214 House Republicans Refuse to Come to the White House to Talk to President Obama

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Zeke Miller, a political reporter for TIME magazine, tweeted, “Obama invites 232 House GOPers to the White House, 18 will show up. pic.twitter.com/TxPAX7F08X”. This means that 214 House Republicans are refusing (or, even worse, were ordered not to go) to go to the White House to talk to President Obama.

Obama invites 232 House GOPers to the White House, 18 will show up. pic.twitter.com/TxPAX7F08X

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) October 9, 2013

Adam Jentleson, Communications Director for Senator Harry Reid was unimpressed.

Let me get this straight: Boehner says he wants to talk, WH offers to talk with every member of his caucus & Boehner bars them from going?

— Adam Jentleson (@AJentleson) October 9, 2013

Yes, instead of all House Republicans meeting with the President, it’s only going to be leadership and very select committee chairs. Huh.

Let’s see. The “rebels” who think they’re winning this fight have a plan to keep pushing us over the cliff until Obama gives in to them, because they believe that Independents aren’t sure who to blame. This is, of course, inaccurate. Independents are blaming the GOP by a large margin. But, reality – meh.

Byron York at the Washington Examiner reported:

Now the rebels plan to push President Obama and Democrats hard on their refusal to negotiate the basic issues of funding the government and raising its debt limit. They believe that as days go by, Obama’s my-way-or-the-highway approach won’t play well with the public, particularly independents who are undecided about who to blame for the shutdown.

Obama and Reid aren’t really the targets. The GOP rebels want to focus on red-state Democrats, particularly those up for re-election in 2014, and make the shutdown a question of support for veterans.”

Yes, folks it’s the old blame the other guy for the results of your actions and gleefully smug it up as you use veterans as political props. Oh, values. RAH RAH TROOPS we love ya’ on election day and after that not so much.

And of course, this is just another way to pretend they won 2012 because they have a plan to refund the programs they like and let the others suffer, just as they did under the sequester that was also supposed to force a compromise but did no such thing.

They envision a situation in which, for as long as the shutdown goes on, they are able to fund popular government programs while leaving some key Democrat-friendly outposts shuttered. For example, while they want to fund the Pentagon, are the Republican rebels OK with the fact that most of the Environmental Protection Agency is shut down? They are. Are they worried about furloughs at the National Labor Relations Board? Not particularly.

This is called hijacking democracy. Americans aren’t missing the point. A new Gallup poll (yes, the Republican pollster) found that Republican favorability sank to a record low over this mess. RECORD LOW is just like winning only NOT. Even the Koch brothers know better than to touch this turd in public.

This plan is a fail because it’s too transparent. Only the most obtuse will fall for it, which means that only their base will fall for it, which means that they are out of luck since less and less people identify as Republicans, let alone Tea Partiers, these days. Getting elected requires some independents. Of course, they can pull the old stalker routine and try to wear down the public by waiting them out and hoping they forget just how awful it was to be in a relationship with Republicans.

“Let’s talk” apparently means the opposite of “let’s talk”, but then, you probably already knew that because a Republican said it. Speaker Boehner, to be precise, and these days, his untenable position has given him little choice (sans spine) but to try to justify economic terrorism. The only way to do that is to say the opposite of what Republicans are doing and hope the press bites.

When only 18 Republicans are going to show up at the White House tomorrow out of the 232 that were invited, it’s kinda hard to make the case that you want to “talk”. But then, this is the Republican party and reality need not apply.

And since when can Speaker John Boehner negotiate anything? He clearly doesn’t represent the will of the House. He can’t even get the votes for things he proposes. It’s pointless to talk to him, which must be why he’s going.

When the President said he wouldn’t negotiate while Republicans held the country up, he wasn’t refusing to negotiate. He was refusing to be held up at gun point. Meanwhile, Republicans have made default their goal, and they are only willing to not harm the country if they get concessions. This means that Republicans stand against the country, demanding concessions in order to not destroy the country.

Sarah Jones

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