The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky has no qualms about his dislike, if not outright hatred, for Republicans especially the Tea Party. In a February 11 piece, Tomasky gleefully cheered that the “GOP caves on debt limit.”
Tomasky, who frequents MSNBC to rant about Republicans cheered the “huge Obama win” on a "clean" debt-ceiling vote, and proceeded to shame the GOP for demanding in the past that any debt ceiling increase be accompanied by some spending cuts.
Tomasky went on to proclaim that “Boehner is going to be leaning hard on every single member he can who he thinks can get away with casting a "pro-Obama" vote and still survive a Tea Party challenge in his district. But of course the rage machinery is already cranking up. But the vote will happen today, so we'll know soon enough.”
The “rage machinery” Tomasky is referring to is most likely millions of Americans that think the U.S. government should simply spend within its means -- or rather OUR means since it gets the money from our taxes -- rather than endlessly ratcheting up the debt ceiling and failing to get spending under control. Instead of pointing this out, Tomasky beamed how “assuming passage, it’s a huge victory for Obama. Caving on the debt limit in 2011 was the political low point of his presidency. But now he’s turned those tables. Looks like the bully pulpit still has some value, despite what the political scientists say.”
Tomasky is right about one thing: the bully pulpit does still have some value, especially if you turn onto MSNBC which spent hours shaming the GOP over its insistence on spending cuts being tied to a debt ceiling increase. The Daily Beast contributor didn’t stop his attack there, arguing that:
[I]f it does pass, this whole, sorry hostage-taking episode in American politics is presumably over. It's a major admission of failure by Boehner and Eric Cantor, and of course yet another sign that they have very little control over their caucus.
Tomasky concluded his Obama cheerleading piece by bringing up a familiar liberal red herring, Fox News. He doubted that "many Republicans, after hearing Limbaugh and Fox talking heads and the rest slam them endlessly" would "be in the mood to pass bipartisan immigration reform."
For good measure, Tomasky insisted that what “Obama needs is [to] win where he can get them, and this was a big one.”
It's just a matter of time for MSNBC to jump all over this piece and to bring Tomasky on air to once again cheer President Obama and mock “Republican hostage-taking.”
