The biggest game of chicken

[DFW]

In economic terms, this is the crossing of the Rubicon, the annexation of the Sudetenland, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the shelling of Fort Sumter.

Bonehead really thinks he has the wind at his back and thinks Obama and the Democrats will blink and cave. Obama and Geithner only have 3 weeks to prepare for the global consequences of an American default. If we do, we'll see gold over $1600, silver way back over $40, and the Euro at way over $1.50, on its way to testing its old high against the dollar when Cheneybush was mismanaging things.

If Obama has an ounce of sense in his head, he has had a contingency plan ready for months, anticipating the Republicans bringing us to default, and how to properly blame them if and when things go to hell in a basket. You KNOW that Frank Luntz and Karl Rove have been doing exactly the same thing on the Dark Side.

The is the showdown at Last Chance Gulch. A wishy-washy "historic compromise" that just shoves the serious discussions six months down the road just is not going to cut it this time. It's bluff-calling time. Most Republicans that have any kind of a clue about the consequences don't really want to force a default. The problem is: Republicans that have a clue are a distinct minority today in the Senate and the House. There are not many left. That much is obvious by now, and you don't need a doctorate in political science to know it. So, Obama knows it.

Howard Dean told me a couple of months ago that Obama had an inner group that was great at running a campaign, but poor at running the White House and the government. There have not been a lot of changes. Rahm is (thankfully) gone, and some of the campaign guys have gone back to prepare for being just that again next year. But a tight, dynamic inner circle has been lacking. Obama has to take the reins, decisively, forcefully, and lead this charge, because it's going to be bloody if we default. The winner of the blame game gets inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2013. Barack Obama must show, with this issue, that he is the only logical choice. He doesn't need to be led to water, he can find that on his own. But we still can't force him to drink.

Bonehead and McTurtle will be on the talk show warpath, that is a given, and Fox Noise will be screaming propaganda so shrill, it would have made Göbbels blush with embarrassment. We need our best voices out there to counter the bile. Obama and Biden ARE our best voices. They must use them, preferably starting NOW. It's time for the other side to blink.

[nofurylike]

very good points, DFW.

boner blinked yesterday.
President Obama does know what he is doing, and who he is dealing with.

i agree, we must speak and write and speak and write more "to counter the bile."
i hope you write letters to editors, because you do have a gift for expression!

thank you for doing the work of that, and for posting it for us!

[Willinois]

(07-10-2011 04:24 AM)nofurylike Wrote:  i agree, we must speak and write and speak and write more "to counter the bile."
i hope you write letters to editors, because you do have a gift for expression!

Sorry, but the left can't do that because all our pundits and bloggers are telling us to fight against Obama's imaginary cuts to social security.

[nofurylike]

(07-12-2011 06:15 PM)Willinois Wrote:  

(07-10-2011 04:24 AM)nofurylike Wrote:  i agree, we must speak and write and speak and write more "to counter the bile."
i hope you write letters to editors, because you do have a gift for expression!

Sorry, but the left can't do that because all our pundits and bloggers are telling us to fight against Obama's imaginary cuts to social security.

oops! thank you for reminding me, Willinois! what was i thinking?!



thank you!

[DFW]

Believe it or not, I do on occasion write LTTE, and some of them even get published. The biggest feather in my cap was when, after some stupid comment by Newt Gingrich was published in the Financial Times of London saying (before the 2008 election) that the Republicans were emulating the better points of Sarkozy in France, I wrote a rebuttal saying that the Democrats were the ones using the more positive points of Sarkozy's electoral campaign, and ignoring the bad ones. The FT ran my letter without shortening it, and my letter was almost as long as Gingrich's editorial!

