Are the Republicans being faked out?

Charles Krauthammer says everything Obama has been doing in the debt negotiations is a lie and a fake, designed for no other purpose than to make the Republicans the fall guy. He says the Republicans are falling for it. He concludes:

You cannot govern this country from one house. Republicans should have learned that from the 1995-96 Gingrich-Clinton fight when the GOP controlled both houses and still lost.

If conservatives really want to get the nation’s spending under control, the only way is to win the presidency. Put the question to the country and let the people decide. To seriously jeopardize the election now in pursuit of a long-term, small-government, Ryan-like reform that is inherently unreachable without control of the White House may be good for the soul. But it could very well wreck the cause.

Is this wise counsel? Or the usual Krauthammer call for compromise?

David Limbaugh takes the opposite view from Krauthammer:

Republicans, choose your spokesman (Rep. Paul Ryan would be a good choice), and call daily pressers to make your case instead of always ceding that turf to Obama. In charge of the purse, you have every bit as much right to speak out on fiscal matters as does Obama. Then begin passing your reform bills over and over again, forcing the Democratic Senate and Obama to reject them. It’s time that the president and party who are “creating the mess” were put back on their heels and exposed for their wanton fiscal destruction.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 15, 2011 11:18 AM | Send