Davids and Goliaths

Davids and Goliaths

Under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which the U.S. formally ratified in 1970, the nuclear-weapon States that are parties to the Treaty (U.S., Russia, China, U.K. and France) obligated themselves "to pursue negotiations in good faith on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control."  The non-nuclear-weapon States might possibly be excused for observing that these good-faith negotiations seem to be proceeding rather slowly.

Under Article X of the Treaty, every State-party "shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance."

Now, from the point of view of Germany (or Poland or Turkey or any other non-nuclear-weapon State in NATO) mightn't the confluence of (a.) the succession to the U.S. Presidency of a doubter and disparager of NATO; and (b.) the simultaneous declarations of said doubter and the President of Russia of their intentions to enhance their nuclear arsenals, rather than indulge in any disarmament negotiations (in good faith or otherwise) be deemed an "extraordinary event"?

Once the three months had passed, how long would it take Germany to have its own nuclear arsenal?  Wouldn't the governments of Germany, Poland and Turkey be well advised to give this course of action serious consideration?  Otherwise they depend upon Putin to refrain from crushing them by the use or threatened use of his nukes, and upon Trump to deter Putin with his nukes.  And even if both of these worthies might safely be relied upon, they would still be left inhabiting a world made ever more crowded with nuclear weapons over which they have no control.

The NNPT, incidentally, forms the vital nexus of the whole negotiation between nuclear-weapon States (Russia, China, U.S., U.K., France*) on the one hand and Iran (a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the NNPT) on the other, a fact practically never noted in the American media.
* Non-nuclear Germany was also a participant - nuclear vs. non-nuclear status being the reason for the designation of these as the "five plus one" powers.

U.S. Election - al Baghdadi’s to Lose?

U.S. Presidential Election - al Baghdadi’s to Lose?

I hope I'm wrong, but my political radar is telling me that D.J. Trump’s latest absurdity will, once again, boost his poll numbers. I expect that by now he has engaged the services of some high-grade (if politically amoral) pollsters. My hunch is that he will find the “Keep Muslims Out” slogan has not only improved his numbers with likely Republican primary voters (unsurprisingly) but that it has attracted the favorable attention of the coveted “Reagan Democrats.”


And if I’m not wrong, if his pollsters study their focus group results closely enough they will find that shameless fear-mongering is the ultimate key to winning the women’s vote. Once persuaded that their young are endangered, females in general become deaf to all appeals to rational policy, while the suggestion that any value should be superordinate to immediate and absolute safety will be furiously rejected by them.


Trump has now so positioned himself that a few incidents of jihadist terrorism in the U.S. – of the right kind and at the right times – could sweep him to nomination and then into the Oval Office. He certainly understands this.


But does al Baghdadi? It can scarcely be doubted that Trump is the candidate ISIS would most gladly see elected. Do the jihadist terror groups have assets in this country that would enable them to put their man in the White House? I doubt it very seriously. But I suppose we shall see.

I Said It In April, 2004

In 2004 I was posting to a History Channel discussion group devoted to the US invasion of Iraq. I accidentally came across several page I had printed out back then. 11 years later, everybody's saying what I was saying then.

Da Feet of Which Tribe?
(Reply to "More Defeatist Diatribe" by DBWriter)
BStanley

marcusLC:
Anyone have an exit strategy for Iraq? Since Bush doesn't seem to.

BKS:

April 26, 2004
[US policy in Iraq has been set by] the White House, secretively consulting with some of the civilian leadership at the Pentagon and the Israeli government, and not consulting, in advance of or during decision-making with anybody else nor even, after decisions are made, letting anybody know what they are, with any concreteness or detail, until after it has attempted to implement them. The only likely explanation for this bizarre conduct is Ariel Sharon's Svengali-like control over GWB on this subject matter, and Sharon's understandable fear that any other approach …would soon lead to the dissipation of that control.

MarcusLC:
I supported … Afghanistan as necessary but I have never understood this entire Iraq thing and now there seems to be no way out.

justaguy:
The short, simple answer is that there is no 'exit strategy' from Iraq. Never has been.

SHAQ:
We were lied to.

Mushashi:
The Iraq war has been full of questions with either late, inadequate, or flat out wrong answers. The costs, the objectives, the reasons, the justifications, the duration, the necessity, all have become multiple choice questions because the Bush administration hasn't been up-front with us about anything.

