Mitch McConnel Does That Mitch McConnell Type Thing That Everyone Expects Mitch McConnell to Do

He's voting in favor of cloture -- which is the opposite of Ted Cruz's plan (to the extent there is one) -- and saying he's doing this to support the House's bill to defund ObamaCare, even though he and most politically aware people know it's quite the opposite of that.

Senator McConnell supports the House Republicans’ bill and will not vote to block it, since it defunds Obamacare and funds the government without increasing spending by a penny," the McConnell aide writes in an email. "He will also vote against any amendment that attempts to add Obamacare funding back into the House Republicans’ bill. If and when the Majority Leader goes down that path, Washington Democrats will have to decide—without hiding behind a procedural vote—whether or not to split with their leadership and join Republicans and their constituents in opposing the re-insertion of Obamacare funding into the House-passed bill.”

Right. His whole deal is always "Well we'll lose but we'll get them on the record... on the record as Winning. Then we'll win."

The only excuse here is that Cruz's plan probably won't work (but note that word "probably;" we know giving up definitely won't work) and that it's hard to explain why you're filibustering the House bill.

Eh. It's what I expected. Apparently we're going to just keep adding to our Winning Issues Portfolio by losing.

Meanwhile... I was just talking about this today. People become, for some reason, emotionally invested in their predictions.

Like, the thing we should have absolutely zero confidence about -- predictions about future events -- we suddenly get all ape-shit confident and emotional over.

Like the more Establishment caucus is 100% certain that the public will blame the GOP over a government shutdown, no matter how it happens, and you're a wacko bird if you think differently.

I suppose there may be some Tea Partiers that are 100% sure we'll win with this strategy (whatever it is), though honestly I haven't come across them.

But anyway, people get really upset when you suggest that they are not in fact Psychic and therefore have no reliable insight into Future Events.

The biggest screaming matches around are between This Will Definitely Happen and The Exact Opposite Will Definitely Happen people. Like they're competing Leagues of Psychics and so to disparage their powers of precognition is to slander them on a professional level.

At any rate, all that wind-up for this:

The public splits pretty evenly on who would be to blame if a government shutdown were to occur.

But note that question is asked in an absence of particulars of the hypothetical; apparently the public doesn't like the defunding tactic.

Glenn Reynolds: Obama Is Leading the Charge for a Shutdown: In his USAToday column.

So the Republican-controlled House of Representatives -- with the help of a couple of Democrats -- has voted to defund ObamaCare. In response, President Obama, declaring that the Republicans are "trying to mess with me," has accused the House of trying to shut down the government.

But the government will only shut down if Obama vetoes the budget that comes to his desk. The House budget funds everything except for implementation of the Affordable Care Act better known as ObamaCare. In truth, by refusing even to negotiate with the House leadership and threatening to veto a budget that doesn't fit his own specifications, it is Obama, not the House of Representatives, who is putting the country at risk of a government shutdown.

It's also sadly typical that Obama sees this debate as being all about him.

To some extent that's right. On the other hand, millions of Obama voters' only concern in politics is how Obama's being treated and if he's winning. Ergo, the incessant personalization of policy (a very crude, primitive thing) not only plays towards Obama's narcissism, but towards the idolatry of his minions.

posted by Ace at 05:50 PM

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