Obamas New Deal komt er niet doorheen

The bill wasn’t designed to pass. If it was, Obama wouldn’t have loaded it up with tax hikes knowing that Republicans would reject them out of hand. It was designed to draw a party-line vote resulting in a filibuster so that O could (a) blame the GOP for the next 13 months of malaise while (b) claiming that they’d rather protect the rich (the one percent!!!) from new tax burdens than help America recover. He almost got that tonight — sort of. Turns out Lieberman, Manchin, and Jim Webb all agreed to help Obama out with his talking points by voting yes on cloture even though they would have voted no on the final bill. As of a few hours ago, the final tally was so uncertain that lefty Greg Sargent feared Obama wouldn’t even get most Democrats to vote yes, but in the end he did get it. So now The One gets to say, falsely, that a majority of his party backs the plan and that they’re once again being thwarted by those darned obstructionist wingnuts. (That’s why Reid is holding the vote open for Shaheen even though enough votes for a filibuster have already been recorded. O wants to be able to say he had a majority of the entire Senate voting yes.) If only Nelson and Tester had stuck with the caucus, it would have been a perfect outcome for him. None of this gets America any closer to a bipartisan new stimulus, but it might get O a bit closer to being re-elected. And that’s what’s important.