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[GreatJustice]

It's pronounced "Bayner" isn't it?

[Owlbread]

It should be "beuhner" with an "eu" like the french. It's an o with an umlaut in German, so Böhner, although the Yiddish pronunciation has become standard in American English for names like that so it has become Bayner.

You can hear it in the Yiddish song "Bay mir bistu sheyn", which is normally schön. The song wouldn't really work with German:

Bay mir bistu sheyn,
Bay mir hos tu heyn,
Bay mir bistu eyner oyf der velt.

Eyner in German is "einer" and sheyn is "schön", you pronounce them "eye-ner" and "sheun". Doesn't really rhyme. I don't even know if the word "heyn" exists in German.

[Zangi]

It would be cool to see Boehner make a last ditch effort by just totally dropping the tea party/obstructionists from the negotiations and actually negotiate with the Democrats.

Spark a meltdown of the Republican party as we know it...  Yes, I do want to watch something burn.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If he drops them he won't have enough power to get the negotiations through Congress. The GOP has efficiently purged itself of the rational.

I guess he could always blame them when it fails and join the Democrats, though.

[mainiac]

If he drops them he won't have enough power to get the negotiations through Congress. The GOP has efficiently purged itself of the rational.

The GOP is about the direction that the wind blows to an enormous extent.  They are lockstep because all the people they are getting their marching orders from say the same thing, death before compromise.  But if this came apart it could potentially come apart in a big way.  The big money donors could change their tune very quickly if they weren't happy with the right wing of the republican party, which they rationally should be (undermining the credit of the US out of spite hurts the exact sort of investor who would profit from the GOP hard money obsession.)  If Boehner could get just 15% of his caucus to support him then he could prevent anyone else from having majority support for the speakership.  So the party would have a bit of an interregnum or a situation akin to having several anti-popes and different bishops (fox news anchors) advocating different sides.  If it seems that Boehner is where the action is at then you could see a lot of long term incumbents who gave lip service to the tea party become born again-again as Boehnerites.

I doubt that's likely though because his previous political history doesn't seem to indicate he'd try something that dangerous.  I'm guessing that he just waffles for a bit and then signs a small deal with Obama that only gets a few republican votes in the house.  Which I consider to be the best case scenario actually.  The whole problem with the fiscal cliff is that it's austerity.  So we want to replace it with as little austerity as possible, which means a small deal is preferable.  The intransigence of the tea party has been good for the country for once.  By demanding so much they've prevented a deal that would have sucked.

[Nadaka]

http://news.yahoo.com/no-deal-sight-deadline-fiscal-deal-nears-082405286.html

If one of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too? Apparently, a lot of house republicans would.

[RedKing]

http://news.yahoo.com/no-deal-sight-deadline-fiscal-deal-nears-082405286.html

If one of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too? Apparently, a lot of house republicans would.

It's their political suicide note. Polls show overwhelmingly that the American public blames the Republicans for this mess far more than Obama or the Democrats.

My worry is that this is our Weimar moment. That this will underscore all the negatives with democratic governance and just feed into the desire for a strong, forceful leader and less power for Congress. Hell, even *I* wouldn't mind that so much, if there were a good way to make sure the strong leader wasn't a nutjob.

[FearfulJesuit]

http://news.yahoo.com/no-deal-sight-deadline-fiscal-deal-nears-082405286.html

If one of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too? Apparently, a lot of house republicans would.

It's their political suicide note. Polls show overwhelmingly that the American public blames the Republicans for this mess far more than Obama or the Democrats.

My worry is that this is our Weimar moment. That this will underscore all the negatives with democratic governance and just feed into the desire for a strong, forceful leader and less power for Congress. Hell, even *I* wouldn't mind that so much, if there were a good way to make sure the strong leader wasn't a nutjob.

Do you really think so, though? I could see us getting a Berlusconi or a Chavez, but in Weimar Germany democrats were by far in the minority, which was why the Nazis were able to get so far- there wasn't too much opposition to totalitarianism. And there would be here.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Weimar's problems stemmed greatly from the fact that their Left was shattered while their Right was united. The Social Democrats and Communists could have held it together, but the Communists both shunned the Social Democrats and refused to participate in the government at all. The Nationale Socalistik Deutchland Partei, on the other hand, was offering what their potential allies craved.

[RedKing]

http://news.yahoo.com/no-deal-sight-deadline-fiscal-deal-nears-082405286.html

If one of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too? Apparently, a lot of house republicans would.

It's their political suicide note. Polls show overwhelmingly that the American public blames the Republicans for this mess far more than Obama or the Democrats.

My worry is that this is our Weimar moment. That this will underscore all the negatives with democratic governance and just feed into the desire for a strong, forceful leader and less power for Congress. Hell, even *I* wouldn't mind that so much, if there were a good way to make sure the strong leader wasn't a nutjob.

Do you really think so, though? I could see us getting a Berlusconi or a Chavez, but in Weimar Germany democrats were by far in the minority, which was why the Nazis were able to get so far- there wasn't too much opposition to totalitarianism. And there would be here.

I won't trot out the old saw about fascism coming to America wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross. Oops, guess I did.

