By Hugh Hewitt
Friday, October 04, 2013
E.J. Dionne tweeted out a pointer Friday morning to thisTPM post that has the lefties very excited about how they are
"winning" the shutdown.
Odd way to read a poll, when 52% blame everybody or just
the Democrats, but the Democrats have been math challenged for a long time.
Viewed through the lens of the 2014 elections, this poll is wonderful news for
the GOP, as the narrative of President Nobama is emerging --no negotiations, no
compromise, no nothing. President Obama will negotiate with the Syrian butcher
Assad and erase the fabled "red line" when told told to by Russian
President Putin, and he will negotiate with the happy face of the killer regime
in Iran, President Rouhani, but not with Republicans over issues all presidents
have always negotiated over.
The lefty media is busy trying to spook the nervous among
the GOP with stores as hyper-partisan as this one from Friday's New York Times
--a "round up the usual suspects" story if there ever was one.
That story neglects to note what GOP Senate Leader Mitch
McConnell said very clearly on my show Thursday and in
other venues as well:
HH: Now in terms of the end result here, do you see a
possibility that the Republicans will simply fold and pass what is known as a
clean CR and a straight debt limit? In other words, just collapse in the face
of the President’s stridency?
MM: No, I don’t think there’s any chance of that.
And, later in the same conversation:
HH: Last question, Senator McConnell, I just want to be
clear, then. You do not see any way, do you, that a clean CR and a straight
debt limit with no conditions attach pass the House and the Senate?
MM: No, that will not happen.
The MSM is working overtime to create the appearance of
significant splits within the GOP, while ignoring huge fissures among House
Democrats and crucial facts such as the fact that the House GOP has sent the
Senate nine different bills to end the government shutdown and will send more,
while the Senate has sent the House exactly one bill and Reid is saying my way
or the highway.
It is hard to keep the rhetoric of hostage taking going
when those government services the public most cares about are being shut down
by the inaction of the Senate and president for nakedly political purposes.
I spent considerable time exploring this subject with
Politico's Dylan Byers Thursday and it becomes
obvious after even a small bit of serious conversation that the hostage
nonsense just doesn't work for Democrats or the MSM longer than 30 seconds. But
it does take longer than 30 seconds. It takes an argument, and thus far, not
many senior Congressional GOPers are willing to go out and make the argument.
The House and Senate Republicans have been blessed by
having as their opponents Harry Reid and the president, as both have been
mumble-mouthed in recent days on what they are trying to do, and not even their
phalanx of adoring MSMers can quite stop themselves from pointing out that the
kids not getting cancer treatments, the veterans denied their services and the
visitors to the national parks are all being used quite callously by Harry Reid
and President Obama, nakedly manipulated so that the vast, vast hulking machinery
of the federal government can spring back to life, with Obamacare fully
embedded within it.
But in order to win the larger debate, and especially the
debate that occurs as the CR and Debt Limit debates combine --which has already
really happened-- the GOP will have to forcefully and repeatedly make good and
detailed arguments, and as I wrote Thursday, there are really only a dozen
(give or take one or two) GOPers who matter in making this argument. Ask
yourself: Have you seen or heard them in extended conversation on this debate
anywhere?
House:
Speaker John Boehner
Leader Eric Cantor
Whip Kevin McCarthy
Chairman Paul Ryan
Chairman Dave Camp
Congressman Tom Price (the likely Budget Chair in waiting
when Paul Ryan either becomes Speaker or head of Ways and Means).
Congressman Jim Jordan (a widely recognized leader of the
center-right conservatives).
Senate:
Leader Mitch McConnell
Whip John Cornyn
Conference Chair John Thune
Senator Ted Cruz
Senator Mike Lee
Senator Rand Paul
Senator Marco Rubio
I have hosted Leader McConnell, as well as Senators Cruz
and Rubio on the show this week or last. Perhaps others have appeared on other
outlets though I have not seen them. Right now all of these opinion leaders
need to be everywhere that will give them at least five minutes, all making the
same key points:
1. Article One of the Constitution makes the Congress a
separate-but-equal branch with the president. The president is not a king and
cannot dictate terms. The House, especially, is the People's House, elected
most often to most closely represent the views of the people.
2. We understand the president has had a horrible year,
that he lost his big battles with Congress and lost a lot of face and
self-confidence in the surrender to Syria and Russia, and we understand he is
desperate for a win.
3. Acting like a schoolyard bully who got beat up and
then looks for someone to pick on will not work with a separate but equal
branch of government.
4. We have long known the president lacks basic skills
when it comes to negotiating, but we aren't going to negotiate away our Article
One duties and authority because the president is throwing a childish fit
because Vladimir Putin embarrassed him.
5. We know most of the MSM is with the president and
protecting his childishness from full scrutiny. We know they are doing the same
for Harry Reid, though Senator Reid's infortunate melt-down with Dana Bash
showed that not even the MSM can fully protect Senator Reid all the time. We
believe the public already knows or will soon learn the score, and that we
don't need the Manhattan-Beltway media elite to cheerlead for us since we have
the Constitution on our side.
6. The real situation is this: The Republicans want the
NIH opened to sick children and everyone served by it. We want the VA open to
take care of veterans. We want the national parks and memorials open to
everyone. We are appalled that the president has deemed the cemetery at
Normandy non-essential. The last resting place of the men who saved Europe was
essential in '44 and it is essential now. Recall Tom Hank's Captain John
Miller's last words in that movie "Earn this"? Well, we won't be
earning it if we surrender the Article One powers given us because the
president demands we do, because he is throwing a fit, because he won't
negotiate.
7. There are lots of solutions and combinations of
solutions here, and we have often seen the Legislative and the Executive
branches sit down at such moments and craft such solutions. Never before has a
president said he would not negotiate with a separate but equal branch of
government. The Speaker is the single man representing the People's House, and
the president should be working with him, not taunting him in public; should be
trying to offer solutions, not further dividing an already divided country.
8. So, again, we want to be crystal clear: The House is
going to keep sending over to the Senate bills as particular needs arise to fix
those needs, and Leader McConnell will keep trying to bring those solutions up
for a vote. We think Harry Reid should take them up and ease the pain on
Americans. We think the cemetery at Normandy should be open, just like the
World War II Memorial and the Martin Luther King Memorial and especially the
Lincoln Memorial should be open. We think the NIH and CDC should be
functioning, and FEMA as hurrican season approaches. And we think we need to
take serious steps to reform entitlements, repeal the widely recognized and
disastrous Medical Device Tax, and treat Members of Congress an their staffs
and members of the White House staff just the same as every other American by
either bringing them under Obamacare or delaying the individual mandate one
year. That is all on the table. Perhaps the president has other ideas though
his only argument has been my way or the highway, the rule of one, the
prerogatives of a king.
9. We don't do kings, Mr. President. Certainly not a year
after a close election, a close election in which your opponent got 60 million
votes and in which the People's House remained firmly in Republican hands. The
country votd for divided government, for negotiations, for shared
responsibility, not for you to dictate terms.
10. There will be no "clean CR" and a
"straight debt limit hike." Period. That's what the president is
demanding and that won't happen. The president is trying to scare markets and
they should be scared because if he truly intends to bring about economic panic
he is doing a fine job by demanding that the House abdicate its Constitutional
role. We won't do that. The Constitution is more important than the CR, or the
debt limit. The president is trying to reshape the Constitution at this moment
of economic peril, using the media as his hammer, and threats and bullying as
his saws. But it won't happen. And if the president does not change his
rhetoric and his approach, the crisis that follows will be 100% on his head,
and the American people will know it, and history will record it.
No comments:
Post a Comment