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Sartre and “South Park”…

20 Jul

I saw “The Book of Mormon” and it left me cold. My response to anyone who asks my opinion about the show would be a diplomatic and mostly accurate, “If you enjoy ‘South Park,’ you’ll probably enjoy this” or as Lincoln put it best: “People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.”

There are some who are curious as to why I specifically didn’t enjoy the show. I do support anything that brings people to the theatre that is not based on a movie, a video game, or an injury-prone superhero. I am also pleased to see job opportunities for black stage actors even if it does involve them raising the ghost of Hattie McDaniel in a misguided (and somewhat inaccurate) send-up of Africa: I don’t mind satire but I do mind laziness, and “The Book of Mormon” has all the racial sophistication of a Tarzan movie.

I underscore laziness here because it’s a rather tiresome trope: Blacks in an awful situation who are powerless to do anything to change their circumstances without the aid of a white savior — one they eventually wind up almost worshipping in “Book of Mormon.” It’s been depicted so often, though, that it’s almost a genre in itself, going back to “To Kill a Mockingbird” and later “Dangerous Minds” (though “Amish Paradise” is a great song).

However, that didn’t bother me as much as the prodution’s overall message, which is a promotion of inauthentic living. The Africans start out cursing a non-existent God because their lives are miserable but they make no attempt to alter them through their own force of will. They are essentially frustrated children who blame their parents for why they weren’t born handsome and tall. Their emotional arc, such as it is, has them embracing and uniting over nonsense. Worse, they know it’s nonsense, which is what Sartre would condemn as the worst act of bad faith. The Mormons themselves, especially the show’s leads, are ultimately no better than Professor Hill from “The Music Man.”

Although the show’s villain comes around thanks to all this hocus-pocus, philosophically, I would prefer the Africans resolve their political and social issues honestly… even if the end result is objectively worse. I believe death is better than willful self-delusion, which is probably why I’m such fun at parties.

Upon reflection, it occurs to me that I might be pathologically incapable of connecting to any artistic work that depicts religion or faith as a positive force in any way. I understand and respect that people think otherwise but it’s possible that I am just hardwired differently.

However, there must be some works on this subject that have moved me. Let’s see:

“Jesus Christ Superstar”: One of my favorite shows and films. It’s almost Shakespearan; although Jesus is more Caesar to Judas’s more interesting Brutus. The resurrection is also not depicted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCfgnMNDcRo

Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video: Jesus is a black guy, and Madonna dances in front of burning crosses. This one’s a long shot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA983t3Rdzs

 
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Posted by on July 20, 2011 in Pop Life

 

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“Cut, Cap, and Balance” (the sequel to “Bell, Book, and Candle”)…

19 Jul
“Cut, Cap, and Balance” (the sequel to “Bell, Book, and Candle”)…

U.S. House Set to Pass Doomed Spending-Cut Bill With No Debt Deal Imminent – Bloomberg.

Two weeks from a threatened default, U.S. House Republicans today plan to defy President Barack Obama’s promised veto by voting to slash spending and condition a $2.4 trillion debt-ceiling increase on passage of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.

“Slashing” spending is and will always be a hyperbolic pronouncement with little chance of follow through. It’s as if the United States is going on a crash diet in which it subsists on a daily concoction of lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and water. Within a week, Canada and Mexico will find us unbearable.

No one wants to face the reality of our economic situation. It’s not like we can just cancel our cable (“We don’t even watch half these channels!”) and call it a day. And we’re certainly not going to end our $1,000 a day cocaine habit (replace “cocaine” with “military spending”).

Are there any real businesses that survived the recession with such crack-pipe proposals? There were lay-offs, hiring and wage freezes, and occasionally increased prices for their products. In other words, difficult decisions were made. Meanwhile, the United States wants to cease wasting money on paper clips and plastic spoons in the company cafeteria. That will stop the bleeding.

A constitutional amendment to balance the budget is what is called a “magic pill.” It’s tantamount to the CEO of Borders passing an edict banning Kindles. No one can answer how the law will change the conditions that make it impossible for us to achieve this now. And no one wants to answer the question as to how we balanced the budget the last time.

The Clinton years showed the effects of a large tax increase that Clinton pushed through in his first year… It fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers. Clinton’s fiscal 1994 budget also contained some spending restraints. An equally if not more powerful influence was the booming economy and huge gains in the stock markets, the so-called dot-com bubble, which brought in hundreds of millions in unanticipated tax revenue from taxes on capital gains and rising salaries.

