From The Ditch (11/8/10)

More from the 60 Minutes performance....

President Barack Obama says the political cost of overhauling the health care system turned out to be higher than he had expected. And he admits that he gets discouraged at times when dealing with the economy. …

“I made the decision to go ahead and do it, and it proved as costly politically as we expected — probably actually a little more costly than we expected, politically,” he said.

Oh, "make no mistake," folks - he'd have done nothing different if he had grasped the magnitude of the short-term political consequences. And believe it or not, I don't think he's crapping us when he says this; cynicism practically demands that we scoff at this, that he knew EXACTLY what he was doing, etc. But remember that chirpy quip from last April about the difference between this year and 1994 for Democrats being that, "You've got me!" Such is the unfathomable immensity of his conceit, and his propensity for drowning in his own hype, that I have no difficulty believing he convinced himself that despite the stamina and ferocity of public opposition and resistance to O-Care the overpowering aura of his awesomeness would hypnotize voters into embracing it, and him, and his party, for renewed 2008-esque sloppy seconds.

It's why he and his party are so frantically flailing around for the comforting folds of delusional excuses in which to story their shattered faith in themselves and their "some kind of a god":

Obama said he thought that he would find common ground with Republicans by advancing health care proposals that had been introduced by Republican administrations as well as potential presidential candidate Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts.

“I couldn’t get the kind of cooperation from Republicans that I had hoped for,” he said. “And that was costly, partly because it created the kind of partisanship and bickering that really turn people off.”

To slightly modify the title of one of Robert Heinlein Future History novels, "Reality is a harsh mistress." Especially when the next cycle puts his own skinny ass on the line again.

***Still and all, it's remarkable what sixty-five lost House seats and half a dozen lost Senate seats can accomplish. I mean, did you ever think you would see the day when Lucifier would EVER flinch from jacking tax rates on "the wealthy" under ANY circumstances?:

President Obama said a Republican proposal to preserve the full array of Bush Administration tax cuts for two more years presents a “basis for conversation” that could lead to a compromise as lawmakers prepare to meet next week for a high-stakes showdown over taxes.

However, a senior House Republican on Sunday flatly rejected the option most favored by the White House: decoupling the Bush tax cuts that benefit the wealthy from the cuts that benefit the vast majority of Americans by extending each set of provisions for a different period of time.

“No, I am not for decoupling the rates,” Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA7), the #2 Republican in the House, said on Fox News Sunday. He echoed the GOP argument that such a move virtually would guarantee the eventual expiration of tax breaks in the upper brackets, where some of the most successful small businesses pay taxes.

“I am not for raising taxes in a recession, especially when it comes to the job creators that we need so desperately to start creating jobs again,” Cantor said. “I am not for sending any signal to small businesses in this country that they’re going to have their tax rates go up.”

I'd be tempted to describe this "decoupling" notion as pure, undistilled kicking-the-can-down-the-road-ism, except that it's really more a case of Red Barry picking his poison. If the automatic across-the-board 10% tax hike takes effect on schedule on 1/1/11, the subsequent depressionary collapse will be entirely on his trophy-head and he can forget about running for re-election and start preparing his LBJ speech right now. I'm sure he's thinking that if he temporarily defers the upper level hikes, the economy will magically and roaringly recover and let him Macarena himself to a second term, after which that rate extention will expire "unexpectedly" and take entrepreneuers and employers by flat-footed shocked surprise, the easier to plunder them within an inch of their worthless, plutocratic lives. What will ACTUALLY happen is simply two more years of the holding pattern the private sector has been in regarding this issue (and so many others), the very uncertainty that has strangled job creation over the past year. You can be the judge whether mere stagnation, as opposed to Great Depression II, will be too high an electoral hurdle for Cap'n Pecs, but it didn't produce very Donk-favorable results six days ago.

And they had him.

Dan Mitchell has more:

***Of all the times for there not to be embeddable video available....

The Washington Post’s Scott Wilson—who was on White House pool duty Monday and filed the report for theWhite House press corps—wrote that “Gibbs announced loudly and persistently on steps of Hyderabad House that he would pull” President Obama out of the meeting “unless ‘the White House 8,’ as we’ve come to be known, were all allowed in.”

As the discussion continued, Gibbs grew more animated.

“At one point, Gibbs literally had his foot lodged in the closing front door, asking if the Indian security officials pushing hard to shut it were going to break his foot,” Wilson continued. “More angry words ensued, and after Gibbs convinced them, through high volume and repetition, that he was serious” about pulling Obama, the press secretary had the security retinue’s full attention.

Gibbs’ intervention worked: The Indian officials eventually allowed the full American press delegation into the event, along with a larger group of Indian reporters.

Did Beltway Bob get a promotion when nobody was looking? Since when does a lowly White House press secretary have the clout to "pull" the POTUS out of anything? Sounds more like, "I'll TEEEEEELLLLLL!" tattling to me.

But then by all means, let's provoke an international incident over the self-annointed perquisites of the White House press corps to "cover" not a "meeting," but just another lame photo-op:

After all that, of course, it turns out Gibbs risked his foot for a 60-second photo op, during which neither world leader uttered a syllable.

I asked Gibbs if he had any comment about the incident, and how his foot was feeling. His response (via email):

“We had an agreement to get a certain number of people in to the meeting. We simply stood up for that which is our job. Thankfully they didn’t take me up on closing the door and breaking my foot.”

I wish they had. Just as I wish Mr. Christopher had asked Gibbsy if he'd try the same stunt on that long-anticipated full-scale state visit to Tehran they keep promising. Would he really interrupt his boss while face down on his prayer rug?

Of couse he wouldn't, because the Republican Guard would SHOOT his foot OFF.

Hope they get footage of THAT.