 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
August 2, 2011
2 Menachem-Av, 5771
Dems mourn debt deal like death
By
Dana Milbank
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Majority Leader Harry Reid, a principal sponsor of the debt-limit deal, went to the Senate floor Monday morning to say that, however ugly things are in Washington, they could be worse.
His evidence? The attack on Sen. Charles Sumner by Rep. Preston Brooks. In 1856. “Congressman Brooks came to the floor, came to the Senate with his cane and beat Senator Sumner, beat him with his cane. Senator Sumner never really recovered,” the Nevada Democrat recounted. By that antebellum yardstick, Reid argued, “what we have gone through has been extremely difficult, but there was never any consideration the Republic would fall.” The debt deal: Better than canings and civil war! It was an unusual sales pitch, but it was about the best thing a Democrat could say about the compromise that ended the default standoff. Democrats were despondent about the deal, which split their caucus precisely down the middle as it easily cleared the House on Monday night. Liberals complained that the White House had, for the third time in eight months, squandered its leverage, capitulated to the opposition and presented Democrats with a done deal that they had no choice but to accept. “It’s a Trojan Horse with Scylla and Charybdis inside!” Rep. Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat, said as he walked out of Vice President Biden’s presentation to the House Democratic caucus. “It’s evil, or more evil.” Progressives knew they couldn’t block the big spending cuts the president agreed to, because they weren’t willing to throw the government into default. That left liberals, Cohen said, to pursue two activities: “venting and kvetching.” They did both with gusto on Monday. “It’s robbing Peter and Paul,” protested Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), going on about “terminal bleeding” of government programs. “I don’t think it’s fair!” thundered Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.). And what did D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton think? “I don’t think,” she replied. “I cry.” In his private sessions with House and Senate Democrats, Biden reportedly likened dealing with the Republicans to negotiating with terrorists and said GOP leaders had “put guns to their heads.” After morose caucus members filed out of the gripe session, the vice president all but admitted that the White House had to surrender to Republicans because of the “sword of Damocles” — more Greek mythology! — “hanging over everyone’s heads.” “Look, I didn’t go to convince,” he told reporters. “I went to explain.” Republicans received only a third of the $6 trillion in cuts over 10 years that they proposed in Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget. But liberal lawmakers are convinced that Obama gave away everything — big spending cuts, probably including Medicare, without any tax increases — all because of a few dozen tea party House members who, defying even House GOP leaders, were perfectly willing to see the government default. In essence, the progressives had been out-crazied by ideologues on the other side — and that drove them mad. “Oooh!” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) screamed when asked about the compromise. “Oooh!” she cried again, as if witnessing a ghastly accident scene. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) reported a crime by the Republicans. “A minority within the Congress of the United States has held up the president,” he told reporters. “You have this small element,” added Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), “which is basically willing to hold Congress and the nation hostage.” Cummings read a complaint he received from a constituent calling the deal “a total capitulation.” Democratic leaders made no attempt to calm their pitchfork-wielding backbenchers, such as Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), who described the deal on TV as a “Satan sandwich.” “It probably is — with some Satan fries on the side,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told ABC News. That left nobody to counter the likes of Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), who called the deal “bizarre” and said it would lead to old folks in his state losing medical care. “It’s all about cutting, cutting, cutting!” he shouted at reporters. Biden, after enduring three hours of such complaints, alluded to the verbal beating he had received. “They expressed all their frustration,” he said. “I’d be frustrated if I was in there as well.” Luckily for the vice president and his Secret Service detail, most lawmakers no longer carry canes.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on Dana Milbank's column by clicking here.
Previously:
• 07/27/11 Life imitates sport
• 07/26/11 Obama and Boehner take on Washington
• 07/21/11 Why Americans are angry at Congress
• 07/20/11 The new party of Reagan
• 07/18/11 Rob Portman, the boring Midwesterner who could bring sanity to the debt debate
• 07/13/11 John Boehner's bind
• 07/04/11 Stephen Colbert, Karl Rove and the mockery of campaign finance
• 07/01/11 President Puts Up His Dukes, As He Ought To
• 06/28/11 Rod Blagojevich verdict: All shook up
• 06/27/11 Progressives voice their anger at Obama
• 06/24/11 ‘Mission accomplished,’ Obama style
• 06/22/11 Jon Huntsman's first step toward oblivion
• 06/21/11 Scott Walker finds making bumper stickers is easier than creating jobs
• 06/20/11 A day of awkwardness with Mitt Romney
• 06/06/11 Hubris and humility: Sarah Palin and Robert Gates on tour
• 06/02/11 The Weiner roast
• 06/01/11 Congress clocks in to clock out
• 05/30/11 Hermanator II: No More Mr. Gadfly
• 05/24/11 How Obama has empowered Netanyahu
• 05/24/11 Pawlenty bends his truth-telling
• 05/20/11 Default deniers say it's all a hoax
• 05/18/11: Gingrich gives voice to moderation
• 05/17/11: Donald Trump and the House of Horrors
• 05/16/11: The medical mystery of Mitt Romney
• 05/12/11: The body impolitic: Schock photos should tempt lawmakers to cover up
• 05/10/11: Muskets in hand, tea party blasts House Republicans
• 05/09/11: The GOP debate: America -- and the party -- needs the grown-ups
• 05/05/11: Mitch Daniels, an alternative to scary
• 05/03/11: Obama's victory lap
• 05/02/11: How the journalist prom got out of control
• 04/28/11: Obama's birther day: Why did he lower himself by appearing in the briefing room?
• 04/27/11: Obama, lost in thought
• 04/24/11: Andrew Breitbart and the rifts on the right
• 04/22/11: Ten Commandments for 2012
• 04/21/11: Obama likes Facebook. Facebook likes Obama.
• 04/18/11: Without Nancy Pelosi, Obama is adrift
• 04/15/11: If progressives ran the world
• 04/14/11: Faith in political apostasy
• 04/13/11: One man's revolution is another's political expediency
• 04/11/11: Shutdown theatrics
• 04/06/11: Paul Ryan's irresponsible budget
• 04/05/11: Robots in Congress? Yes, we replicant!
• 04/04/11: Robert Gibbs, Facebook and the White House corporate placement service
• 04/01/11: Haley Barbour, the fat cats' candidate
• 03/31/11: Republican freshmen in House shut down compromise, and possibly the government
• 03/30/11: Coburn and Durbin, the dynamic duo of the debt crisis
• 03/28/11: The Obama doctrine: A gray area the size of Libya
• 03/24/11: Dems as Weiners
• 03/23/11: Obama's quick trip from tyrant to weakling
• 03/17/11: Who's afraid of Elizabeth Warren?
• 03/15/11: The underwear flap over Bradley Manning
• 03/10/11: In Senate's debt debate, talk isn't cheap
• 03/09/11: With Obama's new Gitmo policy, Administration officials had some 'splainin to do
• 03/02/11: Issa press aide scandal is like bad reality TV
• 02/25/11: Jay Carney: Mouthpiece for an inscrutable White House
• 02/14/11: The Donald trumps the pols at CPAC
• 02/09/11: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation
© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
|
