Once again, NANCYSMASH! has to step in and rescue Boehner from his own incompetence and arrogance and his crazy caucus:
When the voting began on the controversial—and ugly—debt ceiling bill in the House of Representatives on Monday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Democratic leader, did not know how many votes House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had for the measure that had been crafted by President Barack Obama and the Republicans. Boehner had not reached out to her to make certain that the crucial legislation designed to prevent a potentially disastrous US default would be approved. When Boehner “went to the table”—brought the bill to a vote—he “had no idea” how many votes he had, Pelosi says.
Want to learn more about the debt ceiling fight? Read the editors on the real problem with John Boehner, review our detailed, updated explainer on how we got to this point, and learn why Kevin Drum thinks the deal sucks. Still hungry? David Corn has a great story on the Obama administration’s political strategy.
The speaker, as it turned out, did not have enough Republican votes to pass the bill—only 174—and he had made no arrangement to guarantee its success. When there were minutes left for the vote, and it became apparent that Boehner would fall far short of the 216 votes necessary for passage, Pelosi’s Democrats began voting in favor of the measure. “We were not going to let it go down,” she told a small group of journalists on Wednesday morning.
In past years, a House speaker and the leader of the opposition would probably confer before such a crucial vote and figure out how to move the legislation through the chamber. (Boehner and Pelosi both were supporting this bill, albeit Pelosi quite reluctantly.) And many outside observers assumed that Boehner and Pelosi had indeed convened prior to this vote, that a conversation such as this had occurred: Nancy, I can get up to 170 or so votes, but not all those tea party guys. John, I can tell you that at least 50 Democrats are going to hold their noses and vote for this stinker. Yet when the final dramatic vote arrived, Pelosi was surprised that Boehner was so short of the magic 216. “When they didn’t come to us for votes,” Pelosi recalls, “we thought they had the votes on their own.”
But Boehner didn’t. So the Democrats, having waited to see how many Republicans would back the measure, started filling in the gap. Pelosi didn’t have to send any signal. Her Democrats, she says, are a “sophisticated” group, and they could see that without Democratic support the bill would fail.
If we weren’t all strapped in to the backseat, it would be really awesome to let these lunatics drive off a cliff.
*** Update ***
Damnit. Anne Laurie is convinced I never read her posts, but I do. I read it this morning first thing, then did some things and made tea, futzed around, and when I went to post this piece I couldn’t remember where I saw it to hat tip it. It was here. Grumble.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
To be the bearer of bad news: Anne already reported this.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
(Duplicate)
Omnes Omnibus
Wow, this looks a lot like something posted earlier today. Deja vu, I guess.
NonyNony
And to follow-up from Belafon, not only did Anne already post this but she posted the exact same excerpt from the piece.
Balloon-Juice hive-mind at work?
General Stuck
Man, that is just so pathetically sad, it’s like a day care center, when the little darlings start pulling ponytails, pissing on the carpet than rolling around in it. That one of the adults finally returns to put a stop to it, cleans up their mess, but still makes sure the children know they are loved and valued.
JGabriel
John Cole:
Rather than strap us to the back seat, since we’re hostages, isn’t it more likely that we’re trussed up and stuffed in the trunk?
I just wanna keep it real, man.
.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
it’s his goddamn blog!
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Doesn’t mean we can’t mock him, does it?
dr. bloor
When someone jumps in to bail an alcoholic, arrogant and ungrateful nitwit out of a jam to her own disadvantage, we in the business generally refer to it as “enabling behavior.”
slag
@NonyNony:
Leftwing conspiracy.
ploeg
They should have let it fail. In two weeks, this will become a Democratic initiative.
Violet
Does anyone still think that Boehner is done as Speaker? I haven’t heard much about that since the bill passed. Can they fire him now or do they have to wait until the next election?
JPL
It might be a good time for John to post about the stock market. He could copy and paste his article from last week.
lol
BTW, I can’t remember a better Speaker of the House than Nancy. She did an outstanding job.
chopper
i’d treat this as an open thread then.
markets are down big. dow up to 350 in the red at one point.
Served
Once again proving that Republicans are inept at governing.
Violet
@chopper:
It’s kind of amazing to watch the markets. Aren’t we heading to two weeks of market drops?
Villago Delenda Est
@dr. bloor:
The problem of course is that not doing that will only make the situation, at least short term, much worse.
