Buck up, shipmates!

In strategic terms, here’s what just happened.  Obama tried to force battle on his terms, and Republicans refused the engagement.  No one has lost or won the big battle over “how the republic shall live,” because we haven’t had it yet.  Accepting battle on Obama’s terms was never a good idea.  Some thoughts:

Kicking the tranche down the road

The US looks likely to enter a select club of nations this week: those that mark off the days and years of national life in “tranches” of borrowing.  The best thing to be said about this is that it could be worse.

In the last 30 years or so, familiarity with the word “tranche” has been related almost exclusively to finance deals for borrowers whose creditworthiness is iffy.  Generally meaning “slice” or “portion,” a tranche in finance is a portion of a structured deal in which borrowing power is released serially.  The tranche usually has an element of contingency about it: performance with the previous tranche(s), a review requirement, etc.  Suffering industries and overextended countries have been the usual-suspect tranche borrowers, and have been supervised by national governments, the IMF, the World Bank, the EU, and so forth.

In typical American style, the US Congress is putting together a self-imposed tranche borrowing deal, and girding its loins to supervise itself.

Gunwalker and the budget: Crises in the integrity of government

The mainstream media are failing to address two central truths about key domestic issues for America this summer.

1.  Agencies of the US federal government created the “Gunwalker” problem.

2.  President Obama is the one who will decide who gets paid after 2 August, if there is no budget deal.

The two issues are largely unrelated, except through the principles on which the Obama administration has handled them and the MSM are dealing with them.  The latter principle is one of

TOC on Talk

Readers, I’ll be interviewed today on the American Hour Radio Show at 4:00 PM Eastern, with hosts Tom Garcia (Commander, USN, Ret.) and Paula Lauzon-Ostman.  The topic is the budget battle and the US economy.

To listen in online,

No “Hollywood victory moments” in the budget fight

Boehner didn’t cave on the budget deal this weekend, as some feared he would.  The prior fears were not by any means inexplicable.  Republicans in Washington are speaking mildly rather than trenchantly, and taking slings and arrows from the chattering class.  There’s no Terminator-type trash talk coming from them.  All the movement and fury seems to be on the Democrats’ side.

And that makes sense, because it’s the Democrats who occupy indefensible ground.