BKS:
That the Administration has never identified the objective of our warfare against Iraq clearly and concretely, or, if any of the objectives the Administration has disclosed could be so described, it didn't remain the stated objective for more than a few weeks, is the one theme restated, in various ways, by nearly all the postings in this thread. I have no idea which of these postings DBWriter meant to denounce as a "defeatist diatribe." Perhaps it was just their common note of skepticism.

"Defeatism" entered the political vocabulary as a term used by French Right and Center politicians to denounce the anti-war stance of the International (i.e., anti-war) Left parties in France and other Allied states during the First World War. It was soon taken up for the same purpose by the Social Patriotic (pro-war; in Russia, after February 1917, "revolutionary defensist") Left. In the politics of the Central and Allied powers (except for the US, where fear of Allied "defeat," after America joined the Allies, never really existed, and such terms as "Reds" and "Hun-Lovers" were more suited to the general level of political discourse) it became the favorite epithet used to dismiss any questions or collywobbles about pouring everything into pursuit of the vital (and, of course, inevitable) Total Victory. Its real sting lay in its invariably being coupled with more or less explicit accusations that the "defeatists" were not really just weak-kneed or war-weary fellow countrymen but in fact spies or traitors working for the Total Victory of the crafty and perfidious Foe. In France, this general line derived initial plausibility (or at least, resonance) from the circumstances of the defeat France had suffered in the Franco-Prussian war (and urgency from her very near approach to military collapse during the Great -- and greatly hushed-up -- Mutiny of 1917, in which German agents indeed played a role, though it was trifling compared to that of the French generals). Its German version, post-defeat, grew into the Dolchstosse credo recapitulated in the latter chapters of Mein Kampf.

Even today (or as recently as 1997, anyway) "the kind of defeatism ... characteristic of those who came to accept, rather than reject, the occupation of France [during WW II]" is an indirect way of describing a thesis and/or its proponent as Fascist or crypto-Fascist. (See
http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/french_theory_and_criticism-_5.html_.) It is true there were fascist groupings in France, and also true that, before 1939, Hitler was reported to have boasted to his inner circle that he would form and foment such elements and use them to ensure Germany's victory when war came, but it is highly doubtful that French Fascism had any substantial role in France's actual defeat. (Dealing with the consequences of defeat was another matter.)

I don't know whether DBWriter actually meant to suggest that the previous posters (or the diatribist among them, whichever he was) is a secret agent of the enemy. I don't even know whom he takes "the enemy" to be, at this juncture. (Apart from Massachusetts, which he names.)

Indeed, I don't see how anybody's notion of what would constitute "defeat" can be much more clear or specific than his definition of "victory."

DBWriter:
> Exit strategy? How about, we leave after we win?

BKS:
Funny. That's exactly what I was saying while everybody was jumping about the flight deck hugging one another, admiring the President's flight suit, and shouting, 'We won!"

DBWriter:
> What is a win?

BKS:
Surely this calls for a drum-roll!
But, with no disrespect to DBWriter, shouldn't it have been our President who laid out for the people before he committed the nation to war what he would consider a "win"?

DBW:
>A government in Iraq that is independent of the
> surrounding dictatorships,

BKS:
Golly. I would have thought the government Iraq had before we invaded (or even ultimated) would have been satisfactory on this count. Syria is the only "surrounding dictatorship" Saddam hadn't actually made war on, and the sister Ba'ath Parties had become estranged, to put it mildly.

But I'm not exactly sure why the fierce independence of Iraq from its neighbors should be a major desideratum to America. I can't say that I would feel personally aggrieved if, for example, the line between Syria and Iraq were peacefully erased (whatever name might be given the consolidated state). If anybody is to have people dying in bloody combat to preserve an arbitrary line that the people living on either side are content to have erased, just because Winston Churchill is supposed to have drawn the line, I say let the Brits do it.

DBW:
> and not conducive to civil
> war among the 3 basic sects that comprise the
> population of Iraq .

BKS:
Again, whatever his faults may have been, you could hardly say that Saddam was such a weak ruler that the country was threatening to spin apart as if nobody was wielding power at the center-- could you?

So if an independent and unitary Iraq, just as first drawn by Winnie and blessed by the League of Nations, of blessed memory (both), were what we really wanted to continue to see, why the heck didn't we just send S.H. a quiet little note saying "Thanks for a job well done!" (Kinda like GHWB did, literally or figuratively, at least twice.)

