I Hope President Obama Can Survive the Humiliation. . . .

Our not-so-long national nightmare is finally over!  The House of Representatives just approved a Senate bill to finance the government and raise the debt ceiling, paving the way for the restoration of government services and the return of furloughed workers.  Analysts portray the deal as a complete repudiation of the Republican Party's extremist wing, a political defeat of historic proportions, but this is unfair.

True, the Tea Party faction failed to achieve its primary goal--defunding the Affordable Care Act--but everybody knew they would fail.  Saying the Republicans lost that battle is like saying the New York Mets lost this year's World Series: They were never in it to begin with. 

And, sure, right now the Republican "brand" is about as popular as anal herpes, but given the American electorate's attention span, they have every possibility of bouncing back by next year's elections--unless they are stupid enough to pick this kind of battle again next October.  With Michele Bachmann retiring, though, the collective IQ of the GOP congressional caucus will probably rise just enough to allow them to avoid that debacle.  Too bad.

But amidst all the bad news for the GOP, let's not overlook the silver lining, the major concession they managed to wring from recalcitrant Democrats: a "slight tightening of income verification rules for Americans accessing new health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act."

I know you probably think that doesn't sound like much, but that's because you don't know what it really means!  The Tea Party scored a major victory here.  (My fellow liberals better brace themselves.)  According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, under the rules approved as part of this budget deal, the Secretary of Health and Human Services must "report to Congress by Jan. 1st on the 'procedures' in place to verify eligibility" for subsidies offered to help people pay for health insurance.  And as if that weren't enough, by July 1st, the Secretary must report on the effectiveness of the verification!

Well, Tea Party, I tip my hat!  You sure showed us!  I hope it was worth it.

Irony and Hypocrisy

Last week, in one of his typically insightful rants, Jon Stewart excoriated the Republicans for--brace yourself!--their hypocrisy in attempting to shift the blame for the continuing governmental shutdown onto President Obama, claiming that it is his unwillingness to negotiate that is unnecessarily prolonging the stalemate. 

 

Essentially, he points out that if Republicans want to claim that they are standing on principle and protecting Americans from what they sincerely believe to be catastrophically misguided legislation (the Affordable Care Act), then that's fine...but they have to "own it"--and willingly accept whatever consequences they suffer in the court of public opinion.  And while I always revel in an explication of GOP hypocrisy, I was struck yesterday by the irony of the Republicans' situation.

Because if the Cruz-controlled GOP hadn't shut down the government over Obamacare, they could right now be making tremendous political hay over the utter SNAFU that has thus far characterized the rollout of the Affordable Care Act.  An article in yesterday's Times catalogued the ongoing technical problems that have plagued the online portal where people could go to get information and ultimately to sign up for the insurance exchanges that are the centerpiece of the ACA.  While administration officials are hopeful that the glitches will be fixed soon, Republicans have cost themselves an opportunity for a "told-you-so" to end all "told-you-so's."  Because even if they could find people in the general public--i.e., those who haven't drunk the Tea-Party brewed Kool Aid--to listen to another one of their strident denunciations of this "existential threat to the nation," all President Obama would have to do is turn around and say that, yes, there are technical problems with the ACA website, but these problems could be fixed a lot faster if, y'know, THE REPUBLICANS HADN'T SHUT DOWN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!

The modern Republican Party: Hoist on their own petard since 2009!