opinion, he points out a growing number of Republicans who are making conciliatory noises, as well as the general unease that many GOPers are evincing in the face of what they have wrought.

However, for that to happen – and Tomasky hints at as much – the GOP is going to have to be forced to acknowledge that they are not speaking for all or even most Americans, as they fatuously insist. Polls will help to bring them to their senses on this issue – and on Day One of the Shutdown of 2013, they’ve been disastrous for the GOP. The Quinnipiac Poll released today shows that 72% of Americans disapprove of the shutdown; respondents also apparently place the blame correctly, since GOP approval rates are plummeting while Democratic approval rates are rising somewhat (see also the CNN/ORC poll (pdf) released yesterday to glean some more bad news numbers for the GOP).

Another part of the effort to insure that the Democrats stand firm in the face of GOP efforts to smear them with the blame for the GOP’s misfire is for Americans who care about what is happening to flood their Democratic legislators with calls of support and Republican congress people with phone calls and emails making it clear that we hate what they are doing and we aren’t taken in when Republican troublemakers claim that the Democratic sheriffs are the source of the problem. Tomasky offers the best metaphor I’ve encountered yet for the Republican effort to deflect blame for their gratuitously stupid decision to escalate their Obamacare tantrum into all out war on the American people:

What the citizen won’t know-unless someone bothers to point it out to her, Democrats!-is that the Republicans are totally out of bounds in the first place; that this is like having a property-line dispute with your neighbor, and the local court has already ruled in your favor, and then your neighbor comes back a year later and says he’ll settle for half the disputed property and if you don’t agree, he’ll kill your dog. Actually, that’s a pretty good analogy. I hope someone in a position of power reads this.

I agree, as I’ve said, it’s a good analogy. I think it’s so good, in fact, that I’m going to call my Representative, Ann Wagner (R-4) and read it onto her phone answering service machine – which is all that I can get right now.  

Yesterday, via Twitter:

Asteroid Watch ‏@AsteroidWatch

In the event of government shutdown, we will not be posting or responding from this account. We sincerely hope to resume tweets soon. 10:12 PM – 30 Sep 13

You think they stopped watching? Just asking.

Today, via Twitter, from Representative Vicky Hartzler (r):

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

Sadly, the Democratic-controlled Senate has voted to shut down govn. & give Members special healthcare treatment. Americans deserve better. 9:16 AM – 1 Oct 13

Members and staff:

Democrats Divulge Emails With Boehner Staff as Shutdown Fight Gets Personal (Updated)

By Meredith Shiner Posted at 12:40 a.m. today

….The emails, which were not provided to CQ Roll Call, apparently reveal that Boehner’s staff and Reid’s staff participated in routine coordination between two leaders of Congress to avoid having congressional staff lose their health care benefits.

“During a five-month period stretching from February to July, Boehner and his aides sought along with Reid’s office to solve what had become a big headache for both of them,” POLITICO writes. “They drafted and reviewed a possible legislative fix, as well as continued to push for an administrative one from the Office of Personnel Management.”

It bears repeating again that the original intent of the provision that is causing leaders so much trouble was merely to force Congressional staff on to Obamacare exchanges, not to have those employees get no employer contribution toward their care.

Shorter Representative Vicky Hartzler (r): I’m spinning against health care support for my congressional staff even though the republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives worked to make sure my staff received that health care support.

Do you suppose if Representative Hartzler’s (r) congressional staff don’t refuse their government subsidized health insurance in support of their boss’s political posturing they’ll lose their jobs? Just asking.

Yesterday, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C131060 09/30/2013 COMMITTEE TO ELECT TONY MILLER Davis, Ketchmark, McCreight, & Ivers PC 11161 Overbrook Road Suite 210 Leawood KS 66211 9/30/2013 $150,000.00

[emphasis added]

C131060: Committee To Elect Tony Miller

Po Box 7030 Committee Type: Candidate

Kansas City Mo 64113 Party Affiliation: Democrat

[….] Established Date: 04/01/2013

Election Year Primary Outcome General Outcome Political Office

2014 County Legislature At Large Ward 3 Jackson County

[emphasis added]

Well, it could be a typo.

A press release from Senator Claire McCaskill (D):

McCaskill Blasts U.S. House for Shutting Down Government

Jobs and businesses now being impacted after U.S. House leadership refuses to allow up-or-down vote on ‘clean’ funding bill

October 1, 2013

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill tonight released the following statement as the federal government heads into a shutdown, after the U.S. House of Representatives failed to allow an up-or-down vote on a clean government funding bill, and instead voted to dismantle the Affordable Care Act of 2010:

“It is completely unacceptable that U.S. House Republicans are willing to shut down the government. This will upset our economic recovery and cause thousands of Missourians real pain. They know that the President will not back up on his work to provide affordable and accessible health care. They know that the Senate will not overturn these reforms. A decision was made at the ballot box last November, and supporters of the Affordable Care Act were returned to office by the American people. We can negotiate federal spending and the budget. We should not negotiate on keeping our government functioning and paying our bills. It is time for Speaker Boehner to allow the House to vote on a clean government funding bill without the unrealistic and irresponsible political posturing.”

