Our old friend Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader and
economic terrorist is back with his hostage-taking talk. Back in 2011, McConnell famously stated that the debt ceiling is "a hostage that's worth ransoming." Keeping true to that tactic, McConnell is
back at it, telling Fox News Sunday that it would be "irresponsible" not to threaten the nation go into default on its debts.
WALLACE: So are you saying right here, “We are going to attach something to the debt ceiling”? And if so, what?
MCCONNELL: What I’m saying is we ought to attach something significant for the country to [President Obama's] request to increase the debt ceiling. That’s been the pattern for 50 years, going back to the Eisenhower administration. I think it’s the responsible thing to do for the country. [...]
We’re never going to default—the Speaker and I have made that clear. We’ve never done that. But, it’s irresponsible not to use the discussion—the request of the President to raise the debt ceiling—to try to accomplish something for the country.
Right. It's for the country that
Republicans want to hike insurance premiums by repealing a provision of Obamacare that helps keep them in check. It's for the sake of the country that he threatens the stability of the global economy. Because it's fun to make threats.
But threats seem to be all that's there. Right there, in the same breath as the threat, McConnell admits that if President Obama refuses to negotiate, he'll give in because the nation is "never going to default. The Speaker and I made that clear. We've never done that."
There's the vice McConnell is in in 2014. He needs to keep his extremist base happy with tough talk about hostages, but he also needs to avert a disaster that would be even worse than the government shutdown. In the end, you get a pretty good reflection of where the Republican party is right now: incoherent.