TPM Reader MO:
So, let me see if I have this straight. In the period of less than 7 days:- It looked almost certain that the Federal government was going to be shutdown.
- At the 11th hour, Boehner, Reid, and Obama “made a deal.”
- For the next few days, everyone was crowning Boehner as the master politician -finally a Speaker of the House who was an effective leader of his entire coalition and could use that clout to muscle the political opposition.
- At the same time, Dems were in great despair. Obama gave up too much. Our economy was now going to be in free-fall. Obama was now about to sell out Medicare and the Middle Class too!
- Then, come yesterday, it seems pretty clear that the budget deal was, in fiscal terms, pretty minor. The amount of money that was negotiated, let alone the punch-the-hippies policy riders, was all small potatoes.
- And, yesterday, Obama came out hard, at least rhetorically, against the GOP.
- And today, Boehner looks less powerful than Hastert. Eric Cantor must be struggling to suppress a permanent grim. And the most prominent GOP figure right now in the news is Donald Trump.
Truly a bizarre week in Washington …
David Kurtz
David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.