I think the opposition would be purely partisan rather than an ideological commitment to anti-totalitarianism. In other words, most people would be fine with a dictator if it was *their* dictator. So I guess we should be grateful for the near 50-50 polarization.

[misko27]

http://news.yahoo.com/no-deal-sight-deadline-fiscal-deal-nears-082405286.html

If one of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too? Apparently, a lot of house republicans would.

It's their political suicide note. Polls show overwhelmingly that the American public blames the Republicans for this mess far more than Obama or the Democrats.

My worry is that this is our Weimar moment. That this will underscore all the negatives with democratic governance and just feed into the desire for a strong, forceful leader and less power for Congress. Hell, even *I* wouldn't mind that so much, if there were a good way to make sure the strong leader wasn't a nutjob.

Do you really think so, though? I could see us getting a Berlusconi or a Chavez, but in Weimar Germany democrats were by far in the minority, which was why the Nazis were able to get so far- there wasn't too much opposition to totalitarianism. And there would be here.

I won't trot out the old saw about fascism coming to America wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross. Oops, guess I did.

I think the opposition would be purely partisan rather than an ideological commitment to anti-totalitarianism. In other words, most people would be fine with a dictator if it was *their* dictator. So I guess we should be grateful for the near 50-50 polarization.

Democracy at it's finest.

[Aqizzar]

If they do something on Day 1 of the session to make the filibuster rule something less than a "I get everything I want or the government STOPS" button, that'd be more than enough for me.

Heck, if the Republican House selects somebody for Speaker other than John Boehner that might be enough.  Not that Boehner himself is even really the problem, he just too much of a hand in the gamesmanship and protecting his seat than he does in getting results.  If that gaggle of tea baggers angling for his blood get somebody they want in the seat, it might actually help by convincing the less-ridiculous side of the Republican membership that they'll have to make a deal without their new "leadership".


Anyway, if you're looking for some deep reading on why the Presidential election went the way it did, the Boston Globe put out a six page breakdown that's grabbing some attention.  What everyone seems to think important is Tagg Romney (the big man's fortunate son) saying of his father, "He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life."  I think he's just trying to play down the defeat and that Romney didn't take it personally, because I guess he thinks that everyone needs to be reassured that Mitt's feelings weren't hurt or something.

Then again, it might actually be true.  The meat of the story is that Romney basically approached the race like the stingy businessman that he is.  He thought he could use enough targeted advertising to say anything necessary about his product, i.e. himself, to get anybody to buy it, he had actual organized personnel and infrastructure spread across the country rivaled by most Senate campaigns, and of the he people he did hire were so many yes-men so convinced of a Republican manifest destiny to rule in eternity that seemed to hardly believe they needed to campaign to defeat an obviously deranged fluke of an incumbent like Obama.

[RedKing]

http://news.yahoo.com/no-deal-sight-deadline-fiscal-deal-nears-082405286.html

If one of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too? Apparently, a lot of house republicans would.

It's their political suicide note. Polls show overwhelmingly that the American public blames the Republicans for this mess far more than Obama or the Democrats.

My worry is that this is our Weimar moment. That this will underscore all the negatives with democratic governance and just feed into the desire for a strong, forceful leader and less power for Congress. Hell, even *I* wouldn't mind that so much, if there were a good way to make sure the strong leader wasn't a nutjob.

Do you really think so, though? I could see us getting a Berlusconi or a Chavez, but in Weimar Germany democrats were by far in the minority, which was why the Nazis were able to get so far- there wasn't too much opposition to totalitarianism. And there would be here.

I won't trot out the old saw about fascism coming to America wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross. Oops, guess I did.

I think the opposition would be purely partisan rather than an ideological commitment to anti-totalitarianism. In other words, most people would be fine with a dictator if it was *their* dictator. So I guess we should be grateful for the near 50-50 polarization.

Democracy at it's finest.

Well played, Founding Fathers. Well played.

[FearfulJesuit]

...six page breakdown...

This makes me wonder. Is the demographic cliff overrated, then? Perhaps the Republicans could have a real shot in 2016? I mean,

The majority of voters preferred Romney’s visions, values, and leadership.

[mainiac]

...six page breakdown...

This makes me wonder. Is the demographic cliff overrated, then? Perhaps the Republicans could have a real shot in 2016? I mean,

The majority of voters preferred Romney’s visions, values, and leadership.

It's just a matter of conflating polls on a specific question with a more general statement.  It's sloppy statistics.  I could easily show the opposite by conflating something like "who do you trust to care about people like you?" with voters trust democrats more on the economy.  News articles do this all the time, just learn to ignore it.

Personally I prefer what the numbers guys say then the wishy washy political writers (who are basically useless IMHO).  The numbers guys say that Obama only outperformed expectations a little, less then 2% of the vote.  There is no mystery to be explained by Romney being an exceptionally weak candidate although he might have been a bit sub-par.  Maybe you'd notice the difference if the republicans nominated someone exceptionally strong like Eisenhower next time, but I don't see anyone like Eisenhower around now that Petraeus is out of the picture.

But the "demographic cliff" thing is probably overblown.  The two party system has a strong tendency to produce two competitive parties.  I don't know what will make the republicans adapt but I suspect they will adapt because that's what centuries of history tells us they will do.  Hopefully they adapt by being less dickish in the future.