Even three weeks ago, you were in a better place. Unbeknownst to most of the partisan warriors and nearly all of the cynical scribes around town, you and John Boehner had been huddling in the White House, talking trillions, tracing the heady contours of a grand bargain. It was another big bet, but with odds no worse than the last one, or so you calculated. And in Boehner, you believed, you’d found a similarly motivated accomplice with a similarly long-range view. Despite your customary reserve, you experienced the stirrings of a real fondness for him.
Then . . . breakdowns. Standoffs. Near chaos on Capitol Hill. And, now, a piteous basket of pathetic final-hour fixes that could yield a downgrade of the country’s credit rating and aren’t durable solutions: Band-Aids where a tourniquet was once discussed. Even if default is averted, the nation’s mountainous debt will likely remain a source of anguish and acrimony through and even past the 2012 election. Will there ever be any money or oxygen for actually getting stuff done?
This too shall pass.
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