But I got a head start. My father was one of the last unsung great print journalists in Washington. He was president of the Gridron Club, which you usually never get to be if you are just a one-man Washington bureau from a paper in a one-horse town in the Boonies, which he was. He started with that paper in the 1940s and stayed with them until he died, more than 50 years later. In the sixties, he had two good friends in the U.S. Senate named Bob. One was Kennedy, and the other was Dole. My dad was one of the few journalists ever cited in the Congressional Record by both staunch Democrats (e.g. Pat Moynihan) and far right Republicans (e.g. Gerry Solomon) for fairness and dedication. A proud Democrat all his life, my dad never let his personal views allow him to write anything he didn't check out as factual. He got angry calls from the Capitol Hill offices of congresspeople of both parties when he called them out on something, but the one thing they could never catch him on was being flat out wrong on a fact. Most of his friends are gone now, but I still get to hang with one of them several times a year when I'm back in Washington (Helen Thomas, who at 91 is still as feisty as ever).

So, if there's one thing I DID learn at home, it was how to write, even if nowhere nearly as good as he did. Some shoes are too big to fill.

**as an aside--at the urging of 3 friends, I decided to try my hand at writing a novel. One of the three is in France, and you probably never heard of her, but the other two, Ruth Westheimer and Stan Lee, are not strangers to the entertainment world. Wish me luck!!! I even got a great plug from Howard Dean, to whom I gave an advance copy. Most Republicans would probably not like it, I fear....LOL!!

[nofurylike]

(07-10-2011 06:31 AM)DFW Wrote:  Believe it or not, I do on occasion write LTTE, and some of them even get published. The biggest feather in my cap was when, after some stupid comment by Newt Gingrich was published in the Financial Times of London saying (before the 2008 election) that the Republicans were emulating the better points of Sarkozy in France, I wrote a rebuttal saying that the Democrats were the ones using the more positive points of Sarkozy's electoral campaign, and ignoring the bad ones. The FT ran my letter without shortening it, and my letter was almost as long as Gingrich's editorial!

But I got a head start. My father was one of the last unsung great print journalists in Washington. He was president of the Gridron Club, which you usually never get to be if you are just a one-man Washington bureau from a paper in a one-horse town in the Boonies, which he was. He started with that paper in the 1940s and stayed with them until he died, more than 50 years later. In the sixties, he had two good friends in the U.S. Senate named Bob. One was Kennedy, and the other was Dole. My dad was one of the few journalists ever cited in the Congressional Record by both staunch Democrats (e.g. Pat Moynihan) and far right Republicans (e.g. Gerry Solomon) for fairness and dedication. A proud Democrat all his life, my dad never let his personal views allow him to write anything he didn't check out as factual. He got angry calls from the Capitol Hill offices of congresspeople of both parties when he called them out on something, but the one thing they could never catch him on was being flat out wrong on a fact. Most of his friends are gone now, but I still get to hang with one of them several times a year when I'm back in Washington (Helen Thomas, who at 91 is still as feisty as ever).

So, if there's one thing I DID learn at home, it was how to write, even if nowhere nearly as good as he did. Some shoes are too big to fill.

**as an aside--at the urging of 3 friends, I decided to try my hand at writing a novel. One of the three is in France, and you probably never heard of her, but the other two, Ruth Westheimer and Stan Lee, are not strangers to the entertainment world. Wish me luck!!! I even got a great plug from Howard Dean, to whom I gave an advance copy. Most Republicans would probably not like it, I fear....LOL!!

wow, DFW, i have often been fascinated by your posts and experiences, but this is more than i'd imagined! a novel? i can see that, since i can see your talent. but, maybe add an autobiography, too!!

i hope you will write more here on DFP about your life. maybe on the social forums. it sounds so amazing, considering you spent your life surrounded by people we are so deeply involved with, daily, but will not know but through media.

also, please tell us some about your novel? maybe at Winky's Tap Room. to send an advance copy, it must be finished, yes? to be published soon?

(have you already told all of this, and i missed it completely? if so, i apologize. it is exciting, and must be very much so for you!)

thank you for telling me about that!!

and please, do write more LTTEs!! they are needed!!

