The Bubble Genius Bob & Chez Show 1/3/13

Barack Obama has made offers to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits before, mostly it seems to watch the Rs tie themselves into knots trying to reconcile their desire to hurt the olds and the poors with their determination to oppose absolutely everything Obama does. In the end, they’ve always refused and have gotten less than they would have done had they agreed. If we had a working news media in this country (yes, I’m riding this hobbyhorse again), the Rs’ behavior would at least be worth a puzzled comment.

The ProLeft couldn’t allow themselves to be satisfied even if Obama consistently got everything they claim to want. They’re not happy unless they’re disappointed, and they’re ecstatic if they can convince themselves they’ve been betrayed.

John Boehner was always going to be reelected Speaker. Nobody else wanted the post. Whoever is Speaker is going to piss off the Right wing of the Republican Party simply by acknowledging the existence of Barack Obama (I assume everyone knows that Glenn Beck, the old rodeo clown his own self, has threatened to fire anyone on his staff who dares to utter Obama’s name), so even back-stabbing tools like Eric Cantor wanted desperately not to get votes today.

Charlie Pierce reminds us today who Chris Christie is. I don’t think his personality will play well nationally, especially when the party yanks him far Right. Christie may fancy himself a different kind of R, but The Base—and the money men—will force him to take increasingly immoderate positions in the fight for the nomination. But I could be wrong and Christie could manage to escape the primaries with his reasonable-conservative tough-guy persona intact, in which case he would be a formidable opponent in the general.

Chez, you were too kind to Ari Fleischer.

Fox News doesn’t care that its guiding philosophy has been repudiated because it’s still making money, and Sean Hannity won’t care about his sinking ratings until contract time rolls around.

Republican outreach. Don’t make me laugh, Bob, my lips are chapped.

Of course the Rs wanted the Violence Against Women Act to expire: the party’s relationship with women is that of an abusive spouse. Yet again, I wonder why any woman would vote for a Republican, any Republican.

The Second Amendment has been so misinterpreted by the Supreme Court that I fear any gun control, no matter how moderate and sensible, will be struck down. However, it would be nice to see someone try.

–alopecia

Made it halfway through this one, had to stop at the entirely unsurprising handjob from Chez to governor Christie. I guess I should be glad that he’s capable of commenting on a “political” event that doesn’t boil down to “I hate someone because they don’t love the president enough.”

The president has signalled that he’s not only willing to see Social Security cut, he’d consider it a proud achievement. If the left, the one whose position on lower income taxes Bob lazily strawmanned in the latest podcast, the left whom Chez wheezed so emptily over, is putting any pressure at all to keep the cuts from coming down, that’s where I’m happy to be.

Had the Bush cuts, all of them, been ended, the left would not have been arguing that it was only chump change coming out of lower-income people’s pockets, they’d be pushing for new cuts to those very people.

If/when Social Security or Medicare are cut, as the president is clearly looking to do someday someway, count on Bob and Chez to launch lame excuses rather than even mild upset.