And anyway, I can't say it matters a great deal to me whether Iraq remains one state or becomes twenty-seven. I realize that GWB, without consulting anybody in this country outside his own office, or even very effectively canvassing authorities in Istanbul and Teheran, purported to promise Turkey and Iran that we would on no account permit our invasion to lead to the break-up of the Iraqi state as defined, territorially, by the League of Nations. But everybody knows George will say anything if his wind is up and there's no responsible adult around to stop him. Besides, these two ancient states undoubtedly have learned how to handle minor disappointments in foreign policy, as, indeed, each has, in the not too distant past, helped to school the still young United States on the handling of foreign disappointments small and not so small.

And if you asked my personal preferences, I'd say: Up Kurdistan! (On both moral and material grounds, why shouldn't the Turkic peoples be forced to recognize that demanding national self-determination for themselves while denying it to others is not ... well ... kosher?)

DBW:
> This means a form of democracy,
> and disallows theocracies.

BKS:
I guess I must have missed the news about the discovery of the previously lost books of the Politics of Aristotle explaining this. History is replete with democracies, timocracies, aristocracies, oligarchies, monarchies and dictatorships (tyrannies, to Aristotle) which remained independent of their neighbors and did not split up -- for lesser and greater periods of time. But one of Telli's conclusions was that democracy is generally the least stable of all systems. "Theocracy" is not an Aristotelian word, and I'm sure he would have deplored the impiety of equating the rulership of priests with the rulership of God.

DBW's contribution seems to be developing into a highly original exploration of the sunny side of Saddam Hussein. One of the few (other) good things one might say about this state prisoner (but of what state, come 7/1 ?) is that he managed on the whole to preserve the pristine Ba'athist secularism, without being noticeably nastier to religious persons and/or institutions, per se, than he was to just about everybody.

Anyway, if the U.S. is now to embark upon a crusade for the universal elevation of the secular state and state secularism, shouldn't GWB warn his buddies down South to run like heck from that bizarre granite block inscribed, on five surfaces, with an odd miscellany of Bible verses? The one they're all wailing over because it stands no longer in the Temple of Mammon? Our cruise missiles have a pretty large radius of destruction, despite their precision.

What if we have to take drastic measures lest the forces of obscurantism and black reaction seek to sully some otherwise suitable document of the new Iraqi state with some prejudicial reference to "one nation under Allah ," or the like, while Bush's Solicitor General is still insisting to the Supreme Court that "one nation, under God," in our Pledge has nothing to do with religion? Won't people be confused?

And then there's the problem of all of the theocratic measures the Likud has been pleased to impose in Israel, as demanded by Shaz (the only political party in the world which literally and seriously claims to be the one true earthly voice of God) as the price of that modern-State-of-lsrael-hating party's vital participation in the ruling ultrartight coalition. Before we start the bombing to wipe out Shaz, shouldn't we prepare for retaliation in the form of another wave of JDL terrorism in this country? (If the IDF itself doesn't just send Apache 'copters to "return" some of our own missiles, this time.)

As for the Vatican, certain Italian parties have long been clamoring for its dissolution. All we've go to do is get one of them in power.

Gee, now to name our new war (spin is everything, you know). The War To Abolish Priest-Craft? The War To Prohibit The Opiate Of The Masses? The War Of Reason Against Superstition? Gosh, I feel like such a revolutionaire! Bishops to the lamposts!

Maybe we can name one of our aircraft carriers (or better, a "boomer") "The Atheist"!

DBW:
> To win this Arab war against America

BKS:
The first necessity was to create it. GWB has done so, as instructed by Sharon.

Of course, it was and is Sharon's war against the Arabs, and he thinks the US should go anywhere, bear any burden, pay any price, to fight it for him.

As for Dubya, his minister told him one time that if the US does everything just like Ariel Sharon the Man of Peace says, the great war of Armaggedon will come real soon and destroy one-third of the earth but him 'n Laura won't be in no danger 'cause they'll have been taken right up on a cloud of rapture, just as pure and white and pearly as a Senator's new teeth, and then there'll be six white horses-- or was it a bay, a roan, and some other critter that won't never pollute the pure internal-combustion economy of W's "ranch?"

Not 'till after W's been taken up in a cloud o' glory so's the Lord Jesus can have his personal access time, leastways.

