Chris Cillizza: Winners and Losers from Debt Deal

Chris Cillizza’s analysis seems about right to me. Winners include: 1) Mitch McConnell (ugh); 2) the Tea Party (I know, retch!); and 3) President Obama (“remember that Obama’s target constituency in 2012 is not his base but rather independent and moderate voters. And those fence-sitters love compromise in almost any form.”). Losers include: 1) Congress (“about as popular as poison ivy” before this… imagine just how much further that discontent has spread after this” debacle); 2) The Gang of Six (“The group was supposed to put lie to the idea that true bipartisanship – in which both sides give somewhat equally – was dead.” Nope.); and 3) Liberals (“With no revenue in the initial phase of the legislation and Medicare cuts on the table in the second phase, there’s not much for the ideological left to celebrate.”)

So, are you psyched or what? OK, obviously, most of us aren’t psyched at all. In fact, many of us are angry, disgusted, horrified, and depressed by this all-spending-cuts, unbalanced, at-the-point-of-a-metaphorical-gun, debt deal. I guess about the only positive things I can say at this point are: a) that our nation won’t default, which would have been a catastrophe; b) that our nation’s credit rating almost certainly won’t be downgraded, which also would have been really, really bad; c) that President Obama’s reelection chances probably went up (if for no other reason, I want Obama reelected to ensure that the Supreme Court doesn’t have a 6-3 or 7-2 conservative majority for the next several decades); and d) that hopefully a lot of peoples’ eyes – particularly true believers in the Cult of Bipartisanship, “Centrism,” and “Both Sides” thinking – will be opened to the truly extreme nature of today’s Teapublican Party, and the utter impossibility of any compromise with these people.

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got right now; anyone else?

P.S. Also, see Aznew’s excellent, hopeful analysis, which I generally think is spot on.