[DFW]

Whoa, slow down! LOL

The novel IS completed, but I have just started the process of looking for an agent, and I've been warned that these days, they all think they're Nancy Reagan, and "just say no," so don't expect to see my book at your local Barnes and Noble just yet. Actually, if I get nowhere, I can just self publish, and try my luck. With good words from Howard Dean and Stan Lee, SOMEBODY will notice, right? Well, maybe not! LOL

I haven't yet posted about this, so you missed nothing. You may yet say that AFTER having read it, too, so be forewarned! LOL

Actually, I'll let you in on a little secret that's not so secret. On another board, there is a very nice woman who goes by the name of "California Peggy." I sent her a copy just to test it out on someone I had never met. She not only loved it, but said I should write a sequel! So, I know I'd sell at least one copy! I don't want to get into too much of the plot on a board here. It is copyrighted, but stealing plot ideas is rampant, and you never know who is reading. I will let on that it involves rare wine vintages, Southern California, France, Virginia, Basques, lawyers, Guatemalans, old coins, the mafia, romance and Thomas Jefferson. For starters.

How's THAT for leaving you no wiser than you were before?

[nofurylike]

(07-10-2011 08:02 AM)DFW Wrote:  Whoa, slow down! LOL

The novel IS completed, but I have just started the process of looking for an agent, and I've been warned that these days, they all think they're Nancy Reagan, and "just say no," so don't expect to see my book at your local Barnes and Noble just yet. Actually, if I get nowhere, I can just self publish, and try my luck. With good words from Howard Dean and Stan Lee, SOMEBODY will notice, right? Well, maybe not! LOL

I haven't yet posted about this, so you missed nothing. You may yet say that AFTER having read it, too, so be forewarned! LOL

Actually, I'll let you in on a little secret that's not so secret. On another board, there is a very nice woman who goes by the name of "California Peggy." I sent her a copy just to test it out on someone I had never met. She not only loved it, but said I should write a sequel! So, I know I'd sell at least one copy! I don't want to get into too much of the plot on a board here. It is copyrighted, but stealing plot ideas is rampant, and you never know who is reading. I will let on that it involves rare wine vintages, Southern California, France, Virginia, Basques, lawyers, Guatemalans, old coins, the mafia, romance and Thomas Jefferson. For starters.

How's THAT for leaving you no wiser than you were before?

LOL! no rush at all. i am excited for you, though, DFW! it must be a thrill to have someone read it and feel that way about it!

i will be plenty patient, and i do look forward to reading it - especially since i now have all kinds of intricate 'plots' running through my head connecting "rare wine vintages, Southern California, France, Virginia, Basques, lawyers, Guatemalans, old coins, the mafia, romance and Thomas Jefferson." i can't wait to find out how you weave those together!

thank you so much for telling me about this, DFW! i very much look forward to reading it someday!

and believe me, i do know what you're up against in today's publishing industry. self-publishing has come a long way since the days of vanity presses. knowledgeable people now recognize how absolutely nepotistic the publishing industry really is.

BEST of LUCK!!

you do have a smooth flow to your writing! and humor!

[Born_A_Truman]

So DFW, is it still your opinion that the GOP's corporate owners will put a stop to this madness before we get to the edge of default?

I said when the unemployment benefits and tax cut showdown happened that the next GOP hostage situation would be the debt ceiling.

[DFW]

I am less confident than before, but I think it all rests on Obama's shoulders--NOT for any great aces up his sleeve or secret negotiating chips in his right pocket, but IF he can manage, in the next week, to bring his best speech writers and his oratory power to bear and frame the discussion so that the Republicans will get the blame, then, yes, I think that is this case, where the people with the most money stand to lose more of their fortunes than those with less of it, they will find some rhetorical keyhole to squeeze through and crow that they made Obama blink. All he has to do is smile like the cat that swallowed the canary and say "suuuure you did," and he'll make them look ridiculous (more so than they already do, I mean).

The international markets obviously do not agree with me, as the gold price shot up to a record $1570+ and looks to be solidly sticking there. It will fall dramatically if a deal with any substance is struck. If not, hold on to your wedding bands--they'll soon be worth more than your cars.