Republican retreat at Fiscal Cliff
By Wes Pruden
PrudenPolitics.com
Politics is not a game that comes naturally to
Republicans. Little boys in Republican families
usually want a briefcase, not a baseball glove, a
football or a boxing glove for their sixth birthday.
Ronald Reagan, the modern Republican icon, was a
Democrat first, after all.
The
giants of Congress when Congress was respected –
and, more important, feared – by nearly everyone,
were mostly Democrats, and Southern Democrats
besides.
So
there’s no surprise now that Barack Obama, armed
with a well-fitting suit, well-shined shoes, a gift
of gab and a unique skill at hijacking America for
extended guilt trips, is about to roll the
Republicans at the lip of Fiscal Cliff.
Several Republicans who were breathing fire (or at
least an occasional puff of smoke) only yesterday,
loudly proclaiming themselves warrior heroes in the
war on irresponsible spending and the evils of big
government, are searching now for something white to
run up the regimental flagstaff.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bob Corker of
Tennessee and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia – what
passes now for stalwart Republicans – have signaled
to the White House that now that they’ve got the
speechifying off their chests, they’re ready to do
what they said they would never do. They want to
relieve the president of any notion that he’ll have
to offer something in return for their help to raise
taxes. A pat on the head would be nice, but not
necessary.
Republicans are brought up to believe that it’s
always easier to switch than fight, and better
manners besides. Making noise, even to call a
lifeguard when someone is drowning, is a breach of
pool-side etiquette.
Nearly everyone understands that something must be
done about the national debt and the mortgage on
America held by China, lest Barack Obama and the
Democrats turn America into Greece without the
garlic. This might even require a combination of
selected tax increases and deep cuts in spending,
particularly cuts in the entitlements that have
reduced large swaths of the population – Mitt
Romney’s “47 percent” – to waiting for government
checks, drawn on the public’s bank account.
But a
surrender before negotiations begin is a craven and
silly strategy. The November election results have
frightened many Republican politicians who read
daily prescriptions for Republican recovery in the
New York Times and the Washington Post and conclude
that the only strategy for winning like Democrats
must be sex-change surgery.
Saxby
Chambliss, for one prominent example, led the flight
from the sound of the guns, renouncing his
no-new-taxes pledge even before hearing an Obama
promise to cut spending. In the past, such
Democratic promises haven’t been worth much. Mr.
Chambliss is an experienced sunshine soldier.
He
took military deferments during the Vietnam war, and
never served; in an earlier, more robust America,
this would have been called “draft-dodging.” Running
later against Sen. Max Cleland, who left several
arms and legs on the Vietnam battlefield, Mr.
Chambliss suggested in one campaign commercial that
the amputee warrior was a soulmate of Osama bin
Laden and Saddam Hussein simply because he was
skeptical of the creation of the Homeland Security
Administration.
The
campaign commercial, over the line or not, was
clever, one Republican strategist said, because it
worked. John McCain, who had proved a thing or two
about patriotism and raw courage in a prison cell at
the notorious Hanoi Hilton, called the Chambliss
commercial “worse than disgraceful, it’s
reprehensible.”
But
even Mr. McCain sometimes has trouble with what the
Marines call “fire discipline,” shooting when the
shooter later wishes he hadn’t. A fortnight ago, he
warned President Obama not to appoint Susan Rice,
the ambassador to the United Nations, as secretary
of state because she led the White House cover-up of
what happened in Benghazi. But now he and Miss Rice
are blowing kisses at each other. Lindsey Graham,
who had romped when Mr. McCain stomped, now says she
only should be held “accountable” for whatever it
was that she did, if she did.
Second thoughts may be better than no thoughts at
all, but politicians who succeed at flying by the
seat of their pants know that the climb-down from
brave talk never feels as good as blowing hard in
the first place.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss
Republicans tempted to renounce their no-tax pledges
in return for a few nice words from the Democratic
media should keep in mind what happened to President
George Bush the elder. He invited one and all to
“read my lips, no new taxes.” One and all did just
that. The rest is history, about what happens to
faithless politicians.
Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington
Times.