It’s most likely impossible to reproduce the conditions of the Clinton era. Most U.S. citizens are unwilling to wear all that flannel again or go to another Spice Girls concert. However, the political game being played of wanting to make a cheeseburger without using actual cheese or hamburger meat is going to inevitably reduce our economy into the drive-through at McDonald’s.

 
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Posted by on July 19, 2011 in Political Theatre

 

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Recurring Feature (at least until I tire of it): “What’s the point of this?”…

17 Jul
Recurring Feature (at least until I tire of it): “What’s the point of this?”…

Community’s Alison Brie and Gillian Jacobs’s Lesbian Lingerie Shoot for GQ: Movies + TV: GQ.

So, a male writer and a male photographer get together at GQ and ask two professional actresses to dress up in lingerie and simulate a fantasy lesbian scene. What’s the point of this?

A) The actresses are associated with a provocative, boundary-pushing project (e.g. something on Showtime that costs viewers roughly $5 per utterance of the word “fuck” and $10 per appearance of a bare breast).

No, the actresses are from the NBC TV show “Community,” which I have not seen but I presume is not about lipstick lesbians in poses that would make porn stars… well, perhaps not blush but maybe express some degree of confusion. I don’t have any adult film stars on my cell phone favorites, but I’m not sure even they could explain Jacobs’s intent with whatever she’s holding in her left hand (hairbrush? mirror?). Also, is she tugging on Brie’s bra in order to remove it or to prepare to mount her and play naughty jockey?

(This is GQ’s comedy issue. Mila Kunis appears on the cover barely clothed. The men featured in this issue are dressed in attire suitable for a trip to the grocery store without a resulting arrest for solicitation.)

B) The actresses are in fact modeling lingerie (apparently from the Dr. Frank-N-Furter collection).

No, this is not a lingerie ad.

C) There is no point.

There is, however, an accompanying video on the GQ site. The url refers to it as a “lesbian video” but the scene would be at home in conventional straight porn.

I would normally upload a related image with this piece, but instead I will use this photo of two men kissing, which strikes me as more appropriately GQ. The suits are nice.

 
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Posted by on July 17, 2011 in Pop Life

 

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Leave Sarah Palin alone… leave her alone…

17 Jul
Leave Sarah Palin alone… leave her alone…

Sarah Palin Movie Debuts to Empty Theater in Orange County – Conor Friedersdorf – Politics – The Atlantic.

Defending Sarah Palin is as enjoyable an activity for me as watching a televised sporting event; however, I thought this article in “The Atlantic” about her dubiously named documentary “The Undefeated” ranked pretty high on my patented Absurdity Meter.

When the clock struck 12:01 am today, AMC theaters in select cities were permitted to start showing “The Undefeated,” a feature length documentary about Sarah Palin. As it happens, I’m visiting my parents in Orange County, Calif., home to one of just 10 theaters where the film is being rolled out. Watching it didn’t interest me so much as going to interview folks who decided to attend. I figured I’d meet some nice people, perhaps run into someone who knows my grandparents, press five or six Palin fans on why they like her, and convey their worldview.

Really? The author believed that there was story potential in attending the midnight showing of a documentary? Unless it’s in 3D and features transforming robots, superheroes, or bespectacled wizards with English accents, the only people at a midnight film are either selling drugs or their bodies or both (usually a 10% discount if you go for the deluxe package).

I hurried through the teenage hordes, bypassed a concession stand that sold 1,020 calories of soda for $5.25, and entered theater number 30, hoping I’d have ample time before the previews to talk to some people. But inside, the theater was empty. I sat there alone for 20 minutes, at which point an usher stuck his head in the door, gave me a quizzical smile, and said, “How come you’re not watching Harry Potter?” Then he left me by myself again, and without any good answer.

What’s curious is that if the author had attended a weekday showing, perhaps in the afternoon, the results would have been similar but without the “aw shucks” silliness of stacking the deck this way. As a “clueless correspondent” bit on “The Daily Show,” this might get a pass but instead it opens the door for more accusations of media bias against Palin. When in reality, the article winds up serving as an extended advertisement for a cinematic love letter to the one politician who makes Ross Perot seem like a model of stick-to-it-ness.

