Pull up a chair and grab some popcorn, because it looks like Washington is about to light a match and burn the economy to the ground, and I’m sure you want a front-row seat.
Oh, you think Washington already did that to the economy? The way this madness is going, it seems safe to say you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Quick recap of yesterday’s madness: John Boehner, the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, presented a plan to raise the debt ceiling.
His plan came under immediate attack from his fellow conservatives, some in the House and many in activist circles,
who said basically that Boehner was a political sellout.
If Boehner was trying to sell out to the Democrats, it appears he did a pretty bad job of it, though. The White House announced it would veto Boehner’s plan if it was passed by Congress and sent to the president’s desk.
And the Democratic leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, spoke to reporters and said Boehner’s plan was dead on arrival — even though it hadn’t arrived yet.
So Boehner’s plan is dead. The conservatives who oppose his plan certainly won’t support Harry Reid’s plan.
So what about the White House plan, you ask?
Let us journey now to the White House briefing room, where President Obama’s spokesman, Jay Carney, stood before a disbelieving press corps talking about the nonexistent plan the way Baghdad Bob talked about the continuing glories of the Saddam Hussein regime as the American Tomahawk missiles were zooming around his head.
“Show us the plan,” NBC’s Chuck Todd said to Carney.
Carney eventually responded with a flirtatious jibe: “We have shown a lot of leg on what we were proposing.”
“Where?” Todd asked.
Carney replied, “From the podium, right here. You need something printed for you? You can’t write it down? There is ample detail . . .”
Then ABC’s Jake Tapper got into the action: “That’s not a plan. It was details of a plan, but it wasn’t a plan in the same way we are getting a plan on the House side or on the Senate side.”
Todd then followed up: “You guys went before the American people last night and said call your Members of Congress, we want a compromise. Well you had a plan you were making the case for, that sounded like the compromise. Release it to the public.”
When this exchange began, an exasperated Carney said to Todd, “I understand that the idea there is not an Obama plan is like point No. 1 on the talking points issued by the Republican Party.”
Yes, Carney was accusing Todd — an MSNBC reporter and anchor! — of delivering Republican talking points.
In the wild satirical movie “Top Secret,” made in 1984, an American in East Berlin meets a beautiful local woman. She tells him she had an uncle who was born in America.
“But he was one of the lucky ones,” she says. “He managed to escape in a balloon during the Jimmy Carter presidency.”
Somebody find me a balloon. Please.
jpodhoretz@gmail.com