Somebody'll have to be ranchin' some neat animals somewhere, though, 'cause them Jews is gonna have to start slaughterin' cattle twicet a day in that there Holy Temple, so the Anti-Christ and his False Prophet can come and get 'em in his pocket and lead them all straight to Hell where they belong, 'cept for a few who'll get struck blind on the way to Damascus, covered with boils, starved near to death, take the Swamp Fever and Whooping Cough together, watch their kinfolk git burnt alive, and just at the last minute before their justly deserved years of earthly suffering end in a justly deserved Eternity of Torment in HELLFIRE, a lay sister of the Crawford Baptist Church will be dropped in by helicopter right beside that death-pallet of filthy straw and by a Holy Miracle of God that Baptist will be miraculously converted to Pentacostalism, so she'll know that Tongues Is Not Of The Devil and she'II "Let go, sister" in the very nick of time so's she can reel off the Six Steps To Salvation (For Predestinated Eyes Only) in perfect Modern Hebrew, even though the good sister (God bless her, Lord knows!) hasn't ever been real good with honest white Texican and that poor dying Jew will accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his/her personal Lord and Savior and be the very last and lowest person let into Heaven, just to give Eternal Proof that the Lord Jehovah can save anybody if He wants to bad enough. Praise the Lord! Glory!

Good thing America is up to the task of keeping Iraq strictly secular.

DBWriter:
> we must do one of two things:

BKS:
Sure, David Bernstein, would it be? But who's "we"? Ya got a mouse in your pocket?

DBWriter:
> ONE: Physically annihilate all current opposition,

BKS:
Are you sure you don't mean "population"? If you say you are, please tell us what makes you so sure?

DBWriter:
> and convert the surviving population to the benefits
> of being civilized and getting along with the modern
> world (i.e. they must be convinced that terrorism is
>very bad for them.)

BKS:
Yeah, but--
> Annihilate all supporters of the current government of Israel
> and convert the surviving population there to the benefits
> of being civilized and getting along with the modern
> world (i.e. they must be convinced that territorial aggrandizement
> through military conquest and ethnic cleansing will not be
> tolerated by the international community)

BKS:
Would be just as moral, much easier to accomplish technically, and actually win us friends instead of enemies.

DBWriter:
>Or;

> TWO: Be patient enough, and dedicated enough, to
>nurture the development of a modern democracy Iraq ,
> and help the Iraqi people build a national pride
> based on the ability of Iraq to be part of the modern
>world.

BKS:
OK, but, if we make it happen, the Baghdad-based Arab Renaissance will guarantee the early liquidation of the Zionist entity.

DBWriter:
> This doesn't mean being a satellite state of the US.

BKS:
No, but of Israel.

DBW:
> But, you can bet that we will never even consider
> allowing anything even remotely related to any
> terrorist nation or state (I think Massachusetts
>could be included here,) to influence the
>development of the new government in Iraq.

BKS:
How's your mouse/tapeworm, Da'ud?

Around here (Arizona, the other United States and overseas possessions including American Samoa) "we" will always be more than remotely related to Massachusetts and Massachusetts will always have an equal voice in the U.S. Senate and thus an assured influence on the development of every aspect of America's foreign policy (in the long run). And someday soon, unless Divine Providence no longer favors the prosperity and advancing influence of this Republic, loyal American states and loyal Americans -- that is to say, those whose first and wholly undivided loyalty is to America, only, and who would die before they would intentionally help make her the cat's paw or dupe of any alien power-- will recover control of all aspects of America's foreign policy.

Interrogating Benghazi

Petraeus' girlfriend let the cat out of the bag quite a while ago: the CIA had a little prison in (actually, near) the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.  Persons thought to pose too great a threat to the political settlement in Libya the CIA has been promoting were scooped up and confined there, sometimes "interrogated harshly," sometimes moved on to larger detention facilities and sometimes ... ?

Some actors on the Libyan political scene resented this, and in particular the Ansar al Sharia militia resented - can you imagine such wickedness? - the detention there of 2 or 3 of its officers. It calculated (perhaps, not without assistance) that by a local concentration of military power it could take the prison/consulate and free these prisoners, and it did so, other things made possible by the overthrow of consulate security also being done at the same time.

Since it was in a public speech that the Ms. Broadwell announced this bit of news, the CIA had to issue a public denial (surprise, surprise). (Article)

Sen. McCain's sources, one assumes, are at least as good as Ms. Broadwell's.  So whether it was Broadwell's speech that tipped them off or they already knew, McCain and his Washington collaborators were fully aware, well before their recent spate of denunciations targeting Susan Rice, that the CIA had something in Benghazi it had to cover up.  The "Innocence of Muslims" film, or rather its sudden and thus far unexplained discovery by Muslims worldwide, might almost seem to have been ready-made cover. Almost, but for the fact that the "Innocence" agitation was already underway when the consulate attack occurred.

