Hostages

Republican Hostage Takers of the World, Unite!

Our Dear Leader says Republicans are "hostage takers". Supposedly those tea-bagging bourgeoisie idiots are holding the American people hostage.

I've said before that I felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts. I think it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people and I was not willing to see them get harmed.

Tell us, will the American people feel more like hostages when A) high-earners pay 35% instead of 39.6%, or B) they wait an average 18 months for a critical medical procedure?

In other words, Mr. Commie Obama, don't preach to us about the virtues of negotiating. We remember the ObamaCare "negotiations":

Unlike Obamacare, the embrace of the evil Bush tax cut extension was bipartisan. As Michael Barone notes at NRO:

Obama had to abandon his goal of raising taxes on high earners not because Republicans opposed it but because not enough Democrats supported it. Pelosi couldn’t summon up a majority on the issue back in September, and Harry Reid could get only 53 of the needed 60 votes this month.

Democrats, not Republicans, are responsible for the extension of most of the “Bush tax cuts.”

This extension of the Bush tax rates does nothing for America other than stick a feeding tube down our throats while the courts decide our fate, now two years further down the road.

And James Taranto puts this latest event in the proper perspective in his Best of the Web post:

Obama's communication problem is that he is communicating far too much. The circumstances called for conciliation, toward both the adversaries with whom he has compromised and the supporters he disappointed by doing so. Instead, he gratuitously insulted both groups, displaying a degree of political incompetence that, while perhaps harmless to the country in this situation, is worrisome when we contemplate the prospect that he will be called on to deal with an international crisis, perhaps one involving real hostage takers, in the next two years.

Just for fun, we did a word search at Daily Kos' home page on "Hostage". EIGHT!

1. ... if raising the debt ceiling is not part of the deal, then Republicans have another opportunity to take some hostages early next year.
2. And more ominously, we haven't raised the debt ceiling or included it in the negotiations, so the Primary Hostage -- namely, everybody, you and me -- is still in play, and we can expect severe "austerity measures" to kick in...
3. Obama is willing to call Republicans "hostage takers" and irritated liberals "sanctimonious", but his people haven't yet addressed how they're magically going to stand firm on something two years from now that they're willingly giving away today.
4. If America is expected to subject themselves to yet another Republican tax-cut experiment, and set itself up for not one, but two more rounds of hostage taking when these "temporary" measures run down their own clocks, the White House needs to be a lot clearer on why this newest one won't result in the same disaster all the last ones have caused. "Trust us next time around" is not a plan.
5. The anger has resulted in House Democrats taking some hostages of their own, mainly on the estate tax...
6. Taking hostages seems to be the only way to get a seat at the negotiating table, so why not join in the fun?
7. However, only 27% favor expiring all the tax cuts. With 4% unsure of what they think, that means 69% think extending middle-class tax cuts is a good idea. The question is whether they are fine with having been taken hostage in order to get them.
8. N/A - just a link to a post in the right navigation bar.

While fun to see the criticisms from the liberals progressives communists, we know it is just noise.

Remember the PUMA movement in 2008 where Hillary supporters said they'd boycott the election unless Hillary was named VP? We met many of them at the DNC convention and there was no question they were passionate about their position. There was also no doubt here that they would fall into line by November and vote for Obama.

There is no doubt here that those complaining today about the Bush Tax Cut Extensions will fall into line by November 2012. Ideology trumps all else, including their opinions and outrage.

Marx would have it no other way.

Our campaign 2012 "I Mis-Spoke" prediction:

Obama:

"Don't forget, I cut taxes for everybody in December 2010."

UPDATE 12.12 Stockholm Syndrome, by SNL:



U/T: Blaze