TPM Reader EL takes things in a different (or perhaps deeper) direction entirely …
Regarding the Republicans and Benghazi, you write
TPM Reader EW has more on “dingbat oversight” …
Josh Marshall in his piece today, reflected on the Republicans obsession with sensational rather than substantive investigations. He was also right to point out that it isn’t just time and money they are wasting. These investigations function like a magician’s slight-of-hand deflecting the interest of the public from real issues.
Let’s start with the fact that our entire system of government and economics — in some sense our whole culture — is based on the idea that adversarial relations create social goods. Competition between parties, competition between businesses and so forth. And much of what keeps everyone in government on their toes is the impulse of partisan advantage. It’s a feature not a bug.
By and large that’s all true. But it’s also true that Congress can play its role in such a nonsensical and histrionic way that it not only wastes all sorts of time on bizarre conspiracy theories, it also neglects real, actual oversight, which is one of Congress’s key functions. Read More
As Ezra Klein noted, the message between the White House’s budget proposal is that President Obama is done negotiating with himself when he sits down with congressional Republicans.
Dems laugh off GOP demand that they make first move on Medicare benefit cuts.
Republicans push back against claims they’re about to cave on taxes.
I’ll be doing a Live Chat this afternoon at Noon eastern at TPMPrime. Get your questions in now.
Descending from the Jesuits and their probabilism and the Rabbis and their Talmudic interpretations, official Washington is now deep in a complex exegesis of the Norquist anti-tax pledge. Is it eternal? Is it limited to a single term? If a tax rises in the forest but no one voted to rise it, did it really rise? Read More