Sorry Larry, but Barack Obama is not Mr. Spock playing a brilliant maneuver in 11-dimensional chess

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In early 2009, the media villagers became fixated on the notion of Barack Obama as Mr. Spock from Star Trek, and no, not because of his ears. It was because Obama was "too cool," never displaying human emotion, always rational and logical. Obama is Spock: It's quite logical – Salon.com.

This week Lawrence O'Donnell on his MSNBC program The Last Word has revived this notion that Barack Obama is Mr. Spock playing 11-dimensional chess with Republican negotiators who are too dumb to figure out they have walked into a trap, and that Obama's brilliant maneuver has delivered him victory. O'Donnell's point about Obama's position is that "there is no agreement until everything is agreed to." With all due respect, duh! That's known as the "meeting of the minds" in contract law.

Here is Lawrence O'Donnell's segment from Wednesday in which he describes Sen. Mitch McConnell's "backup" plan on raising the federal debt ceiling as retreat and surrender.

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Lawrence O'Donnell is an experienced Senate staffer who crafted complex budget packages during the Clinton years, and I have always found his political insights and analysis far closer to reality than other political commentators. But this strikes me as political spin not supported by any observable evidence.

I have often said that I would love to be negotiating a deal with President Obama because his opening position always seems to be to give the other side their opening position. Knowing this in advance always encourages overreaching by asking for the sun, the moon and the stars. If this is how they teach negotiation at Harvard Law School, an Ivy League education is vastly overrated. I haven't seen any evidence of Mr. Spock playing a brilliant maneuver in 11-dimensional chess in the past three years, and I don't see any evidence of it now.

What I do see is a president who genuinely believes in his "I want to be a post partisan president" rhetoric. Obama believes that if each side gives a little and gets a little that it somehow makes it a "centrist" solution and a win-win compromise for everyone. Kumbaya.

But as I explained earlier, when the starting point for one side is overreaching by asking for the sun, the moon and the stars, those negotiations are never going to wind up in equilibrium. The balance is always going to tilt hard to the side that engages in bad faith negotiations when they know that you are willing to capitulate to their overreaching demands to get the deal. "The deal" should never be an end unto itself. Sometimes you have to be willing to walk away from the table to get the deal you want later on.

That is why I have to agree with Joan McCarter at Daily Kos, whose opinion I also respect, over Lawrence O'Donnell on this matter. McCarter explains the "hybrid deal" being negotiated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for a 'Senate first" option. (It is never a wise move to put your fate in the hands of the Senate). Reid, McConnell working on 'hybrid' solution to bypass House GOP in debt standoff:

There's yet another proposal in the works on the debt-ceiling, this one from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, which would couple McConnell's rather convoluted capitulation with big spending cuts. And no new revenues.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is working with McConnell on this approach. Aides said the two are discussing a strategy that would pair McConnell’s debt-limit proposal with at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts identified through bipartisan talks that Vice President Biden has led in recent weeks.

The deal also could create a committee of 12 lawmakers who would be assigned with identifying trillions of dollars in additional savings. The panel’s recommendations would be fast-tracked to votes in the House and the Senate and would not be subject to amendment, a process similar to the one Congress uses for closing military bases.

Congressional Democrats welcomed the approach, as did rank-and-file Republican senators. The Obama administration has reacted more cautiously, but views the approach as a last resort.

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Oh, just brilliant. We would get cuts, another pre-determined vote before election that again hangs the deficit around Obama's neck, and no revenue increase. And huge cuts to Medicaid, which were offered in the Biden talks. That's snatching defeat from the jaws of a potential clean debt ceiling vote. And on top of that it creates a new "deficit commission" compromised solely of lawmakers who would be tasked with finding additional savings in the budget," that would get "automatic, amendment-free votes in both chambers of Congress." You know how that would turn out: Republicans on the commission would demand privatized Social Security and Medicare and the Democrats would end up compromising the programs away.

McCarter has more today. White House working with Reid, McConnell on 'Plan B' for debt ceiling deal:

The extremely ugly and counter-productive all-cuts, no-revenue, Democrats-take-the-blame for the deficit plan the respective Senate leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have cooked up appears to have attracted a third negotiator: the White House.

* * *

By all reports, the plan would combine the relatively clean debt ceiling vote proposal McConnell originally forwarded and be "sweetened" with spending cuts, possibly those already identified in the Biden talks, which might include the chained CPI COLA cuts to Social Security and the new blended rate formula for cutting state Medicaid support. It tacks on a new deficit commission comprised of members of Congress.

Steve Benen writes that the "no revenue" part of the idea, which would make it unacceptable to most Democrats, could be blunted.

And what about Dems, who aren’t likely to approve of a Plan B that includes $1.5 trillion in cuts but nothing in the way of new revenue? Rumor has it the plan will include a few sweeteners for the left, including a possible extension of unemployment benefits, while shielding entitlements from the list of cuts.

It’s easy to imagine Plan B gathering some momentum very quickly today. Indeed, if there’s a solid bipartisan Senate majority on board with its details, the White House signals its grudging support, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) gives it his seal of approval (as appears likely), the plan would start to look like the life-preserver Washington has been waiting for.

It looks like that could be precisely what's happening: Boehner has given a grudging okay, and the White House is engaged. Democrats have had to swallow a crappy plan before with the unemployment benefits sweetener added; that's how the big tax deal capitulation of last December moved forward. Now they could be facing another big capitulation on taxes, a tiny tax plan compared to last December, and it looks like they could be being set up to capitulate again.

Sorry Larry, this doesn't look anything like victory to me. It looks like a president willing to negotiate away the Democrats' huge polling advantage on taxing corporations and the rich for more revenue and protecting social security and Medicare beneficiaries from cuts in the hugely unpopular GOP budget plan of Rep. Paul Ryan.

This is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by giving the GOP something they can hang their hat on simply for the objective of "the deal." Obama is letting them out of the trap that Tea-Publicans really set for themselves so that everyone can save face and claim it is a win-win compromise. Obama is not asking for nor will he accept the GOP surrender. He is letting them escape to fight another day, a decision that he and Americans may soon come to regret.