A federal government shutdown will effect jobs and businesses across the country. Consequences will include: delayed benefits for our veterans; furloughs for 39,000 federal employees in Missouri; delays in vital loans for small businesses, and in Social Security checks for seniors enrolling in the program for the first time.

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 is already working to slow the rise in cost of health care, and protect Missourians from the worst abuses of the insurance industry-banning discrimination based on a patient’s pre-existing condition, barring insurance companies from dropping coverage for a person who becomes sick, allowing young people to stay on their parent’s health insurance plan until their 26th birthday, providing small businesses with tax credits to insure their employees, and requiring insurance companies to spend at least 80 percent of their revenue on medical care rather than marketing, administration, and profits. Health insurance marketplaces-known as exchanges-will open this week (regardless of a federal government shutdown) and begin providing previously uninsured Americans access to affordable health plans.

###

[emphasis in original]

Next, on the Faux News Channel, Democratic Party intransigence on the budget showdown forces Santa to cancel Christmas.  

I just saw KSDK’s (Channel 5 in St. Louis) coverage of the coming government shutdown. They showed clips of both Ann Wagner and Claire McCaskill telling us what they thought of the way it had all gone down. If the McCaskill clip was really indicative of what she has to say on the topic, or, horror of horrors, indicative of the general Democratic response, then we’re done for. If it wasn’t, then Channel 5 is attempting to confuse us by presenting a false image of an equivocating Democrat parcelling out equal blame for what are exclusively GOP actions – which is exactly the way that the anchor described McCaskill’s statement. We heard the following rambling sentence in the clip:

I find the situation we are in now beyond frustrating and I can imagine what the American people must be thinking right now, and it is very hard from a distance right now to figure out who has lost their minds, one party, the other party, all of us, the president …

My hope – actually, my belief – is that the very short clip, clearly truncated, cut out the heart of what McCaskill was really saying.

Certainly KSDK’ presentation of McCaskill’s message  differed from the way she has been handling the issue up to this time. For example, earlier today, on the topic of a bill passed to guarantee military salaries in the event of a shutdown, McCaskill noted that such tiny measures wouldn’t lessen the pain that a shutdown will cause – and she was as clear as she has been on other occasions in the past couple of weeks about who the guilty party is:

I don’t think it makes it easier for the Republicans to shut down the government over us not agreeing to repeal Obamacare after we had an election last November that decided it …

The clip that Channel 5 showed of Ann Wagner couldn’t have offered a greater contrast. An energized, argumentative Wagner pushed the absurdly contorted GOP line that the House – the  folks who are causing all the trouble – was working to keep government open while hardline Senate Democrats just wouldn’t compromise. She positively oozed indignation as she talked over Wolf Blitzer during the CNN interview* from which the clip was taken.

Wagner’s flagrant dishonesty aside, and no matter who did what in regard to McCaskill  – wehther she cut the feet out from under her Democratic colleagues, or, as I am inclined to believe,  KSDK either purposefully or incompetently  offered selective reporting that distorted her response – lots of regular Americans, the sort of people who believe what they see on the TV news, took away the message that there’s blame to go around, and Democrats in congress deserve a share – maybe more than a share since, clearly, Ann Wagner was righteously incisive while Claire McCaskill was shamefaced and vague when seen on KSDK.  This, my friends, is how the terrorists win.

UPDATE:  Ed Kilgore’s survey of this morning’s headlines (day 1 of the shutdown) find them taking the “false equivalence,” bad GOP, equally bad Democrats route. He makes my point about how harmful misleading media coverage is far more eloquently than I:

Maybe such headlines reflect laziness and ignorance rather than silent partisanship, but they are more effective instruments for the GOP position than the fieriest Ted Cruz speech.

_______

*You can see the entire interview that the Wagner clip was taken from on her Webpage.  Be prepared, however, to gag when she brings up the canard about how Senators are shutting down the government because they won’t undo the fix that permits congressmen and congressional staff –  who now must purchase their insurance from the Obamacare exchanges – to receive the same type of employer subsidies that the rest of us who have employer supplied insurance receive. Of course, Wagner, who is a millionaire many times over, doesn’t need the subsidy – and clearly doesn’t care if her staff don’t get the same treatment as other Americans who have insurance through their jobs as long as she can misrepresent the situation for political advantage.