You know what the best part of this is? It’s not even the dumbest thing she said today.
“Aren’t we at the point where the closer we get to chaos, the more concern that there should be about coming to the table and compromising with Democrats?” Wasserman Schultz asked. “This is not leadership. This is almost like dictatorship. I know they want to force the outcome that … their extremists would like to impose. But they are getting ready to spark panic and chaos, and they seem to be OK with that. And it’s just really disappointing, and potentially devastating.”…
Wasserman Schultz continued: “What should be happening is what we’ve been ready to do for months. Ideally, what should be happening is a big deal – a big solution for a big problem, as the president has pushed for. At this point, it’s probable that we’re too close to the breaking point on Tuesday for that to happen…
“It’s just shockingly irresponsible that the closer we get to the breaking point here, the more irresponsible – and the closer they are to pushing us to chaos, as if that is the desired outcome.”
Thus it came to be that a guy who continues to ignore the War Powers Act over the objections of his own lawyers and is prone to saying stuff like “the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting” sent out his top party flack to mumble about dictatorship. Is that the dumbest part of this? Or is the dumbest part the fact that she chose to offer this ode to Republican obstructionism on a day when Boehner’s moved heaven and earth to get his caucus to agree to a moderate, compromise-ready debt bill? Actually, I think the dumbest part is her warning about the GOP causing chaos just as House Democrats have started chattering in earnest about Obama’s nonexistent Fourteenth Amendment option to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally (i.e. dictatorship!), which would do more to wreak fiscal and legal chaos than anything the GOP’s come up with.
But like I say, Debbie being Debbie, this isn’t the benchmark of stupidity today. This is:
DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) strongly chided the GOP today for using a movie clip from the film “The Town,” in which two criminals agree to a revenge attack, in order to rally lawmaker support for Speaker Boehner’s new debt bill currently being rewritten in the House.
The playing of the clip, organized by members of House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) staff, happened in a closed-door caucus meeting on Tuesday. It features Ben Affleck’s character asking for a friend’s aid in order to “hurt some people.”
“Who are they planning to hurt?” demanded Wasserman Schultz, adding: “Unfortunately that short clip from ‘The Town’ tells you everything you need to know about their approach to the negotiations over the debt ceiling,” she said, after showing the clip to the attending media…
“With such legislation Republicans certainly would hurt some people,” she said. “In fact they would hurt quite a lot of people. The craziest part is that they expect us to get into that car and go with them. We want no part of it.”
Here’s the clip. The point McCarthy was making, obviously, is that the caucus needs to trust the leadership on this deal, no matter how many reservations it might have. (Allen West’s reply after watching it was, “I’m willing to drive the car.”) That means abandoning the Cut, Cap, and Balance position — the “hurtful” plan to the left — and adopting a more timid proposal in the interest of not hitting the ceiling and banking some spending cuts now. If anyone’s hurt by that, it’s broken-hearted tea partiers. How this became a DNC talking point, I’m not sure, but leave it to Wasserman-Schultz and Chuck Schumer to use the debt standoff as a platform for some media-friendly idiocy. Exit quotation from the latter: “In the scene they chose to inspire their House freshmen, one of the crooks gives a pep talk to the other right before they both put on hockey masks, bludgeon two men with sticks and shoot a man in the leg… Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Republican House majority.”
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