Excuse me while I retch. Weekly Standard Editor Fred “Reagan and Boehner, Two Peas in a Pod” Barnes misses the point, which is that this deal is not “good”, it is bad.
What would President Reagan do in the debt limit battle? That’s unknowable, but we do know what his goal would be: get the best deal possible under the circumstances. Reagan never let the perfect or the unattainable keep him from achieving the good.
via Reagan and Boehner, Two Peas in a Pod | The Weekly Standard.
Reagan did not accept a negotiated defeat at Reykjavik just because it was “the best we could get” from the Soviets. Instead, he walked away, preserving the initiative, retaining the ability to fight on his terms.
Boehner, on the other hand, has disarmed fiscal conservatives. We stupidly failed to oust him or to even try after he and his cronies, like 14-term Representative Hal “Prince of Pork” Rogers (Appropriations chair, thank you very much), sold us out on the budget/CR battle and told us that the real fight would be over the debt ceiling.
We have not accepted good in lieu of great. We have folded, accepted defeat while handing over the last real weapon we had (debt ceiling friction) to fight against Democrats. Fine. We fight against the GOP. For evidence of Reagan’s attitude toward being screwed over by RINOs, see any of his speeches before finally winning the nomination in 1980.
Shame on you, Fred Barnes. You’re old enough to know better. Will you join Kristol now or later in lamenting the predicted and avoidable disaster to befall Defense, the debt, and our medical system? We know damned well the pressure that was applied to you to bring your magazine into the service of the business-as-usual GOP leadership. We will not soon forget the incredibly petty name-calling and the ease with which you knuckled under to influence from the steps of the Capitol.
From here out, when you are right, we will of course happily agree. When you are wrong, you will be treated as a plague. We cannot trust you in either case.
