Default Madmen
by digby
If you didn't know better, you might think he was back on the Little Blue Babies:
On his radio program yesterday, Rush Limbaugh blasted the Politico piece, proudly embraced the “default denier” label, and then went a step further — by claiming that not raising the debt limit would actually improve the nation’s credit rating:
LIMBAUGH: Today I claim the mantle. I proudly and honestly come to you today as the Mr. Big of the default deniers. We will not default on anything. And moreover, it is more likely that the country’s creditworthiness would go up around the world since we would finally be doing something to address our out-of-control spending and indebtedness if we were not to raise the debt limit. We would be perceived around the world as serious for a change, and responsible for a change. Otherwise we are headed for junk bond status.
Limbaugh proceeded to suggest that Democrats are trying to destroy the country by raising the debt ceiling. “The only people who want that…are the people who seek to fundamentally transform this country as it was founded.” Additionally, he said “Keynesian economics doesn’t work unless destruction is the objective.”
But you do know better, right? He's not freelancing. How do we know this? Because Ryan and Toomey and the Republican study group are spouting the same bullshit.
They're bluffing, but they're doing a good job of it. With the Tea Party threatening to primary John Boehner because he can't eliminate the debt in a year and the media increasingly sounding panicked, I would guess that the Democrats will have all the cover they need to make a deal. I'm sure we'll all be told that they had no choice. After all, these Republicans are just that crazy.
Years ago I wrote a piece called Nixon's Babies, positing that the modern conservative movement was much more attributable to his various strategies than Reagan's ideology. I have to say, however, at the time I didn't see them using the Nixon Madman Theory on the debt ceiling. My bad.
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