One might address this temporal difficulty by supposing that the entity responsible for causing "Innocence" to be publicized in far-flung Islamist circles also had a hand in instigating the attack on the consulate.  Then the picture changes from one of temporal inconsistency to one of almost-perfect timing.  But why should "the entity" want to see its own prison overrun? (It will be noted that while, over at the consulate, the ambassador and his bodyguards were killed, all the CIA personnel got away from the prison safely.)

One suspects that Ansar al Sharia wanted its officers back more than the CIA really wanted to hold them, but the pressing question is:  Who wanted to kill Chris Stevens?

Did Stevens know about the CIA torture facility in the Benghazi consulate, and if so, did he approve?  It seems doubtful he could have been without knowledge, and certain he could not have approved.  One supposes (one hopes, at least) that the same could be said of the State Department itself, and one doubts that conditions in our Libyan facilities were or are unique.

Since writing the preceding paragraph I have had second thoughts. I suspect that the "highest levels" of the State Department were (the plural number here being a mere conventional fig-leaf) not so unsympathetic toward the use of American diplomatic facilities for illegal imprisonment and torture as I had hoped. This would mean that suspicions regarding the Secretary's reactions to unfolding events may have been as better founded as I tended to think.

The prospect for a truly Watergate-scale investigation and scandal is suddenly clear (or it would be in an era unlike this post-9/11 one, when leadership at every point of the political compass only competes to cry "By jingo!" the loudest).  If this agitation continues, even given Washington's "know no evil" attitude toward our own "security" operatons, can it fail to bring the CIA abuse of American diplomatic facilities in the Middle East -- and perhaps even more nefarious activities of the American "intelligence" apparatus -- under the glare of international floodlights?  But then why is an arch-neocons Senator vigorously and unflaggingly attacking a State spokesperson for her faithful promotion of the CIA cover story?

The likes of McCain and Graham, of course, can only be dupes in such a deep and devious game.  But who is pulling their strings?  And to what end?

Little-Known Law Could Erase National Debt!

31 U.S.C. § 3108: An obligation issued under sections 3102–3104(a)(1) [Treasury bonds, notes and bills] and 3105–3107 [savings bonds] of this title may not bear the circulation privilege.


This law has been on the books long enough to control all outstanding Treasury debt instruments.

The “circulation privilege”? Yep, it means what any trader in U.S. debt securities would insist it cannot possibly mean: that the issuer may refuse to redeem the instrument if presented by any but the original obligee. See Hitner v. Lederer, 14 F.2D 991, 993 (E.D.Pa. 1926) (provision that bonds “shall not bear the circulation privilege” means that such bonds “are not a medium of exchange recognized by law”). What else could it mean?

Who might be the original obligee of an instrument issued in bearer form is an interesting question, but in recent time the vast majority of U.S. debt instruments have been issued in registered form. What about the Treasury practice of “registering” assignments of instruments? In the first place, administrative practices of the Treasury cannot alter the law, and 31 U.S.C. § 3108 is law. Secondly, the fact that the issuer may refuse to redeem upon presentment by someone other than the original obligee doesn’t mean that it must so refuse. And however consistently it does not, in practice, refuse, in principle its right to refuse remains unaffected.

How the nowadays vast and ever-churning market in Treasury debt securities came to operate in blithe disregard of this law is no doubt an interesting piece of history. One surmises that at a certain point, after the Treasury had disregarded § 3108 for a period of time, “the market” assured itself that the Government could not possibly risk crashing the financial system, and thus the economy, by all at once invoking it.

But now Messrs. Boehner and McConnell are promising to crash the financial system, and after that the question will be, “What can the U.S Treasury do to pick up the pieces?” In this light, the sudden discovery that by virtue of § 3108 very few holders of U.S. debt are in a position to make legal demand for payment might acquire new and previously unsuspected utility. The Treasury could announce a drastic restructuring (exempting such debt as is shown to be held by the original obligee) without triggering a “debt incident.” The rating agencies would no doubt come forward explaining that of course they had only meant their AAA rating to apply to U.S. debt instruments that had not been circulated in disregard of the law.

Treasury could then without qualm cover the costs of keeping the power on at the National Archives (thus saving the Declaration of Independence from crumbling into dust overnight), maintaining such vital services such as those provided by Blackwater USA and the like – oh, and even continuing to issue the Social Security checks.

