{"id":5405,"date":"2011-07-16T00:48:20","date_gmt":"2011-07-16T07:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5405"},"modified":"2011-07-17T02:50:09","modified_gmt":"2011-07-17T09:50:09","slug":"endgame-obama-closes-the-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/16\/endgame-obama-closes-the-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"Endgame: Obama Closes the Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"16Obama\"<\/span><\/p>\n

At yesterday\u2019s press conference, Obama continued to exploit the corner into which Republicans have painted themselves, trapping them so that, no matter what they do, they lose.\u00a0 He presented himself as the person looking out for Main Street, while successfully demonstrating how Republicans refuse to consider the needs of anyone other that their millionaire, billionaire and corporate owners.\u00a0 His strategy is paying off.\u00a0 Video and analysis follow.<\/span><\/p>\n

For those of you who missed it, here is the complete video:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/object><\/span><\/p>\n

Or if you prefer, click here for the text version of Obama\u2019s press conference<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obama made it clear that raising the debt limit is a manufactured issue, by explaining how it\u2019s purpose is unrelated to future spending.\u00a0 It simply provides the money to pay for what Congress has already spent.\u00a0 To most of us, that\u2019s speaking the obvious, but the majority of voting Americans have not paid enough attention to politics to understand even such rudimentary basics.\u00a0 Hopefully this will open their eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n

While he vaguely kept entitlement cuts on the table, he did so in the certain knowledge that Republicans will never accept a grand bargain that includes revenue increases.\u00a0 His bluff was so well executed that he even fooled a major segment of his base.\u00a0 He said that he was willing to sign any \u201cserious\u201d agreement, but made it crystal clear that \u201cserious\u201d has to include revenue from those who have benefited from the policies responsible for the deficit and the debt.\u00a0 He also knew that Republicans have to cave in, as I explained last Saturday on the Fred and Jed Show<\/a>.\u00a0 I\u2019m no prophet, but I nailed that one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Republicans will continue to make noise, but in the end, they have two choices.\u00a0 They can \u201cavert Armageddon\u201d or betray their own masters, guaranteeing their demise as a party in the process.\u00a0 Obama can then go into 2012 with the argument that he tried to deal with the debt and deficit, using shared sacrifice, as several polls show 80% of Americans prefer, but Republicans prevented it to protect corporate jets, billionaire tax loopholes, oil company subsidies, etc.\u00a0 Checkmate.<\/span><\/p>\n

As progressive liberals, we can use the same arguments to challenge DINO\u2019s, who have supported Republican policies in the primaries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, the best analysis I have encountered comes from Lawrence O\u2019Donnell in two segments.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/object><\/span><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Just like I said yesterday, Lawrence pointed out how fooling his own base has made his strategy that much more effective, by making it more believable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lawrence discusses the alternatives with Jonathan Alter.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/object><\/span><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Alter is wrong that Obama actually intended the grand bargain to go through.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bottom line is this.\u00a0 In an attempt to screw America, Republicans used blackmail.\u00a0 As Alter said, they could not control their hostage.\u00a0 Now we will have an excellent opportunity to reverse Republican gains of 2010 and more.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At yesterday\u2019s press conference, Obama continued to exploit the corner into which Republicans have painted themselves, trapping them so that, no matter what they do, they lose.\u00a0 He presented himself as the person looking out for Main Street, while successfully demonstrating how Republicans refuse to consider the needs of anyone other that their millionaire, billionaire […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","category-politics","category-19-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}