A great deal of “enabling behavior” is to soften the consequences short term. Long term? We don’t know about that, after all, Jesus is coming back soon, we swear, and he’l magically fix everything then.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Zactly – he doesn’t need to look at other posts! How is mrs. stuckinred healing? The resting it is really important – GA heat may help to enforce that.
chopper
@ploeg:
as much as i expect the economy to take a painful shit this year, letting the debt ceiling bill fail would have been more like giving ourselves cholera.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: I think he remains as Speaker, in name only, until the election. I think the way the debt ceiling situation played out showed him to be powerless, but I doubt anyone can effectively run the GOP caucus and those who would be interested in supplanting Boehner know this, so they leave him in the position for now rather than tarnish their bona fides.
Cris (without an H)
Nay, it requires that we mock him.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
What the Republicans are facing really is a fracturing of their party.
The teahaddists are bound and determined to steer the ship into the iceberg and prove, for once and for all, that the ship is unsinkable.
This is ANYTHING BUT a conservative approach.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est:
I hope you are right.
Maude
@chopper:
They iz seered cause of Europe. Things are shaky in Italy and elsewhere. Not too good here in US either.
But, then again, it might mean that someone said something that got passed on as something else and rumors began.
Edit spell fail
chopper
@Violet:
probably. we had 8 down days, then yesterday was just barely up, and now today is likely to be a doozy.
you never know tho. whenever i think it’s going to shit the bed, in midday it starts bouncing back up. but 3% down, that’s a big move these days. it wasn’t back in 2008 when everything was volatile but we haven’t had many days with that big of a spread since.
Davis X. Machina
@Omnes Omnibus: IIRC, a Speaker may resign, but he cannot be removed without first voting for a suspension of the rules — by rule the Speaker is chosen at the beginning of each Congress — which requires a 2/3 vote.
Pelosi’s better off with a wounded Speaker.
Cris (without an H)
Damn that short-term memory loss
Maude
@Villago Delenda Est:
If we need tumbrils, will there be jobs for wheel wrights?
Edit can’t spell the wheel word.
Felanius Kootea
Got this solicitation from Wisconsin today:
It’s a donation request for Fred Clark’s campaign from a former Republican named Pam Robson. I hope there are many more former Republicans where she comes from.
ploeg
@chopper:
It’s the moral hazard of letting these people rub their fingerprints off of their work. It won’t be so easy to avoid default the next time.
Villago Delenda Est
@Maude:
Another BJ commenter noted that the US has offshored all the necessary manufacturing capacity for tumbrel fabrication, so we do face something of a problem in that respect.
Omnes Omnibus
@Davis X. Machina: That makes sense. My reasoning still covers why the GOP leaders in the House won’t push Boehner to resign.
Cris (without an H)
The wounded are the easiest to catch and eat.
gnomedad
Excellent Bennett cartoon using the car metaphor.
aisce
how fucking wonderful for our “sophisticated” democrats that they count all the way to 216. that’s so many fingers and toes! how do they do it?! somebody gets an extra graham cracker with their capri sun at snack time.
also, too, this entire premise is completely untrue. not a single democratic vote was technically necessary once more than 50% of the republicans voted in favor. dems could have pulled that “voting present” thing if they wanted to avoid putting their names on it, as long as the quorum number for the chamber was reached. so, really, this is about two speakers have a dick measuring contest in the papers, only one of them is an eighty year old grandmother. and boehner is losing…
also, too, also, too, i don’t read anne laurie’s posts either. they’re all put up at like 3:30 in the morning and half of them are about cats or some shit. least essential fper.
Tsulagi
Most likely. OTOH, the way it apparently played out kinda fits the whole spirit of the thing.
If Orange Guy in advance had come to Pelosi saying he needed 50+ D votes for passage, Pelosi may have asked for something for those votes. Might have shaved a fraction of a point off that 98% Boehner said R-baggers got of what they wanted. His way, seemingly knowing Dems would grab their ankles without even asking, R-baggers got them for nothing.
JC
It’s stuff like this that drives me crazy. How in the world these idiots, ala McConnell, Boehner, are able to outmanuever Obama?
Their tools are so dumb, but they use them well. Hostage-taking, the latest and greatest political tool.
Obama and his advisors are much smarter than me. So I just don’t understand how they, in speech, at least, keep giving the benefit of the doubt to these guys.
It really is like the smart guy being beaten up by the bully. All the good plans in the world, don’t help, if the bully smashes the smart guy up against the wall.
Also – media fail – how come NOW we get all these stories about how deficit reduction at this juncture, makes a dip into recession more likely?