What Color Is the Yellow Peril?

Politco.com article on GOP candidate for special election to US House

In light of this report, who can deny that the Republican Party (in Nevada, at least) has become the vessel and willing tool of dangerous reactionary demagoguery? And on what basis can one rate the Republican Party of any other state superior to that of Nevada?

The only difference between reactionary and revolutionary demagogues is that the former simply pander to the ignorant prejudices of the masses as they find them, while the latter attempt to manipulate and rearrange them. In the long run both are equally dangerous to any system of ordered liberty.

With “conservatives” like this, who needs Bolsheviks? (Indeed, did Lenin cause default on the Czar’s debt with any less insouciant contempt than Amodei threatens default on “Obama’s”? But Lenin was not a fool, and unlike Amodei and the Nevada GOP, he really had nothing to fear from the bondholders … )

Debt Ceiling: Paying Attention to the Politics

John Zogby's 6/15 column for Forbes magazine noted that his organization's most recent poll had found 52% opposed  to a debt-ceiling increase and 41% in favor.  He went on to observe:

45% of all voters would be more likely to support the [debt-ceiling] increase if major budget cuts are part of the deal. That includes slightly more than one-half of the voters who oppose raising the debt ceiling. So if Washington could satisfy them with cuts, we could have voter consensus on a deal.

But have the pollsters separated out the data by "Red" and "Blue" states, or better yet, by Congressional district? What does a Republican up for re-election in 2012 have to deliver along with the debt-ceiling hike in order for primary voters in his state or district to forgive a "Yea" vote? That is what each such Congressional Republican is and will be asking himself. Sarah Palin's comment with regard to increasing the debt ceiling was simply, "Hell, no!" and anecdotal evidence (a perusal of comments left on news websites) suggests that the profane pixy from Wasilla did not overstate the "Tea Party" position.

The set of likely Republican primary voters, in Congressional districts represented by a Republican, and/or in states with one or more Republican Senator, is a very special subset of the general population. But the perceived attitudes of this subset will be crucial in determining whether the necessary majorities for affirmative Congressional action to increase the existing cap on full-faith-and-credit borrowing can be mustered.

I suspect the package Tea Party voters would demand in order to approve the debt-ceiling hike is much bigger than the package Congressional leaders, of either and/or both parties, could deliver.

(How many bond traders have as yet even considered these Washington dynamics, much less given them the detailed scrutiny they demand? All indications are that Wall Street continues to assume, blithely, that the necessary ceiling increase, with or without some fiscal austerity bonus, wil be forthcoming in good time.)

Avoiding default, therefore, depends on (a.) selling the Tea Party masses on the need for a debt-ceiling increase, or (b.) persuading Congressional Republicans to do the statesmanlike and responsible, but possibly politically suicidal, thing and vote for a bill that does not include abolition of the Department of Education and the Federal Reserve.

Contempt for all experts, even a profound suspicion of the very notion of expertise, however, is one of the hallmarks of this "conservative" movement. Who will explain the dangers to one of their seething town-hall meetings with any hope of being listened to? Even if such a brave person emerged, he would face the constant rejoinder that failure to rein in the deficits must someday produce the increased borrowing costs and downward fiscal spiral that ceiling-hike advocates warn against. While this observation may be valid, there is a big difference between "someday" and two months from today.

But the Tea Party believes that even if there should be some consternation in the bond market come August, it will be able to set things right. Warnings of the risk of more dire consequences will have little effect, because it is easy for this cohort to dismiss the "speculative" predictions of "so-called experts." Besides, they can find experts of their own to tell them what they want to hear. It also doesn't help that the warnings sound very much like those sounded by Wall Street and the Bush Adminisration in the course of their first, unsuccessful effort to obain the TARP legislation.

On that occasion, it took a jolt from the stock market to prod Congress into action. On this issue, continued inaction will most certainly result in a jolt. The concern I have been expressing is that the shock, when at last it comes, could well be huge, wholly uncontrollable in its immediate sequellae, and epochally catastrophic in its ultimate consequences.

There remains the hope that Boehner, McConnell and today's crop of GOP groundlings will brave political ruin to do the responsible and statesmanlike thing.

'Nuff said.

It does not help that this gang has played "Chicken" with the Democrats before and won, coming out with jalopy unscathed and glorious. When you talk to them of the urgency and peril of the situation, they only calculate the greater certainty of their foes' capitulation, and begin devising another escalation of their own demands.