Iowa Congressman Steve King made a Mea Culpa in an interview with Fox's Laura Ingraham that the House Tea Party was using the tactics of hostage taking, using the threat of a government shutdown and a credit default to extract more concessions from President Obama and Senate Democratic Leaders.
Top Tea Party Republican admits it: We’ve been employing hostage strategy
By Greg Sargent
So it’s good to see that King is candidly admitting that the House Tea Party wing has been employing the threat of a government shutdown as nothing more than a deliberate hostage strategy designed to wring maximum concessions from Democrats.
King made the concession in an interview with Laura Ingraham. Dems are highlighting the interview because King bashes House Speaker John Boehner for his weak leadership, but the bolded portion below is the real news here:
KING: We have not lead in a clear way. American people don’t know what House Republicans believe in, and they surely don’t know what we’re willing to fight for. And I am as disappointed as the public is...
It’s clear to me that Speaker Boehner made a decision, either before, but I am convinced it was at least shortly after the election last November, a year ago last November, that we would not be in a position where we would be blamed for shutting down the government ... that’s the only place where you bring the leverage to this Congress, to take on Harry Reid and Barack Obama, is you have to be willing to face a shutdown and you have to have the debate among the American people.
INGRAHAM: You think that would have helped the Republican Party and you guys would be in a better position today if the government had been shut down?
KING: The shutdown isn’t the point so much as, I don’t want the shutdown either. But if you are afraid of the shutdown you can’t have the confrontation and you lose every negotiation along the way.
And there you have it! During each impasse — the first government shutdown fight; the debt ceiling debacle; the payroll tax cut showdown — we keep being told that Tea Partyers really are crazy enough to allow the worst to happen. During the government shutdown fight, we were even told that Tea Partyers viewed that outcome as a positive. Their willingness to take us over a cliff is why Dems simply must make the concessions they’re demanding.
Was it anything more than a boilerplate denial when King said he didn't want a shutdown, or was King saying that it was only being used as a threat to extract maximum concessions that wouldn't have been employed to shut down the government? Greg Sargent seems to think it was only a tactic, but I'm not so sure.
The Tea Party's hostage taking tactics have made a very negative impression on the American public according to this Pew poll from last month that came out before the Tea Party's used the Payroll Tax extension to create yet another hostage taking scenario.
The poll was titled: Frustration with Congress Could Hurt
Republican Incumbents pdf
This poll showed that the public is painfully aware of the Republicans' radicalism and intransigence over the past year.
This section of the poll jumped out at me titled: Republican Party Seen as Extreme and Uncompromising
Which party… Rep Party Dem Party Neither(vol.) Other/DK
Is more extreme 53% 33% 1% 13% =100%
in its positions
Is more willing to
work with the
other side 25% 51% 12% 13% =100%
Can better
manage gov’t 35% 41% 13% 12% =100%
Is more honest
and ethical 28% 45% 16% 11% =100%
PEW RESEARCH CENTER Dec. 7-11, 2011. Incumbent
reelection questions based on registered voters. Other
questions based on general public.
The Republican Party is taking more of the blame than the Democrats for a do-nothing Congress. A record-high 50% say that the current Congress has accomplished less than other recent Congresses, and by nearly two-to one (40% to 23%) more blame Republican leaders than Democratic leaders for this. By wide margins, the GOP is seen as the party that is more extreme in its positions, less willing to work with the other side to get things done, and less honest and ethical in the way it governs. And for the first time in over two years, the Democratic Party has gained the edge as the party better able to manage the federal government.
Steve King's admission of what's already obvious to most Americans just confirms what we already suspect to be true. The Tea Party is so radical and reckless that it puts its political goals before the well being of the country.