This morning MSNBC Willie Geist on First Look, and then the Morning Joe team leads the morning news with Senator John McCain and House Minority Leader John Boehner lecturing the 80 or so novice TeaParty House members to stop holding up a compromise with unrealistic expectations.
While John Boehner takes the football coach like approach of 'kicking their asses," Senator McCain's approach was much more fun, deriding them as naive "TeaParty Hobbits" who are deluded and unfairly, misleading their constituents into believing they can hold out for a Constitutional Amendment to balance budgets.
This partial quote from Huffinton Post I provide here leaves out some of the best parts of Senator McCain's lecture, but I want to get it before you to start your day.
I'm sort of trying to live blog part of MSNBC's morning coverage as it seems to pull together a tremendous number of sources and new events with regard to the debt ceiling. But, I only have fragments, so I'll try to come back later with the rest of the quote.
This first one has the hobbit reference but the sound seems low, the second HuffPo has better sound but is a smaller clip
The context is that the stock markets are in their forth straight day of declines, apparently, over concern for a US default, on August 2. Yesterday, the US stock market was down almost 2%. They seemed to imply that Europe continued moderate declines last night.
Willie Geist opened with Senator Chuck Schummer slamming the Republican Thugs showing a clip of the now famous The Town video, where Republicans held up criminal going out to "hurt someone" as their role model.
Then, followed, with the White House Press Secretary mentioning the clip of Sophie's Choice, where she has to choose between children saying, this is what will happen if the extremist Republican's don't stop fooling around.
Willie Geist also showed an excellent clip of Senator Barbara Boxer saying, 'it's not fair to hold the country hostage. I want to pledge allegience to the US.'
Mike Barnicle laughs and says, "Welcome back John McCain." as they read part of the quote where John McCain rips TeaParty Hobbits.
My best paraphrase of McCain is 'Nobody that knows anything, thinks they can pass a balanced budget amendment. Maybe some folks who've been around for 6 or 7 months or so really believe that,' but they are deluded, and it's unfair to their constituents to lead to to believe this.
Here I'm going to fall back on The Huffington Post John McCain: Tea Party-Backed Lawmakers Making 'Foolish' Demands In Debt Ceiling Debate (VIDEO) for an exact quote of the front part of the speech, even though it misses some of the better latter parts.
Speaking on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had some harsh words for lawmakers on Capitol Hill insisting their demands be met before supporting any potential agreement to raise the debt ceiling.
A plan put forth by House Speaker John Boehner to lift the deficit limit has left some congressional Republicans at odds with members of their party. In the upper congressional chamber, Tea Party-affiliated members such as Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) have come out against the proposal. In the House, GOP lawmakers such as Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) have vowed to cast a vote against any measure to raise the debt ceiling. All three Republicans stand behind a "Cut, Cap, and Balance" pledge, which entails opposing any debt limit increase without significant spending cuts, enforceable spending caps and congressional approval of a balanced budget amendment.
"What is really amazing about this is that some members are believing that we can pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in this body with its present representation -- and that is foolish,” said McCain on the Senate floor, according to The Hill. "That is worse than foolish. That is deceiving many of our constituents.”
The Arizona senator regarded the situation unfolding as "unfair" and "bizarre."
I'll embed the video here in a minute.
I hope this glimpse of Boehner and Mcain "kicking the asses" of these "deluded TeaParty Hobbits" brightens up the start of your day as much as it has mine.
Cheers, and let's hope we see some progress on these today. And, maybe our Democratic leaders can take a few ques from the Republican leadership on our to attack these TeaParty obstructionist extremists.
4:17 AM PT: Just a note of clarification. I'm not nominating John McCain for the Noble Peace prize here, but trying to highlight his attack on the 80 "deluded TeaBagger nutball Hobbits.
Of course, I think he's a turkey.
I just appreciate that he's helping us focus blame for the debit-ceiling crisis on the GOP.
The alternative narrative, I'm trying to help us avoid, is the bigger picture story that Obama and the Democrats have basically total capitulated.
It's only this last minute blunder going on now, that gives us old "Dogs of War" the chance to spin this outcome with a contestable "narrative" that somehow this is a tragedy of TeaBagger nutballs deluding themselves and the country with extremism.
Please help me articulate this better. I think some may not be getting the big picture battle of political narratives.
And, why I obsessively watch CNN, MSNBC, and other traditional media.
Not as my first primer on political ideology, but as the battleground where many others are getting theirs.
My purpose is to try to spin this as best we can so we can elect more and better Democrats in 2012.
This is the battlefield.
The game is afoot.
4:32 AM PT: Rep. Elijah Cummings makes an excellent call for a "clean debt-ceiling" extension as was done before so many times during the Reagan administration, and the Bush Administration.
He repositions this debate at a higher level. No entitlement reductions.
He recalls James Clyburn yesterday, calling for a clean bill.
Lawrence O'Donnel serves of a soft ball straight across the plate, 'He doesn't trust anyone to sit down over the weekend and spell out $2 trillion plus budget cuts, that are going to be good for the nation.
Let's just pass a clean extension and sit down over the next year and have hearing about any cuts.
Lawrence O'Donnel says President Obama win the war on perceptions. He didn't make any legislative agreements.
Cummings says some of his colleagues were worried that the President might agree to some of these entitlement cuts.
He doesn't want people who are hurting to have to hurt more.