Never Let a Crisis..

Now that S&P has chastised the DC political process as the cassus belli of their credit de-rating the Democrats have quickly seen a silver lining around the giant debt thunderstorm. No, not this statist twit--but turning everything around on the Tea Party.

Over at Hot Air Captain Ed marvels at a Rasmussen poll showing almost 30 percent of those surveyed agreeing that Tea Partiers are not much different than the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That's a staggeringly large percentage for such a slanderous canard, even if they're all Democrats.

It should not be a surprise, though. We have a president who refuses to acknowledge that people in his party--even within his administration--are basically calling a faction within Congress "terrorists". Imagine if someone in his administration called the Congressional Black Caucus terrorists? He should have publicly condemned such comments today in his comments but apparently he stayed on TOTUS points.

Perhaps it's because he sees a visions of sugar plums ahead, media headlines such as, "Tea Party terrorists refuse to pass Obama bills, economy continues to suffer as result". Eventually the entire issue--his main achilles heel--could get stripped away and dumped on the back of those who were only trying to stop the dept chuck wagon all along.

The question is whether this strategery will work on moderates. If history is a judge the GOP will buckle long before the meme dies due to the very prospect of losing moderates, which gives O his Joe the Plumber moment. But there are ways to cave. Here's one: demand that the Clinton tax increases be restored. In their entirety. And demand a percentage of those new 'revenues' be automatically tied to debt reduction--or no deal.

Such a move would force those salivating over screwing the rich to explain why everyone shouldn't have to share the sacrifice. It would also wake up a bunch of moderates who've fallen for the lie that the Bush tax cuts were only for 'the rich'. The GOP could issue videos showing how much everyone would pay extra, and how it would be applied to the debt. If people complained they could be reminded that nobody on the left complained during the 90s when Clinton raised taxes and the budget got balanced--with Newt and company in control of the purse strings.

If Obama balked over raising taxes on everyone (to save the country) he'd have to explain his unwillingness to compromise (or defend his lack or patriotism, terrorism, or whatever the going buzz phrase might be). If he called the bluff and said "OK" it would result in revenues going directly to debt reduction instead of this or such new ballooning program. Could work.