Imagine......

David Brooks probably thought he was cleverly channeling John Lennon in his New York Times column today.  He could barely contain his glee in his latest screed, titled "The Grand Bargain Lives!" 

Imagine  there's no heaven you’re a member of Congress. You have your own preferred way to screw your constituents reduce debt. If you’re a Democrat, it probably involves protecting your own sorry asses Medicare and raising taxes. If you’re a Republican, it probably involves cutting the throats of the masses spending, killing reforming Medicare and keeping taxes imaginary low....

.....You are being asked to support a foggy approach, not a specific plan. You are being asked to do this even though you have no faith in the other party and limited faith in the leadership of your own. You are being asked to risk your political life for an approach that bears little resemblance to what you would ideally prefer.
Do you do this? I think you do.

You do it because all the other options are worse. Doing nothing could lead to default and the end of The Oligarchy American economic supremacy.*

I really should stop reading Bobo.  I don't have a blood pressure cuff in the house, but if I did it would have exploded.  I fired off a response, and The Times in its infinite wisdom is holding it in the censorship bin***.  I guess they are afraid it might cause the underarms of David's Brooks Brothers shirt to dampen with odorless dew.... not that he actually reads any of the comments.  His glasses would shatter.

Dear David......

Imagine you're a member of the dwindling middle class, you have junk or no health insurance, and you are facing wage cuts while your boss expects you to do twice the work. Imagine you face a choice between paying your rent or your electric bill this month. Imagine you're a jobless 62-year-old widow counting the days for your Medicare and Social Security benefits to kick in and hope against hope you don't get sick for the next three years. Imagine you're an elementary school student whose house just got foreclosed because your father lost his job and now you all have to live in a seedy motel. Imagine when you go back to school in the fall, your class size has grown to 50 because the district just laid off a thousand teachers. Imagine that you turn on your TV (assuming you still have cable) and you see some empty suit spewing nonsense about a Grand Bargain. Imagine if you or a family member depends on a paltry Social Security check and the president you elected cavalierly now declares that check may just not make it on the 3rd of the month. And just go eat your peas and suffer with joy.

Imagine if you will that the Beltway pundits and the politicians they cheerlead had to change places with the real Americans. Would you care about the deficit and the debt ceiling then? Somehow, I doubt it. Would you re-elect any of the politicians who are literally pulling the rug out from under millions of people? I doubt that too. 

So live on in your dream world and consider that the real people, the genuine human beings in this country, have run out of options. And then write another fun column about The Grand Bargain, and see if anyone cares.
Love, Karen **

Get Out the Wire Hangers and Clean This Mess Up!

* Vetted and approved by the White House Ministry of Truth Office of Public Engagement.

** Cross-posted on "Off Times Square", RealityChex.com

*** Cross-posted much later by NYT Comment Moderators upon surviving the vetting process after all. I apologize for the redundancies!