Vindicarre wrote:
Do you ever wonder why the D's have been inerrant about not having anything in writing that could later be looked at as defining their position? Doesn't it intrigue you a bit as to why they would have such a stance, RD? Why is "showing a lot of leg" sufficient for good faith negotiations before the American people?
Sure, I don't doubt that Obama and the Dems were anxious to retain maximum flexibility in their negotiating position and to set themselves up to blame the Republicans if it all went to hell. To flip it around, do you ever wonder why the R's were so hell-bent on submitting bills they knew had no chance of passing? Different tactic, but same rationale. My point, though, is that underneath the cya political theater there was an actual negotiation taking place, and it's pretty clear what the positions were: Obama was willing to do the "$4 trillion mostly cuts but some revenues" deal he and the Dems talked up, but the R's were simply not willing to do a deal that included new revenues. The "he didn't put it in writing" meme is just more theater intended to distract the public from that underlying disagreement.
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Did you stop to consider that Boehner said, "Great! We're on board with that. Now, let's get into the details..." as they left the meeting room, then Obama started dealing with the D's and found out the deal wasn't sell-able to them, so he made the $500 billion tax increase call to Boehner's VM in order to shit-can the whole thing ?
Like I said, it's hard to say how this one went down. Did Obama say, "I'm on board, but ll have to take it to the D's in Congress first. I'll keep you posted." Or did he say, "We have an accord," and then change it later? Did Boehner really agree to the framework, or did he take it back to his caucus, get shot down, and then use the extra tax thing as an excuse to point the finger Obama's way? There's no way to know, but it was probably a bit of both. I know I've seen more than one deal in my work almost fall apart because the lawyers doing the negotiating got ahead of their clients and agreed to more than the clients were really willing to accept.