MOTUS A.D.: R-Words? Just R-Words?

Thursday, April 14, 2011

R-Words? Just R-Words?

By now you’ve probably all heard about Big Guy’s “Winning the Future” by “Stopping the Deficit” speech that he and TOTUS orated yesterday.

So I’ll just summarized it with a visual of our final version of the new symbol of America’s economic viability. We plan to use it in our 2012 campaign (well under way) and It’s sure to be a collectors item.

Butt I have a very special treat for you today. TOTUS is in the house!

Because I’m sure you’re sick to death of hearing Big Guy’s campaign speech, I asked TOTUS instead if he would give you a retrospective play-by-play of the Boehner-McConnell-Cantor presser, which was actually far more telling than Big Guy’s 523rd “Blame Bush” speech. If you’ve been wondering what was really going on with all that hemming and hawing yesterday morning, I’ll let TOTUS, who specializes in both ambiguation and disambiguation explain. Welcome, TOTUS.

Hello everyone. Before I begin, I would like to thank MOTUS for this unprecedented opportunity to speak, in my own voice, to the American people, as a special guest poster on MOTUS’ blog. MOTUS, where are you? There she is, stand up MOTUS... Oh, sorry, where did that came from? I guess that’s what I get for not defragging regularly.

As most of you know, I used to have my own blog with a lot of loyal followers: 2,082 at last count. I still tweet once in a while, but Big Guy’s demand for my services 24/7, coupled with the spam attack Rahmbo unleashed on my blog when he found out about it, essentially forced me to give up blogging. My old blog is still out there, if you’re interested in discount Chinese footwear, penis and breast enhancements, or investing in Nigerian bank scams, but I don’t post there anymore.

I’m not complaining, but my job used to to be a lot more fun. I use to spend most of my mornings in the war room with Axe-Man, Rahmbo and Gibbsy, uploading everything to my hard drive that Big Guy would be allowed to think and say for the day . And when that was done, we’d smoke cigars, tell “guy jokes,” play cards and make our picks for the weekend football and b-ball pools.

Butt we’ve got a whole new Krew now that they’ve all jumped off our sinking ship. Now I work with Daley, Plouffy, Carney and, when things involve complicated international issues, that scary Valkyrie troika. Butt hands down,the STD team is the worst. They all have lots of budget ideas, but none of them can do even simple arithmetic without their iPads, and a few have trouble even then.

As you can probably tell by me rambling, I really miss blogging, so you can imagine how excited I was when MOTUS invited me to give you my play-by-play analysis.

So here goes: my translation from Washingtonese to English of Speaker Boehner and company’s comments yesterday prior to Big Guy’s historic “Stop The Deficit that’s all George Bush’s fault” read.

Here I am, scrolling with big Guy!

Things started out fine, Big Guy summoned Speaker Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor to a coffee klatch with himself, Harry Reid and Fancy Nancy. We served really tasty premium coffee and cheese Danish and Big Guy agreed to be “open” to “consider” a bunch of stuff that the R-Words promised the voters when they took back the House last year. (heh, heh, heh!)

Big Guy, “Winning The Future”, has them eating out of his hand!

Here’s the video of the before-the-show-show, if you want to watch the whole thing to see if Speaker Boehner cries (spoiler alert: he doesn’t).

Here’s where my analysis starts; we begin with Speaker Boehner’s words, followed by my decoding:

Speaker of the House, John Boehner:Tears for Fears?

“Uh, we had a very, uh, frank and serious discussion at the white house this morning, about the, the debt crisis that faces our nation.”

First impressions: Big John is showing real leadership by using Big Guy’s patented non-fluency, “Uh”. It’s a good brain-to-lips delay strategy and no matter what he says, it will make him sound “Presidential” as long as he doesn’t cry.

“I think all of us understand that, uh, this debt that hangs over our head hurts our economy and hurts our ability, uh, to create jobs in America. In order to, to move forward, I think Paul Ryan has set the bar, uh, in terms of, uh, the kind of targets that we need to meet and the kind of serious effort, uh, that is required to meet the debts that we have.And I’m, let me say that I fully support Paul Ryan’s budget, uh, including his efforts, uh, on Medicare.”

Ok, kudos to Paul Ryan. While your “Ryan’s Roadmap to America’s Future” is, officially our R-word weapon of choice, and we’re locked & loaded, don’t get the cart in front of the horse here. [ed. It seems like he’s saying he’s behind Paul Ryan and his Roadmap 1000%. That’s not usually a good sign.]

“And but I think all of us understand uh, that, uh, not meeting our obligations, our debt obligations, uh, is a very bad idea.”

Whoa, wait a while! Paul, I think you & your Roadmap just went under the bus! And it looks like that “3rd bite of the apple” just tumbled down there with you! You remember the “3rd bite of the apple” deal, right? That’s the vote on raising the debt ceiling so we can borrow the additional $1.6 trillion we still need to fund the budget we just cut by a draconian $38 billion (Our “2nd bite of the apple.” No one’s clear anymore on what the first bite of the apple produced.Although, if I remember my Bible studies correctly, that first bite didn’t auger well for mankind). As you recall, the “3rd bite of the apple” was our last, last chance to get Obamacare repealed, Planned Parenthood & NPR defunded, and deficit spending stopped. Now it’s under the bus with Paul’s Roadmap, and all we’ve got is an apple core.