By the way, I did see a weekday afternoon showing of the “Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop” documentary a couple weeks ago. The NYC theater was practically empty, which is mostly useless anecdotal data rather than actual facts about its performance. According to Box Office Mojo, the film has made $231,594 so far. I will wait to see what the site reveals about “The Undefeated.” Unfortunately, “The Atlantic” article is being used as an actual source for multiple reports online. Some even point out that it failed to best “Harry Potter,” which is an absurd observation anyway. Of course, it didn’t beat “Harry Potter” — one of the most anticipated films in years. The only movie — let alone a documentary — that would have stood a chance would be “Angelina Jolie Showers.”

 
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Posted by on July 17, 2011 in Political Theatre

 

“The Change-Up” — An Ad Campaign Review

15 Jul

The posters I’ve seen for the Ryan Reynolds/Jason Bateman film “The Change-Up” succeeded only in repulsing me. Based on some professional experience, I presume that is never the intent of a competent advertising campaign for anything. My curiosity aroused, I went to the film’s official site, where I discovered the following image:

An extremely excited, even given the circumstances, Reynolds is holding up two underwear models — or, as this most likely takes place in the film world of male fantasy, probably a barely dressed tax attorney and an art gallery owner. Based on how they are positioned relative to Reynolds, they must weigh no more than 100 pounds combined or perhaps the look on his face is an expression of pain from the resulting hernia that will cut short their evening.

I should also add that there’s been only 4 independently corroborated and factually verified threesomes in the history of western civilization and they all involved Gene Simmons. Yet, most TV shows and movies of the past 20 years make it seem as if they are as common as public figures sending photos of their private parts to random women they met on the Internet.

Reynolds’ delight is set in contrast to Bateman’s despair as he contends joylessly with his two children (they must be his, as basic etiquette demands that you don’t look like you want to hang yourself when holding someone else’s kids). The similarity in attire and behavior of the two babies and the two babes makes the infantilization of Reynolds’ playthings pretty overt.

This image is actually not as offensive as the ones I’d seen on buses and subways, which feature close-ups of the leads. Bateman is still visibly annoyed, as one of his burdens picks his nose. Reynolds, apparently told he was filming a sequel to “American Psycho,” smirks predatorily as his companion — he’s down to one now — plays with his face with her feet. I’m uncertain and uninterested as to the physics behind this.

The other official poster, which I found online, is as Darcy said in “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “the worst of the three.” Reynolds’s actions actually manage to divert Bateman’s attention from his mewling brats. The tax attorney’s hand is missing, much to Reynolds’s pleasure, and the art gallery owner is a photoshop collage. I don’t think her head, arm, or back belong to the same person.

The posters also make a point of informing me that the film is from the director of “Wedding Crashers” and the writers of “The Hangover.” I didn’t see either of these movies, so this campaign has not even come close to tempting open my wallet. But I am left wondering what the film is actually about, if anything, so off to YouTube I go for the trailer.

OK, 18 seconds in and we have a visible baby poop joke, which literally appears over the words “family man,” as we’re introduced to the suburban hell of Dave (Bateman). Another 10 seconds and we meet “single man” Mitch, who despite living in a hellhole has a gorgeous woman showing up and removing her clothes. By the way, I lived in a crappy New York apartment and my life was more like this:

After a minute and 15 seconds, we get the concept: Single man and family man trade lives while publicly urinating. Sometimes it’s best not to try and explain it.

The trailer is actually less awful than the posters, which you’d expect to turn up in a Susan Faludi lecture. Reynolds and Bateman are personable actors, but the premise is tiresome and consistently one-sided as depicted in media. Men love being single as they physically channel surf through an idealized female population. Women can’t stand it and fear dying alone even if they’re still in their early 20s. The ladies in “Sex and the City” didn’t even enjoy being single and they were the most emulated women of the ’90s.

Although the swinging single/married schlub trope is not new, it has altered a bit over the years. The prototypical single man was more a woman’s fantasy — think Cary Grant or Rock Hudson — than an overgrown adolescent in a dirty apartment. His sexual exploits would have been subtly implied in a poster by unkempt hair, his collar askew, and lipstick prints on his cheeks. The owner of the lips would be more Grace Kelly glamorous than objectified extra from central casting. His married counterpart might envy him — while also acknowledging that he was never Cary Grant in the first place — but the focus of Bateman’s agony is less that he’s had to grow up and become his father. Once upon a time, you could still be Don Draper and be married with kids. No, his horror is in having become his mother, which makes “The Change-Up” less about the stereotypical loss of freedom that comes with marriage but more about the perceived, post-feminist loss of masculinity itself.

