people are fanatical. they need to be restrained. and someone in the republican party has to talk reason into them. and if it isn t ralph, if he s going to applaud them, who is going to stand up against them? ralph? well, i think the problem with that analysis, andrew, is that the legislative system itself is broken. the united states senate has not produced a budget in three years. and we ve got a situation where the house has passed varying measures to deal with obama care that even if you don t take the position that i do, which is that it should be repealed and left on the ash heap of history, and i think we will ultimately be vindicated in that position by the way. but even if you re not in that camp, even if you re in a mend it don t end it camp, there were numerous attempts by the house to send that over and reid simply stripped that stuff out. harry reid the majority leader would not allow it to come to a vote. and the result is that we re
revenues that way. i am not hearing from the republican right any sense of chastening after this event, and any sense that they re serious about tackling the long-term debt with the democrats. but i mean on your web site you ve been very tough. i mean, sort of implying that the tea party or the far right is trying to sabotage our democracy in a way. well, yes. because i think the key thing there was not the goal of the debt but the strategy. you do not threaten to throw the entire global economy into a second great depression. you do not threaten the credit of the united states as a political tactic. they used such an extreme tactic that it was blackmail, a form of economic terrorism. i think the middle of the country, whatever you think about the debt, the middle of the country really thinks that kind of tactic was completely out of bounds and needs to be restrained. i think a lot of republicans believe that, too. but they re too scared to take on these radicals. ralph, i imagin
we ll continue to fight on the merits. but i d be surprised if there s another shutdown. andrew, what about the problems with obama care? certainly the web site. i mean, it s hard to defend the rollout of this. it s indefensible. and ralph and i can agree on that, i think. but that means that this tactic, this attempt to destroy the american economy, the threatening of actually throwing millions out of work, threatening the credit of the united states, threatening the global economy, threatening our position in the world, was a disastrous gambit because in fact if they had just done the normal things, the regular things, made their arguments through the normal constitutional processes and not attacked our very system of government they would have succeeded enormously this month. because obama sat there with this obama care thing that s been a disaster. but they didn t do that. and ralph cannot applaud what they did while simultaneously
merits. but i d be surprised if there s another shutdown. andrew, what about the problems with obama care? certainly the web site. i mean, it s hard to defend the rollout of this. it s indefensible. and ralph and i can agree on that, i think. but that means that this tactic, this attempt to destroy the american economy, the threatening of actually throwing millions out of work, threatening the credit of the united states, threatening the global economy, threatening our position in the world, was a disastrous gambit because in fact if they had just done the normal things, the regular things, made their arguments through the normal constitutional processes and not attacked our very system of government they would have succeeded enormously this month. because obama sat there with this obama care thing that s been a disaster. but they didn t do that. and ralph cannot applaud what they did while simultaneously condemning the result of it. you ve got to admit, these
condemning the result of it. you ve got to admit, these people are fanatical. they need to be restrained. and someone in the republican party has to talk reason into them. and if it isn t ralph, if he s going to applaud them, who is going to stand up against them? ralph? well, i think the problem with that analysis, andrew, is that the legislative system itself is broken. the united states senate has not produced a budget in three years. and we ve got a situation where the house has passed varying measures to deal with obama care that even if you don t take the position that i do, which is that it should be repealed and left on the ash heap of history, and i think we will ultimately be vindicated in that position by the way. but even if you re not in that camp, even if you re in a mend it don t end it camp, there were numerous attempts by the house to send that over and reid simply stripped that stuff out. harry reid the majority leader would not allow it to come to a vote. and the