Brian Beutler’s got a great piece about how John Boehner’s ‘Plan B’ just seemed to totally blow up the fiscal cliff negotiations. There are so many different angles to go with this — one is, how is this good for Boehner or the GOP? He throws down the gauntlet and tells Obama: ‘I’m going to get my caucus to vote for a tax increase that will never actually become law and bogart all the blame for going over the fiscal cliff?’ Really?
But the real issue here probably comes down to Boehner’s weakness, institutional and personal. It’s a question the White House has had from the beginning and suspects the worst on — that John Boehner can’t actually deliver any deal, almost no matter what’s included in it. Someone on Twitter just called him the rodeo clown of conservative politics, which about captures it.
At the risk of offending everyone, do the Dems need to accept that Boehner’s an Abbas-like figure in this negotiation and to really get a deal they need to bite the bullet and open negotiations with Hamas?