 
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Posted by on July 15, 2011 in Pop Life

 

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“America in Flames: The Light Opera”…

14 Jul
“America in Flames: The Light Opera”…

As debt-ceiling crisis grows, McConnell warns default could ‘destroy’ GOP – latimes.com.

As negotiators reconvened at the White House on Wednesday for another round of debt talks, House Republicans appeared to dig in even deeper in their resistance to any sort of deal to raise the federal debt ceiling even as one party leader foretold disaster for the GOP if its members failed to act.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader who has proposed a fallback plan that would likely ensure the $14.3-trillion debt limit would be raised, said in a radio interview that a default by the United States could critically damage his party heading into the 2012 elections.

A default, McConnell told talk show host Laura Ingraham, “destroys your brand.”

Is this what it’s come to now? Political parties are “brands”? Does this make McConnell SVP of Product Development and Cat Juggling? Meanwhile, Harry Reid is EVP of Branded Integration and Mixed Martial Arts.

McConnell sounds like the coach of a sports team prior to the game that will determine whether they enter the playoffs. However, in that instance, if his team loses, it’s still just a game and the players can go home to their mansions, fancy cars, and dog fights. McConnell is presumably talking about the economic health of the country he was elected to serve. Unfortunately, he’s more concerned about his constituents voting him out of office rather than whether they can afford even the generic brand ramen noodles.

The Kentucky senator said the economic consequences of a default would give President Obama an opportunity to blame the GOP for the country’s economic straits. “Look, he owns the economy,” McConnell said. “He’s been in office for three years. We refuse to let him entice him into co-ownership of a bad economy.”

Really? That’s what he prioritizes as a negative of the economic collapse? Obama might blame the GOP for it? True, Obama has been president for three years and not only do I not have my Oompa Loompa but I somehow aged three years under his watch. Who knows what further aging might occur if he remains in office?

It does occur to me that McConnell has been in the Senate for 27 years. How does he manage to play hot potato with the economy? If he doesn’t co-own it, surely he’s a stakeholder. But I’ll take him at his word: He’s feckless. He shows up at work each day, has some bad coffee, and looks at photos of his grandkids on Facebook (“Why is her hair that color?” “What is that thing in his ear?”). He’s in no position to have any influence over the economy. Obama owns it completely. If that’s true, then it logically follows that it was Bush, the previous president under whose watch there was literally flood and arguably famine, who got us into this mess. Yet the GOP wants to repeat his policies.

This is best expressed as a light opera I’ve written called “America in Flames” (I have not yet composed music for it, so for now, just sing the words to the tune of “Largo al factotum” from “Barber of Seville”)

Obama discovers America, represented as a U.S. flag wrapped around a dingy futon, in flames and the GOP attempting to put it out with gasoline.

GOP: Quick, you fool! Hand us more gasoline so we can put out this fire.

Obama: Are you insane? That’s just going to make it worse.

GOP: What’s wrong with you? Don’t you want to stop this fire?

Obama: Of course, but we should use water instead.

GOP: Oh, you’d love that wouldn’t you? Wasn’t Clinton pro water? And look where that got us. Our country’s in flames! That’s why we don’t dare stop using gasoline!

Obama: You can’t claim that Clinton’s policies failed based on what happened once we abandoned them!

GOP: More gasoline!

Obama: Oh, the hell with it.

Obama dives into the flames.

The GOP has a legitimate point that the U.S. spends more money than it earns. What would an average person do in the government’s place if your expenses exceeded your income? You could ask your boss for a raise (e.g. a tax increase) but he would rightly fire you for daring to suggest he part with even a fraction of his millions. He is, after all, a job creator. Granted, most of those jobs were created overseas and eliminated here… and come to think of it, he’s actually paying you less than he did in the ’90s but why punish him for his success?

