Thank Heavens! The fiscal cliff has been averted. Or crossed. Or climbed. Or breached. Or something. But the real story is how the administration outmaneuvered the Republicans. How there is dissension among the House Republican membership. Can a coherent philosophy be developed now? Is their base alienated? Will the current Republican leadership ever be able to match the Democrat expertise?
Of course, this is all nonsense. None of these presumed crucial questions are important at all but instead are part of an intricate and refined political dance that has rules and judgments but is almost completely separate from the circumstances that surround it. What is important is how the nation is going to manage one trillion, trillion, dollars of deficit annually and the accumulation of that deficit into sixteen trillion, trillion, dollars of debt. For some reason the brilliant political guns that have been used to defeat the Republican rubes cannot be trained upon this more important problem.
It is like having a minuet contest in a burning house. And the press continue to judge the dance.
Of course, this is all nonsense. None of these presumed crucial questions are important at all but instead are part of an intricate and refined political dance that has rules and judgments but is almost completely separate from the circumstances that surround it. What is important is how the nation is going to manage one trillion, trillion, dollars of deficit annually and the accumulation of that deficit into sixteen trillion, trillion, dollars of debt. For some reason the brilliant political guns that have been used to defeat the Republican rubes cannot be trained upon this more important problem.
It is like having a minuet contest in a burning house. And the press continue to judge the dance.
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