Cartoon of the Day - A History of the Sequestration

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(Tom Tomorrow, via Daily Kos)

The Sequester - President Obama's Weekly Address

Quote of the Day

"The idea that the President can necessarily bend Congress to his will is indeed a “dream.” It doesn’t reckon with the most fundamental question at the heart of all of this: What if there is nothing whatsoever that can be done by the president or anyone else to break the GOP out of its no-compromising stance? This isn’t an unreasonable reading of the situation; it’s what Republicans themselves have confirmed, publicly and on the record — they will not concede a penny in new revenues, no matter what. And if this is the case — if the fundamental problem is that Republicans really do prefer the sequester to any compromise — isn’t it incumbent on commentators to explain this clearly and forthrightly to their readers?" -- Greg Sargent in the formerly great Washington Post Kaplan Daily today. A number of progressive commentators have pushed back on the Woodwards/Fourniers/Brookses of the commentariat who persist in seeing Rethuglican obstruction as susceptible to the President's leadership, when in fact nothing -- nothing -- he could do short of giving them 100% of their demands would succeed.

Bob Woodward -- Your Sequestration Hack of the Month

Step up and claim your award, once-great Washington Post Kaplan Daily associate editor Bob Woodward!  As Anne Laurie's piece demonstrates (with essential links to Dave Weigel, Brian Beutler  and Ezra Klein), Woodward is accusing the President of "moving the goal posts" in the sequestration confrontation, when in fact nothing of the sort has taken place.  It's pure enabling on the part of wealthy, Rethuglican-wired Beltway media elites like Woodward to draw attention to a dead sapling while ignoring the forest where the crazies live.

BONUS:  Don't miss Steve Benen's take on Woodward's bungling.

BONUS II: This excerpt from Esquire's Charles Pierce sums up the problem:

"Having done its Watergate thing, the Post slipped comfortably back into its place in the respectable D.C. power structure. Woodward went with it, producing periodically weighty doorstops filled with establishment stenography. He's no more a liberal than he is a member of Motley Crue. He's a courtier to all the right people, the scribe to powerful. He's a journalistic Sadducee. He tends the Temple grounds."

(Photo:  Bob Woodward, desperately trying to make amends for bringing down Richard Nixon.)

Quote of the Day

"The sequester, many people don't know what it is, but it sounds stupid and cruel, so they think it's a Republican thing." --  Democratic strategist James Carville, on today's "Morning Joe" program on MSNBC (our emphasis).   Branding!

Sequestered Cartoon of the Day

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Polling is showing that the President's approval rating is twice that of Congressional Rethuglicans, who get most of the blame for the sequester mess.   The closer we get to the March 1 deadline, the more pressure will be put on the Rethugs to compromise.

(cartoon:  Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Another Rethuglican Blame Game

Rethuglicans are notorious for blaming bad things they've caused on Dems. For example, when they caused the housing collapse by deregulating the financial markets, they blamed low-income Dem voters. Now, their latest dishonest gambit is to blame the upcoming sequester on Dems. The sequester would cut some $85 billion dollars from domestic and defense programs in the next seven months, and result in the layoff of roughly 1 million people working in government support jobs. The New York Times editorial today gives a breakdown of the cuts. They also note the real culprits are the Rethugs, who forced the sequestration by holding the debt ceiling hostage in 2011:

"These cuts, which will cost the economy more than one million jobs over the next two years, are the direct result of the Republican demand in 2011 to shrink the government at any cost, under threat of a default on the nation’s debt. Many Republicans say they would still prefer the sequester to replacing half the cuts with tax revenue increases. But the government spending they disdain is not an abstract concept. In a few days, the cuts will begin affecting American life and security in significant ways." (emphasis added)

So the next time you hear a Rethug politician or pundit dishonestly blame the sequestration on Dems, remember which party is always demanding cuts cuts cuts with no compromise on corporate tax loopholes and other goodies for the wealthy.