If your income remains static, you need to evaluate your expenses. You could cut back on Starbucks, boozy dinners out, or an overextended military presence abroad, including two costly wars. Eh. Better to pull your oldest out of college. He’s handsome. He’ll marry well, especially now that it’s legal in New York. Your sister was staying with you temporarily because of health issues. That deadbeat can hit the bricks. And you can really balance the books if you stop burning money on your parents’ assisted living facility — the fancy one with the three staring windows and registered nurses. There’s a perfectly good hostel down the street.

Now, excuse me while I dive into the flames.

 
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Posted by on July 14, 2011 in Political Theatre

 

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What would Jay-Z do?…

13 Jul

From USA Today:

Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol, touring to promote her book “Not Afraid of Life,” tells “Christianity Today” that mom gets no respect from the media …

…because they’re envious of her. She’s got a good family, she’s got a good husband, she’s got awesome support, she’s got God on her side, and I think people are envious of that. They’re envious that she carries herself so well, that she’s smart. There are lots of vicious people out there.

Why does the title of Bristol Palin’s book have the swagger and defiance of a rap album that was “dropped” after the artist was released from prison?

Even her comments about her mother reek of the extreme paranoia and megalomaniacal disconnect from reality that is usually accompanied by clouds of pot smoke in the recording studio.

The media’s issue with Sarah Palin is envy and not just some responsibility to ask tough questions of public figures who choose to be public of their own volition? OK, envy it is. Let’s go with that.

Palin also has “God on her side” despite her being “too busy to go to church most Sundays.” I was under the impression that Palin was unemployed. One would think that the profession of being Sarah Palin would allow for Sundays off but there probably are not enough cameras at her local church to justify it.

 
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Posted by on July 13, 2011 in Political Theatre

 

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Why your children will have English accents…

13 Jul

Conservative group backtracks on marriage pledge slavery language – Maggie Haberman – POLITICO.com.

It’s becoming a bit of an exhausting proposition to keep up with every idiotic statement or action Michele Bachmann makes during her campaign to insult every group to which she does not belong and to embarrass the ones to which she does.

The GOP has made it clear that our imploding financial situation is the most critical problem facing the United States so it seems appropriate in a Bizarro World manner that the party’s most high-profile candidates for president are focusing on private social issues, such as marriage equality, and the apparent pornography epidemic (I shudder to think what would happen to our economy if that were ever banned) and outbreak of Sharia law.

In her almost fanatical zeal to offend, Bachmann rushed to sign a “marriage vow” from the conservative Family Leader group without realizing that the only other person to do so was Rick Santorum. This is like showing up to a party and the only other guest is the host’s maiden aunt.

The pledge itself was mostly a pro forma effort with the expected anti-gay, anti-any-social-progress-from-the past-100 years sentiments. Sort of the right-wing version of a “Best of the ’80s” CD. There’s “Come On, Eileen,” “Take On Me,” and “Don’t You Want Me,” the lyrics to which (“You were working as a waitress at a cocktail bar”) most accurately describe what Bachmann should be doing with her time.

However, it turns out there was a surprise, “hidden track” to this pledge. Let me slow it down and play it backwards for you:

“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

I would dispute the use of the word “household” to describe a one-room shack on a plantation, but I’m more surprised by the blatant racism of tying Obama’s ethnicity into this. I presume the Family Leader believes the white family situation has declined in the 21st Century, as well. No one blames Bush for “The Bachelor.”

A young Michele Bachmann (l) with a family friend.

This statement is mired in the faulty logic that “traditional values” trumps everything else. So, a child born in slavery right before one of the most volatile periods in U.S. history is in a better situation because he is in a two-parent household with a mother and a father (not a husband and wife, as that was not legal — the United States has a long history of depriving individuals of the right to marry who they choose.).

This historical myopia extends beyond race. There was also less divorce in the 19th Century, which is expected when you remove any need to compromise from the husband or any real independence from the wife. This is a social clockwork orange — looks nice on the outside but it’s not ideal upon examination.

The Family Leader appears to have derived its knowledge of black families during slavery from bootleg copies of “Song of the South.” There was some attempt to preserve a family unit but that was to prevent slaves from trying to escape. I tend to view that as encouraging the creation of hostages rather than building a strong, traditional family. The ultimate goal was to produce more slaves and the slave owners were not the Dr. Neil Warren of their day. If it were ever in their financial interest to divide up the families, they would do so with arguably less consideration than someone sells off a litter of puppies.

