I see no reason to contribute to a thread which uses stupidly gratuitous gutter language even in its title.

The subject is worthy of better than that.





And in fact it's clear to me, though some of the instant analysis I've read so far disagrees:

Obama won this game of chicken handily.

Main reason:

The "tea party" did not get close to its required $100 billion in cuts this fiscal year. It did not even get $60 billion.   The figure I've seen is $39 billion.


And the "tea party" is full of true believers who think "compromise" is the worst kind of gutter language.

So now everybody in the center or left of center will have the pleasure of witnessing one of the most vicious civil wars on the Right that we have seen.    The "tea party" will not be happy with what Boehner has agreed with.

And the true believers in "social issues" have also lost bigtime.   The vote on defunding Planned Parenthood has been stripped out of the must-pass budget bill. And there is no way the opponents of Planned Parenthood will win the vote when it comes up.


And make no mistake:   Obama and the Democrats were in big trouble up to last night.   A shutdown would have hurt the economy--a hugely more important factor than in 1995.

Furthermore, the Republicans had an unanswerable argument on the budget problem:   you Democrats had huge majorities in both Houses and were still unable to pass one budget bill.   Why should you be trusted with governing.?

The Republicans were in an extremely powerful position last night--but they blinked anyway.

Obama had to sign whatever bill came out on the budget, regardless of how many riders poisonous to his base were buried in the bill.

But he and the Democrats got those riders stripped out.


There's no question who comes out of this sorry affair the best:   Obama and the Democrats.   They escaped the wrath of the public.   And now comes the civil war on the Right.

And the economy can continue to recover.