Watch what you Ask for....

For months, the president Obama has been asking Congress to pass a "clean" raise to the debt ceiling. In other words, Obama demanded that Congress pass a billing raising the limit on the national debt that would have no other provisions. There would be no spending reductions or other steps to reduce the deficit -- steps that the Republicans have been calling for as part of any debt ceiling increase. Obama's call for a "clean" bill has been echoed repeatedly by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and by many Democrats in Congress. Just a few weeks ago, 114 House Democrats signed a letter to Speaker Boehner calling upon him to allow a vote on the "clean" bill raising the debt ceiling.

Well, the Democrats got what they wanted. Yesterday, the House voted on a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling and the bill lost by 318 to 97. Every Republican voted against the bill, but that is not the key point here. 82 Democrats voted against the bill, including many of the 114 who signed the letter demanding a vote on the clean bill. Among those voting against the increase to the debt ceiling were Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (the chairman of the DNC). Perhaps the funniest statements about the vote came from Peter Welch (D-VT) who authored the letter calling for a vote on a clean bill. When Welch got exactly what he demanded, he called the resulting vote a "bogus political maneuver." John Larson (D-CT) who is the head of the Democrat Caucus said this was a "sham".

So let's get this straight. The Democrats from the president on down call for a vote on a "clean" bill to raise the debt ceiling. They get that vote and lose badly with just about half of all the Demcrats voting no. They then condemn the vote as a sham. In English, what this means is that the calls by Obama and the rest of the Obamacrats for a clean bill was a sham political maneuver in which they hoped that the Republicans would not allow such a vote, so that the Democrats could use that refusal against them.

Boy, this surely blew up in the faces of the Democrats.