Monday’s New York Times pretty much serves as Barack Obama’s obituary.
To Escape Chaos, a Terrible Deal
There is little to like about the tentative agreement between Congressional leaders and the White House except that it happened at all. The deal would avert a catastrophic government default, immediately and probably through the end of 2012. The rest of it is a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists.
At least the Times editors didn’t call them terrorists.
Next up – Mr. Buzzkill Paul Krugman:
The President Surrenders
A deal to raise the federal debt ceiling is in the works. If it goes through, many commentators will declare that disaster was avoided. But they will be wrong.
For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.
Adding insult to injury, the normally dismissable Ross Douthat piles on:
The Diminished President
By rights, Barack Obama should be emerging as the big political winner in the debt ceiling debate. For months, he’s positioned himself near the center of public opinion, leaving Republicans to occupy the rightward flank. Poll after poll suggests that Americans prefer the president’s call for a mix of spending cuts and tax increases to the Republican Party’s anti-tax approach. Poll after poll shows that House Republicans, not Obama, would take most of the blame if the debt ceiling weren’t raised.
Yet the president’s approval ratings have been sinking steadily for weeks, hitting a George W. Bush-esque low of 40 percent in a recent Gallup survey. The voters incline toward Obama on the issues, still like him personally and consider the Republican opposition too extreme. But they are increasingly judging his presidency a failure anyway.
Clearly, this debt ceiling deal hasn’t helped.
Campaign Outsider 
I’m gonna assume you got his first name wrong on purpose, because he’s not only dismissable, but forgettable. Anyway, seems to me the Times got it all just about right.
Ooops. Thanks.
At least the NYT is being honest. This “deal” was in no way a compromise – it was a hostage negotiation. Republicans may have not gotten 100% of what they wanted, but Democrats got 0% of what THEY wanted.
Obama’s negotiating with himself strategy has eroded his base significantly. All cuts and no stimulus means we’re headed for a double-dip recession – there’s NO chance that unemployment gets down to 8% by election day. Republicans should be dancing in the streets with this result.
Goodness. He gave in to a Republican Party that was declared dead in December 2008.
THAT Republican party IS dead. Well, re-branded – they had to do it given that they pretty much destroyed the economy.
Necrofilibuster.
Weigel has a “form” to fill out to create your own debt deal denunciation here:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/08/01/write_your_own_angry_debt_deal_denunciation_.html
Can you top Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., who called the deal a “sugar-coated Satan sandwich”?
I cannot.
Served with a large glass of vintage Chateau Sour Grapes 2010.
Cheers!
Very true – always pair red wine with Satan. He’ll boil the whites and rosé just pisses him off.