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Clearing the Browser Tabs – Default Before Defeat Friday Edition Posted: 15 Jul 2011 03:10 AM PDT Is there some word that describes what happens when the silly season becomes to silly for the phrase “the silly season”. If so, apply it to what’s been happening in the White House during the debt ceiling debate. Today, Jake Tapper attempted to ask Jay Carney a pretty straightforward question, only to have Carney hose him down with industrial strength blather. Here is the essence of the question: The President has repeatedly maintained that he will not, under any circumstances, accept a short-term deal on the debt ceiling that would temporarily solve the immediate problem but push a vote on the bigger debt and default situation into the thick of the election season. Why is voting on a long-term debt ceiling bill next year worse than going into default? Carney can’t give the honest answer to that question. He knows as well as we that the President doesn’t want fiscal issues to be right in front of the country while he’s on the hustings trying to blame the whole mess on George Bush or Wall Street or body snatchers. It would ruin his main campaign theme: none of this is my fault. Instead, he tried to blow through the answer by the White House Press Corps, most of whom have decided not to Speak Truth to Power until we have a Republican President again. Much credit to Tapper for asking the question Barack Obama most certainly did not want him to ask. By the way, I don’t know what I did right yesterday, but I got a Stacy-lanche, a Nolte-lanche, and an Instalanche all of which brought me more traffic than I’ve gotten in an entire week lately. Thank you, guys, most sincerely. And now, links! My friend Matt at Old Line Elephant is doing local blogging right. He interviewed Ari Winokur, who just entered the race for a seat on the Baltimore City Council. My guess is that his piece will give you more about Winokur than you’ll get from the Baltimore Sun. New media, folks. That’s where it’s at, especially at the local politics level. The Nashville Predators hockey team unveiled their new gold jerseys for next season and they’re very sharp! Preds fans should grab one, confident they’ll be clad in style. The only real question that remains about the failed auto bailout is why it didn’t leave a crater in the general Detroit area about a mile across. It was that large a bomb. (via Rand Simberg) Can you say “horrible optics that the GOP ought to exploit to the hilt”? I knew you could. If you live in one of these 14 cities that are being gutted with glee by the public sector unions, you should be out buying tar and feathers. If you don’t, just wait. The destruction is coming to your city very soon. (via Instapundit) Jimmy Carter? No, I think our President makes Carter look like a piker. This is what real democratic reform for Cuba looks like. I guess “equal rights” doesn’t quite mean what we think it means, at least not in New York. A private space capsule on display at Cape Canaveral? Oh, heck yes! More, and faster, please. My friend Amelia Hamilton has written what looks like a delightful book for kids called One Nation Under God: A Book for Little Patriots. I plan on snagging a copy in the very near future. You should, too, especially if you have young ones around the house.

“Go Ahead…Make My Day” and Other Bluff-Friendly Quotes The President Memorized Yesterday Posted: 14 Jul 2011 01:29 PM PDT I’m no professional poker player, but I’m pretty sure that if I saw someone throw a hissy fit that ends in “Don’t call my bluff” at a table, I’d know two things: He’s bluffing. He’s about to get his bluff called by everyone at the table. That’s where we sit right now with the debt ceiling negotiations. The President, thrower of the Great Stompy Temper Tantrum of 2011, has warned the GOP not to call his bluff, or make his day, or cause him to misbehave, or whatever tough-guy trope he picked up from a helpful aide that morning. He has not, however, picked up a debt ceiling plan, perhaps because he’s been too busy watching action hero movies in preparation for more meetings wherein he can utter such classic lines as “Hasta la vista, Boehner”. Meanwhile Harry Reid, whose Senate Democrats haven’t passed a budget in well over two years, has taken a break from not passing a budget to call mean old Eric Cantor names. The Republicans, who I hasten to add have passed a budget or two in the past two years and who have put at least two debt ceiling plans on the table, are busy trying to get at least one of their plans through the talking points, including even a Balanced Budget Amendment. It’d be nice if they could manage a presser more than once every few days, but baby steps, folks. Baby steps. They’ve accomplished miles more than the President or his Democrat allies have accomplished. Once they figure out that the left has been spending its time talking trash rather than doing work and that the trash-talking is actually working, they’ll start to push back. And then we’ll see a bluff or two called.

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