EJ is EZ

In an article today, E J Dionne writes about the brilliance of the GOP strategy being used by John Boehner to cet cuts in spending. According to Dionne, Boehner paints the freshmen GOP representatives as madmen who want to cut everything and who will not be easily mollified. This allows Boehner to act the statesman while threatening the Democrat leaders that he may not be able to control what his members do unless he gets major concessions. Just imagine, says Dionne, the Republicans have even cut Head Start funding, an unthinkable act.

This column is too funny. It seems that it is beyond the comprehension of Dionne and his fellow uber liberals that the Republicans could actually be in favor of living within our means, an ethic which requires cuts in most programs. Returning Head Start to the very generous funding levels of two years ago is "unthinkable" in the Dionne universe. Of course, Dionne offers no explanation why there are suddenly so many more children needing government assistance than there were two years ago. Surely, it is not the economy since many more than the poor were getting help two years ago. Even the enlargement of the poor as a result of the economic failure of the Obama Administration has not produced so many more needy children that the old spending levels would not suffice.

The real truth is that to an uber liberal, any spending cut is always a disaster. No one can have a rational debate since liberals consider all cuts irrational. So if the GOP members of Congress want to cut spending to prevent a national disaster, they are madmen.

More important than Dionne's strange view of reality, however, is the fact that he recognizes that the Obamacrats are losing the debate on cuts. Gone is the bravado about how the GOP wants to shut down the government. My guess is that too many focus groups have blamed to Obamacrats to allow them to proceed blindly with forcing a shutdown in order to protect ethanol subsidies, huge payoffs to government workers and earmarks. Of course, Dionne cannot believe that the public actually prefers the GOP view of spending. All of this has to be the result of a clever strategm and not an expression of the public will. I guess that the best way to put it is this: Once one knows that EJ is a staunch progressive, it is easy to understand his lack of logical thinking.