#Debtmageddon: Boehner passes DOA bill

Techically, the sticking pile of crapola that just passed the House does meet President Obama's requirement of pushing the debt ceiling issue past the 2012 elections - with one big catch.

The House plan would raise it by $900 billion, allowing the government to pay its bills for about six more months, but with another $1.6 trillion increase possible if the House and Senate agree — by a two-thirds vote — to a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

Boehner knows that's not going to happen. Tea partiers in the House GOP know the same. So, Boehner's final bill is all about posturing. This turkey will die in the Senate, even if the antiquated rules there mean we have to wait until Monday for it to die.

Of course, that means a full weekend of additional posturing by both halves of the duopoly, while we wait to see, and ponder, how many House Republicans will sign off on Harry Reid's bill if it passes the Senate.

Of course, that's a big if right there. What if the GOP does the fake filibuster threat? Will Reid force the Senate GOP into an actual filibuster? Does Mitch McConnell really want to go down that road?

And, what if Team Obama can pick off enough House Republicans to get Reid's bill passed? What happens to those folks within their own caucus? And, are House Dems dumb enough to try to recruit any of them as blue dogs?

But that's all about political theater. Let's look at political realities.

The Reid bill is little better.

Whether as debt theater, or as what the country really needs, it's little better.

Alleged savings from Iraq and Afghanistan? Please. With the Peace Prize Prez who hasn't met a war on his watch that is, per his 2002 non-antiwar speech, "rash and stupid"?

Medicare savings? Not a chance. Not when, year after year, Congress votes not to implement tighter Medicare payments to doctors.

And, there's many more alleged deficit cuts in both Reid's bill and Boehner's that aren't real cuts.

But, true progressives know those are secondary issues.

The real issue is a Democratic president wanting to cut entitlements.

The real issue is a Democratic party, as well as a Republican one, writing off the unemployed.

The real issue is a Democratic legacy of giving in to bullying and intransigence.

The real issue is a president who not only likes compromise for compromise's sake, but has all along been as much of a neoliberal or more than Bill Clinton, even to the point of being a neoconservative, or close to it.

Beyond that, the real point is a Democratic president, just like both Clinton and George W. Bush, willing to use fear as a campaign issue in re-election.

The real issue is "Democrats right or wrong" voters who will believe the fear rather than vote third party, like Greens.

The real issue is Democratic voters with cognitive dissonance who know that Obama is NOT "a nice guy being bullied" but a man who has repeatedly lied to them about both domestic and foreign policy issues.