Just Some Fuckhead
FWIW, it was supposed to be an agreement Boehner and Obama came to, so it was Obama’s job to collect enough Democratic votes, and perhaps he did that.
Maude
@Villago Delenda Est:
Ah, but they can’t offshore the Johnny Bench job for catching the heads.
Judas Escargot
@JC:
Just repeating: Obama ‘owns’ deficit reduction now. So we’re allowed to talk about it.
More empty buildings for Romney to pose in front of! Go MSM!
NonyNony
@Tsulagi:
And Boehner would have cried because Pelosi had already agreed that the bill would pass with Democratic support. Pelosi wasn’t going to do that – the concessions they were going to get out of Boehner were already in the final bill.
Far more likely – Boehner is scared shitless to even LOOK like he’s asking a Democrat to help him with anything. If he’d gone to Pelosi in advance the story would be ‘Boehner and Pelosi worked together to come up with the votes needed’. Boehner looks like a “collaborator”. By not going to her for help he hoped to avoid that story.
Now to us the story reads “Boehner is so damn incompetent he can’t count to 216”. Which for us liberals (who appreciate the ability to count) might be something of an insult. But for the teabaggers (who might very well think numbers are an anti-American plot – they are called Arabic numbers after all) they don’t care. At least Boehner didn’t go begging to a Democrat for help.
This is the kind of childishness we can look forward to…
Dennis SGMM
@Villago Delenda Est:
I do love to see the Republicans fighting among themselves. It would be even better if Boehner’s inability to control his own caucus resulted in some quid pro quos for the Dems. As it stands, the reward for giving him the votes and some cover is that the Republicans weren’t able to blow their own heads off.
The Dems did what they had to do under the circumstances and I’m not in any way criticizing them for that. I’m just gobsmacked by the fact that Americans elected three-score Reps who make B1 Bob Dornan look like Teddy Kennedy by comparison and I’m fearful that no matter what we do there will be even more of them elected to Congress in 2012.
The Worst Person In the World
Good God, the democrats are pathetic. Going out of their way to enable passage of a shitty bill.
Here’s the solution: Dems don’t vote for it, bill fails, Obama uses the 14th ammendment to raise the debt limit.
Oh, sorry, forgot: But we caaaaaaaaaaaaaan’t. It’s too haaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrd. Republicans are meeeeeeean.
The Worst Person In the World
Also too, and furthermore: The JC and Obot use of the term “Nancy Smash” is an indication of their authoritarian need to defer to a politician to whom is attributed semi-super human powers.
shortstop
@NonyNony: I think this is about it.
shortstop
@The Worst Person In the World: Or it could be that we’re impressed that a rather soft-spoken grandma is by far the best speaker we’ve had, and certainly the best current Democrat at getting things done and standing up for progressive values. That would make her brave, take-charge and unwilling to take shit, the things you claim to value in the post immediately above this one.
Hard to keep your criticisms straight when they’re based on random personal resentment rather than a cohesive political viewpoint, isn’t it?
NonyNony
@The Worst Person In the World:
Dude, “Nancy Smash!” is fucking hilarious. Every time I read it I smile, because I imagine those scenes in the comics where the Hulk is picking up tanks and swinging them around like baseball bats. Except with Pelosi swinging the tank around.
It’s hysterical – the woman looks like an old English teacher I had when I was in High School. If you can’t laugh at something like that you’ve got a serious problem and I hope you’re getting help.
Mnemosyne
@The Worst Person In the World:
Republicans start impeachment proceedings and nothing else is allowed to proceed in the House.
Financial markets get spooked. Stock markets worldwide plummet down. Ratings agencies downgrade the US to a B and interest rates soar from 4% to 25%.
But since the Dems won’t have voted for the debt limit bill, we would all have a sense of smug satisfaction as we roasted sparrows under a bridge.
Seriously, you guys are starting to sound like the anti-vaccination nuts: “If we prevented a bad thing from happening, that means that the bad thing never would have happened anyway so preventing it was useless!”
John Puma
Great quip: “If we weren’t all strapped in to the backseat, it would be really awesome to let these lunatics drive off a cliff.”
SectarianSofa
@John Cole
I saw Anne’s headline and glossed over the post, expecting non-awesome content, because it had ‘open thread’ and something about a science fiction grandma in the title. I was going to go back and read it later — I didn’t until you pointed it out. Anyway, the topic was worth a dupe.