Absurdity Of It All

If you want to know the state of our political class, just review what has transpired over the past four weeks. First there is the John Boehner confessions in which he discovered that Barack Obama is not all that serious about cutting spending and the President's view that our present fiscal crisis as merely a revenue problem. The problem with Boehner's discovery is that this was self-evident for a long time that Obama's goal was always to grow government and transform America. Why is this so hard to believe for many beltway Republicans and a few conservatives to accept that Obama means what he says about government? For Boehner to have a Eureka moment after negotiating with this President for four years simply indicates a naivety on the part of the Speaker.

The second is Ed Koch's revelation that he is not surprised that Obama would quickly change his policy toward Israel away from his pro-Israel proclamations during the election, but it was done so quickly after the election. The former Mayor has always viewed the support of Israel as one of his key issues, yet he supported a President whose views he didn’t truly trust. He even made a public proclamation that Obama will continue to support Israel unequivocally, encouraging his fellow Jews to support Obama. Koch observed on why he backs Obama even if he knew in his heart that Obama would retreat from his Pro-Israel statements, “I did what I thought was warranted and intelligent. He was going to win…I thought it would be helpful to have a Jewish voice there, being able to communicate.” He added that, “Jews were going to vote for him no matter what.” There you have it, a Democrat tells his fellow Jews to vote for Obama because well, they were going to vote for Obama anyway, but yet felt that many Jews would be disappointed with his second administration policy toward Israel. I don’t think I have to add any more to this.

Then there is the infamous platinum coin solution. We have individuals including economist Paul Krugman suggesting that if the Republicans want to tie spending cuts to the debt limits, there is a way out for President Obama. Print up a Platinum trillion dollar coin to stick in the Treasury. You read that right, print up a Platinum trillion dollar coin and voila, problem solved, debt limit secured and we can go on our merry way. Ann Althouse summed up the absurdity of this, “It's strange that it's come to this, but I don't believe the President of the United States would choose to do something that will strike the people as so bizarre, even if he feels capable of articulating the legal theory with a straight face. The President must maintain the people's trust and confidence. He must be comprehensible as normal, sound, and sane to ordinary folks.” Yes, it has come to this. We have some of the best and brightest coming up with an idea that doesn’t even pass the plausibility test. Why not print up a 16 trillion dollar platinum coin and eliminate the debt all together? I won’t even bother to deal with the theory behind this nonsense only to suggest that we have members of the ruling class that are naïve, deceptive to their own supporters and finally, coming up with just plain nutty ideas!