While some conservatives are crying foul on the debt ceiling deal, some allegedly mainstream columnists in allegedly mainstream (meaning 'respectable') media outlets; were using some pretty extreme rhetoric to describe their disappointment with the 'compromise' the President signed today.

From the New York Times:

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that’s what it took.

Waged jihad?

As someone reminded me today, these are the same people who had a conniption when Bush used the term 'crusade' relative to the war on terror. Liberal double-standard--nothing new right?

Yet as I read through the article, I was struck by something important. For years I always assumed that the liberal elite perpetrated fallacies, but did not in fact commit them. What I mean by that is that the knew what they were saying was simply 'spin', while privately aware of the reality and truth of the matter. Now it's pretty clear to me that no, they aren't spinning, they actually believe this stuff; deeply and wholeheartedly. We literally have a ruling elite that have a concept of fairness akin to that of a five year old. Republican elected officials, put there by people who have for generations believed the truism is that government is best when it governs least, were in fact perceived to be 'intransigent' because they would not give in to the tantrum of spoiled children long and fully discredited in the eyes of the American public. The implications for the scope of the Progressive belief system is breath-taking. All pretense of respect for the democratic process has been completely abandoned. They see this as a slave revolt--a grave threat to the natural order!

Like ideologues everywhere, they scorned compromise. When John Boehner, the House speaker, tried to cut a deal with President Obama that included some modest revenue increases, they humiliated him. After this latest agreement was finally struck on Sunday night — amounting to a near-complete capitulation by Obama — Tea Party members went on Fox News to complain that it only called for $2.4 trillion in cuts, instead of $4 trillion. It was head-spinning.

This is, once again, breath-taking. The ignorance of the process of negotiation is stunning, but then again, what would a journalist know about negotiation. Liberals DEMAND, from a sense of superiority, that those living in the land of low-sloping foreheads obey their whims.

Democrats desperately needed the credit limit raised to preserve their record of timely payments, so they can in fact borrow more money to finance an environmentally, morally and financially unsustainable life-style. Republicans were ambivalent about it the same way anyone who pays cash is ambivalent about what Experian thinks about their loan-to-value ratios. It's clear to most Americans, and certainly to me, that it's high time that the country learned to live within it's means, and for most people, that means cutting up the credit cards.

That relative disparity in anxiety put the Republicans in the cat bird seat, in fact, had they conceded much more, they would certainly have endowed themselves with some very serious political problems from an activist citizenry.

Ultimately, no one was intransigent. Democrats simply didn't have the cards to get any more out of the deal, and that is the real reason their hair is on fire. Democrats were able to gull many of their blue-dog brethren into believing that the country backed Obamacare, or would when it got rolling. The reality of the 2010 mid-term elections was explained away as a naturally-occurring phenomenon that happens to all Presidents, but this--this just can't be denied. The Democrat establishment caved because the wind is at the backs of the cut-cap-and-balance crowd. As my post yesterday pointed out; many highly-influential voices on the left recognized this for what it was--the end of socialism in American, for a generation, maybe longer.

Inflicting more pain on their countrymen doesn’t much bother the Tea Party Republicans, as they’ve repeatedly proved. What is astonishing is that both the president and House speaker are claiming that the deal will help the economy. Do they really expect us to buy that? We’ve all heard what happened in 1937 when Franklin Roosevelt, believing the Depression was over, tried to rein in federal spending. Cutting spending spiraled the country right back into the Great Depression, where it stayed until the arrival of the stimulus package known as World War II. That’s the path we’re now on. Our enemies could not have designed a better plan to weaken the American economy than this debt-ceiling deal.

It's hard to imagine anyone inflicting more pain on Americans than Democrats have. It is now inarguable that Democrat policies and corrupt office-holders and other hangers-on, were totally responsible for the Housing Crisis. Since 2006, when Democrats took control of Congress (and the purse strings), the national debt has gone from 8 trillion to 13.5 trillion and will almost certainly have doubled by 2013. TARP was supposed to restore the flow of credit. It didn't. The so-called stimulus was supposed to keep unemployment under 8 percent. It didn't. The first-time home-buyer tax credit was supposed to reinvigorate the housing industry. It didn't. Cash-for-clunkers was supposed to jump start the automotive sector. It didn't. Approximate 28% of the nation's households have one or more members unemployed and looking for work.

Keynesian economics, as applied by this administration, is a total bust, and everyone with a brain in their head knows it. You simply can't hide the outcomes. So, will cuts in government spending tip us into recession. Well, we have never been out of recession unless you actually belief the nonsense statistics the government puts out. What Democrats fail to understand is that there is a qualitative difference between private investment and government spending. Investing is hard, as anyone who has actually invested in a business knows all to well. Successful investors invest in success. One has to prove beyond any doubt that the business model works. Government simply throws money--usually at their friends, or at projects whose merit is entirely political. Cutting government spending works and for this reason: the business community and would-be entrepreneurs need two very important things to justify risk-taking with their capital--stability in the form of costs (including taxes and regulation) and some assurance that their return on investment is not going to disappear with some new tax. A deeply indebted government simply can't be trusted to guarantee this kind of stable environment. Lower taxes work for the economy for another simply reason--they make otherwise marginal investments attractive. This is why low interest rates serve as a stimulus as well. When the cost of borrowing is low, so is the cost of doing business in those industries that require relatively large, leveraged inventories.

It all amounts to more economic activity and more jobs, because, contrary to what your Democrat office-holder tells you, business doesn't exist to create a job for you, but creates a job for you because you contribute value to the business.

Of course, no one is completely wrong about everything, and Joe Nocera is right about this:

For now, the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough. After all, they’ve gotten so much encouragement.

Yes we have Joe, but to give credit where credit is due--you Progressives made up the new rules. Hate the game, not the player.