A cynical take on cynicism

Is the mounting speculation over an unavoidable government shutdown merely a mounting indication of an imminent deal?

When so much dark harmony reigns among the Beltway's pundits and pols, we should probably resort to the kind of perverse cynicism that assumes brighter days ahead. I don't trust unanimity in Washington, and it's a prodigious unanimity we're enduring: Doom, there's nothing but doom ahead, folks, and all the result of that other guy.

Generally, for each guy there's at least some forensic evidence of the "other guy" argument. But not this time. The budget dispute, to frame it modestly, is as one-sided as disputes come, which makes it more of a tantrum than a dispute. And the sheer irrationality of the tantrum is so unimpeachably evident -- the fitful rejection of an exacting, split-the-difference compromise on spending cuts, coupled with a widespread government shutdown over the fiscal insignificancies of National Public Radio or Planned Parenthood -- that even the enablers are now marooning the instigators.

Initially, there was a corresponding dispute over which partisan side would more greatly suffer from a shutdown, yet that dispute, too, seems to have gone the way of the polemical platypus -- it's now less a primal dispute than a towering consensus that Republicans, alone, are on the exceptionally bad public-relations hook.

From the NY Times' editorial this morning -- "Speaker John Boehner knows the public is likely to blame Republicans for the pain of a shutdown" -- to Politico's straight-up coverage -- "Republicans are nervous about appearing intransigent under a barrage of Democratic attacks contending the GOP’s tea party wing is making 'extreme' demands" -- there's something of a concerted given out there that Republicans' customary unity is fragmenting beyond all expectations.

When, for instance, a Republican senator (a moderate, to be sure, but still, a Republican) can be found to venture that "we all would suffer" from a shutdown, one's universal spin-translator need not work overtime to spit out: "We, and we alone, are screwed."

Boehner "gets it," I'm sure the shrewd Mitch McConnell gets it, and even the hideously duplicitous Eric Cantor, I suspect, gets it. They all get it, deep down, where future House and Senate seats are politically calculated -- and to this cynical crowd, the politics of "it" are all that matter.

Indeed, their cynicism rivals even mine, which, the more it observes the former's, anticipates a "surprise" budget deal.

Comments

[Billy B]

Mr. Carpenter,

You hit the proverbial nail squarely on the head when you referred to Cantor as a nitwit. Of all the idiotic republics, Cantor is the poster boy for the party's abject stupidity.

I hope he keeps it up.

[majii]

Boehner, Cantor, and all members of the republican caucus know what is at stake regarding the budget. Boehner and Cantor have the tea party caucus that do not believe that ANY compromise is acceptable. He's now looking to the Blue Dogs for help, according to Steve Benen:

"But that's not the case. Boehner is a weak Speaker, leading a caucus that doesn't necessarily trust him, dominated by freshman who don't really know him and owe no allegiance to him. The Speaker could work something out with the Senate and White House, explain to House Republicans it's the best deal possible under the circumstances, only to hear from his own members, "No, you're wrong, this isn't good enough."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

This is quite an untenable position "the weeper" finds himself in. I don't think this is what he thought he'd get by pandering to the tea partiers for the past 2 years.