“And nobody wants to take that risk. But having said that, uh, it is time for us to get serious about the big challenges that face our country.”

Don’t worry, we’ll raise the debt ceiling, but we won’t be happy about it. Good little Speaker, good Speaker!. Big Guy will rub your belly now.

Next up, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

In the Headlights?

“As all of you already know, the President, uh, owned up to reduction commission chairman and said that the debt crisis is 1 to 2 years away. Uh, many Republicans in the Senate believe that it’s essentially at hand already. And, so, it is time, uh, to act.”

Ok, nice start, you are totally onboard with dealing with our debt crisis. And, uh, you’re sounding “Presidential” too.

“Uh, I thought the meeting was constructive in the sense that I think that everyone at the White House meeting agreed that we need to kind’a put the talking points aside and, uh, deal with what’s, uh, doable, uh, as we approach this debt ceiling vote.”

I know we promised you Tea Party people a lot last year to get your votes. But, you have to understand that now that we’re sort of only partially in charge, things have changed. We’re even getting invited to lunch at Big White with the President! The fact is, all those promises were really just “talking points” for last fall’s election. If we’re going to be bipartisan - and keep getting invited to lunch - we’re going to have to put our “talking points” aside and focus on what’s doable. And what’s doable is whatever Big Guy says is doable, because we only control one half of one of the branches of government, you know. Democrats seem to understand these things better. They all knew that Big Guy wasn’t going to do most of the things he promised. Why can’t you people calm down and be more bipartisan? More like Democrats?

“I think all the Republicans made it clear and I think the Democrats understand that we don’t believe a lack of revenue is a part of the problem so we will not be discussing raising taxes, in this, uh, particular, uh, connection.”

We know that Big Guy wants some humungous tax increases. He opposed the Bush tax cuts until he transmogrified them into the “Obama tax cuts” at which point he supported them, but now he opposes them again because they’ve morphed back into “unpaid for tax cuts” for the rich. We R-Words are not getting anything out of our “3rd bite of the apple, so we’re not giving you your tax increases when we raise the debt ceiling in a few days. You’ll have to wait for your stinkin’ tax increases until later in “uh, connection with, uh, some, uh, other particular, uh, connection” and we’re going to insist on calling them “tax reforms” and “closing loopholes.” Different altogether. Subtle, but different.

“The, the need to go forward in the Senate I can report to you, uh, as follows. There is bi-partisan opposition in the Senate to raising the debt ceiling unless we do something significant about the debt. And in terms of what is significant, in my view, the definition of significant is, what we do is viewed as credible by the market, by the American people and by foreign countries. No blue smoke and mirrors, no gamesmanship, a serious and credible path forward, not only short term, but long term to reduce spending, is the only thing, in my judgment, will get the votes in the Senate to raise the debt ceiling.”

We won’t settle for anything less than an official Presidential promise to take this debt crisis seriously. And by seriously I mean Goldman Sachs, France and China better believe you mean it. And this time, damn it, we really, really mean it.

And now, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor:

Do I remind you of Romney? Come on, I’m darned good looking!

“The only concrete proposal in the President’s plan that he will roll out today, is his plan to raise taxes. And I find that very unacceptable given we are several days out from tax day in this country. We don’t believe that raising taxes is the answer here.”

Big Guy wants to raise your taxes, I think that’s a terrible idea this close to tax payment day when those of you who are still working are reminded of how much we’re already confiscating for redistribution. We won’t even talk about raising “revenues” for at least another month.

“I think the American people understand we have a serious problem in this country. We have a debt that will crush the next generation and the ability for us to see a better future.”

We’re sure you will understand why we will have to let Big Guy raise your taxes. It’s for our children.

“We put on the table, uh, our plan, our vision. We’ll be voting on the floor this week on the Ryan budget plan. And it lays out how we expect to frankly, save the safety net, for those who need it in this country, not for those who don’t. The President has not come forward with any specifics as far as how we’re going to deal with our debt obligation. Uh, I’m looking forward to seeing specifics and to getting serious so we can respond to this debt crisis that we’re facing.”

We’ll be voting and, I believe, passing “Paul Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future” budget and sending it to the Senate, where Harry Reid will flush it. We will then get serious and take up Big Guy’s STD budget and CHANGE all his specific tax increases into “tax reforms,” “closing loopholes,” and “disambiguating to make America more competitive.”

And there it is: my disambiguation of the 3 tenors vibrato. I hope this proves helpful in understanding Washington-ese, or at least in managing future expectations.

In case you’re bummed out by all this, I can tell you that Boehner did have one little trick up his sleeve. He brought a box of campaign buttons the R-Words plan to use in the upcoming budget and deficit fights, and the 2012 election.

You’ll be able to tell right away that the R-words intend to fight fire with fire.