Given all the frustration built up with months of debt-ceiling Kabuki Theater, it wouldn’t have been surprising if a rough draft of the President’s address to the country Monday night didn’t look something like this:
“And so I say to House Speaker Boehner, who’s actually a nicer guy than he’s letting on, ‘John, how about telling your people to try putting country over self. At least remind them that it does remain an option. This game of fiscal chicken in front of the whole world is as embarrassing as it is frightening.
“‘We’re all stakeholders, we’re all in positions of ultimate responsibility and we’re all under the gun, John. Whether it’s AARP and others calling me, in effect, a Social Security and Medicare traitor or those on your side of the aisle getting their no-taxes, let’s secede-from-the-social-compact marching orders from Tea Party rabble, Grover Norquist and cable news talking sphincters. The only thing being compromised around here is good faith.’
“But here’s what I find ‘vile’ and ‘despicable,’ if I may traffic in some vintage Allen West language, and that is that Republican leadership guys are afraid they’ll be ‘primaried’ if they’re seen to have given in on the revenue side of any deficit-reduction deal with me. By yielding to their own extortionists, they are in league with those more interested in discrediting me for 2012 than maintaining America’s credit rating. If the price to pay for downgrading my Administration is the downgrading of our bonds, they’re willing to pay it.
“Put it this way. There’s self-serving, partisan politics as usual–and then there’s federal debt- default brinksmanship. That’s ‘vile’; that’s ‘despicable’; and that’s sure in hell un-American, no matter what kind of Founding Father mantle you want to wrap yourself in.
“To those in such leadership positions I say, ‘Man up. What’s the worst that can happen as a result of doing the right thing? You don’t get re-elected? Helluva loss for the country. But it’s not like you’d be unemployed like so many of your fellow Americans. Hell, you’ll be lobbyists or consultants or pundits–or back in your law practice in no time
“‘Country over self. What a concept. Maybe you’ll even sleep better at night.’
“I know the rest of the country would.”