Is that a fiscal cliff ahead in the distance?

[garbon]

I guess that's a form of ridiculous analysis that could be made.

Less ridiculous than your preceding post

Maybe here where Seedy's slant on the events has traction. Besides mine was tongue in cheek.

[Ed Anger]

Seedy's boy Martin Bashir was awful screechy today.

[CountDeMoney]

Seedy's boy Martin Bashir was awful screechy today.

[Ed Anger]

Seedy's boy Martin Bashir was awful screechy today.

He wasn't very manly. He whined like a pussy.

[The Minsky Moment]

I'll flip that around. Perhaps the Dems, anticipating this, should have caved and not re-elected a president that no one wants to play ball with.

We don't negotiate with terrorists.   

[CountDeMoney]

Seedy's boy Martin Bashir was awful screechy today.

He wasn't very manly. He whined like a pussy.

Sometimes I turn him down.  Interrupts my whacking off to Karen Finney.

[Sheilbh]

Yep. He's a populist, as I said. The sort of politician we need a few less of (it's a sad sign for a democracy when the time comes that most of your politicians have never done anything but politics - where's there connection to the 99%+ of their fellow citizens who are not politicians?)

I disagree that Cameron's a populist.  The only populist in British politics is Farage, which is perhaps why UKIP's doing well in the polls.  I think Cameron's shallow.  I don't think he has many fixed points, but he has a few very vague ones - a general Euroscepticism, a view that family is good, a belief in the 'Big Society' (great idea dreadfully marketed).  Aside from that he's a classic Tory who will adjust for the winds and whose votes he needs at any time.  But he's a very establishment kind of guy.  I can't think of the last PM whose most trusted aide was a civil servant.  My view on Cameron is that he'd probably be a great peacetime PM - a sort of steward for the nation who just keeps things ticking over and looks comfortable in a morning suit at royal weddings.  It's striking to me that his best moments seem to be things like the Hillsborough or Bloody Sunday statements which are terribly consensual.  The problem is this is a time of a few crises and I think you need someone with a bit more depth of ideology and political character or what would appear good management in normal circumstances is made to look like feckless, incoherent, unmoored dithering.  It's a bit like Stanley Baldwin actually who I think a number of post-war writers said would probably go down as a great PM if it wasn't for the times around him.

I think part of it is this political class.  They seem schooled in policy seminars and the like, but while they may be quite good at that sort of practical business of politics (though I'm not totally convinced) I don't think they're as good at talking to people or what Peter Hennessy, discussing Attlee, described as the sense of architectonics required by a PM.  I don't get a sense of how the bits and pieces of Cameron's ideas - or even his cabinet - fits together.  It isn't even a problem of coalition.  The incorence actually seems to increase the less the Lib Dems are involved.

[Agelastus]

I disagree that Cameron's a populist.  The only populist in British politics is Farage, which is perhaps why UKIP's doing well in the polls.  I think Cameron's shallow.  I don't think he has many fixed points, but he has a few very vague ones - a general Euroscepticism, a view that family is good, a belief in the 'Big Society' (great idea dreadfully marketed).

I think I regard him as having fewer "fixed" points than you do, hence my lumping him in as a populist; he was not quite the contortionist that Tony Blair was prior to gaining office, but he's more of a contortionist now than Tony Blair was while in office (to be fair to Blair, once he settled on some principles he could win Office with, he stuck to them.)

"The Big Society" is just a variant of "One Nation" Toryism; it's quite surprising given the general reputation of the Conservative party just how idealistic a view of the British populace both concepts imply.

I think part of it is this political class.  They seem schooled in policy seminars and the like, but while they may be quite good at that sort of practical business of politics (though I'm not totally convinced)

To be frank I have a great deal of trouble combining the terms "practical", "business" and "politics" these days. There's only a handful of politicians who don't seem callow and second rate compared to those of 20 or 30 years ago.

Where have all the genuine "grandees" of the major parties gone?

[Neil]

Public service these days is pretty demeaning.  Besides, it's been so long since the halcyon days before universal sufferage, and none now live who remember the great leaders of the antebellum era.

[jimmy olsen]

Looks the Senate may be willing to compromise, the House not so much.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/12/09/bob_corker_republican_supports_higher_tax_rates.html

Sen. Corker: More Republicans Are Willing to Consider Higher Tax Rates

By Daniel Politi
Posted Sunday, Dec. 9, 2012, at 1:43 PM ET

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee became the latest Republican to express support to raising tax rates on the wealthiest Americans as part of the negotiations to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff.  And he insists there are more like him. "There is a growing group of folks that are looking at this and realizing that we don't have a lot of cards as it relates to the tax issue, before year-end," Corker said on Fox News.  The senator from Tennessee went on to note that if Republicans support the tax rate hike it could give them the upper hand in negotiations to force cuts in entitlement programs.

Corker joins a small group of Republican senators, including Tom Coburn, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe who have expressed a willingness to support a higher tax rate for wealthy Americans. Yet his endorsement is seen as particularly important because he's a "solid fiscal conservative and bellwether for what other rank-and-file Republicans might support," notes the Associated Press. Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma also issued a similar message on CNN, saying that while his constituents "expect me to continue to fight for everybody's taxes not going up," he would be willing to take a deal that "that protects 98 percent of them." Still, the House leadership remains publicly opposed to the idea of accepting higher tax rates, insisting that increased revenue can only come from eliminating tax deductions and loopholes, notes the Wall Street Journal.