Bachmann has since claimed this “hidden track” wasn’t in the pledge she signed. She is proudly a post-modern bigot, not a more antiquated bigot found in a vintage store.

Meanwhile, she continues to surge in the polls. The upside is that this could be a replay, viewed through a fun house mirror, of Howard Dean’s candidacy in 2004. She’ll flame out quickly as conservative primary voters realize they actually want to win this thing. Republicans, though, tend not to settle as quickly as Democrats, so she could wind up with the nomination. The colossal blunder of her actually winning the presidency would trigger a little-known clause in the Treaty of Paris, which would revert ownership of the United States back to the British, which is probably for the best.

 
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Posted by on July 13, 2011 in Political Theatre

 

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So, where’s Otisburg?

12 Jul

Politician Campaigns to Make ‘South California’ Into Our 51st State – TIME NewsFeed.

A California politician is proposing that his state split in half as a way to address political and logistical issues – marking yet another instance someone has proposed this idea in the Golden State.

OK, this is dumb and most likely nothing will come of it. It would benefit the GOP on the national level because California’s 55 electoral votes, pretty much guaranteed for Democrats since 1992, would be fractured.

But what an unappealing state Stone wishes to create. His proposed South California would include Riverside, Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego and Tulare. I have no plans to visit any of these places. I did however enjoy the “Fresno” miniseries from 1986 starring Carol Burnett, Charles Grodin, and Teri Garr.

 
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Posted by on July 12, 2011 in Political Theatre

 

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Impeach Obama…

12 Jul

From CBS News:

The Senate’s top Republican said Tuesday that he did not see a way for Republicans and Democrats to come to agreement on meaningful deficit reduction as long as President Obama remains in office.

“After years of discussions and months of negotiations, I have little question that as long as this president is in the Oval Office, a real solution is probably unattainable,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor.

OK, Obama is the problem. He’s what’s preventing us from going bankrupt by not concentrating more of the country’s wealth in a small percentage of Americans for whom we cannot consider raising taxes.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and many economists have warned of economic catastrophe if the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling is not raised before August 2.

Now my math might be as bad as the elected officials in charge of our economy but isn’t August 2, 2011 sometime before Nov. 6, 2012? So, we can’t fix things while Obama is in office but the next presidential election is well after the point when our economy will resemble Spencer Tracy’s bank account after Liz Taylor’s wedding in “Father of the Bride.”

So, I suppose the responsible action McConnell is promoting is to impeach Obama. What choice do we have given what’s at stake? The GOP did detect weakness when Biden interrupted Obama to ask Speaker Boehner if the “Tattaglias guarantee our investment.” I think they’re confident that once Obama is out of the way, Biden will cooperate.

After strenuous debate, House Speaker Boehner and President Obama agree that DC stands for "District of Columbia."

And once Obama is out of office, he can concentrate on his career as an illusionist, at least based on what Speaker Boehner says:

“The president has presented us with three choices: smoke and mirrors, tax hikes, or default. Republicans choose none of the above.”

They’re stronger than I am. I definitely would have chosen smoke and mirrors, especially if it was like David Copperfield’s “Crystal Smoke Chamber”:

According to a source in the room, Boehner said he initially sought a larger deal that included reform to entitlement programs. Mr. Obama agreed, he said — on the condition that the deal include revenue increases.

Whenever I read about “reform” to entitlement programs, I think about how convicts are “reformed” by their cellmates in prison.

In Boehner’s telling, he refused to consider tax increases but said he would discuss tax reform — lowering tax rates while closing tax loopholes in a way that was revenue neutral. Mr. Obama countered that he would consider corporate tax reform but not personal tax reform.

Boehner, the source said, told his caucus he wanted both, arguing that such an approach is necessary because some small business owners claim earnings as personal income. Mr. Obama agreed, on the condition that the Bush-era tax cuts for low earners be made permanent — presumably while the tax cuts for high earners are allowed to expire. In Boehner’s telling, that’s when talks began to break down.

Boehner might not fully grasp what “negotiation” means. I am impressed that he is able to hold the line on refusing tax increases for the smallest and wealthiest percent of the country. People are heading over to Casey Anthony’s house with pitchforks and torches but the entire economic system as they know it is held hostage over a fraction of the population who would most likely find ways to beat any tax increase anyway.

 
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Posted by on July 12, 2011 in Political Theatre

 

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