The Twerpy Twelve.

• Author: Durst, Will
• Position: Off the Map - Economic committee on deficit spending

Can't understand why folks are so mad at Obama. After all, he hasn't done anything. Except collapse faster than an overused supply tunnel in a Chilean coal mine. The difference is that nobody's organizing any rescue parties.

The President is so damn determined to govern from the middle, it's a wonder he's not sporting a double yellow line down the center of his fore head. Democrats may desert him, but he'll always be king of the Road Kill Party. His aides hailed his straddle on the debt-ceiling debacle as a compromise. Yeah. Same kind of compromise the Titanic arranged with that iceberg.

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The tea party held the government hostage, and Barack fell victim to a wicked case of Stockholm syndrome, bonding with his captors, until finally convincing them to accept more than they originally asked for. The professional obstructionists cleverly eschewed all the usual rationales and instead adopted the key negotiating skills of a four-year-old. "No. No. No. No. No. No. No." It was like trying to reason with set cement.

Now both Congress and the President are treating the pact like a dead horsefly floating in their cut-glass tumbler of twenty-five-year-old Scotch. You'd find more enthusiasm from the contestants of a beach volleyball tournament surveying a sand court littered with scorpions.

Speaking of arachnids, included in the agreement was a provision forming a committee responsible for future deficit reduction. Twelve members appointed by party leaders from both House and Senate. Whose mission, should they accept it, is to find $1.5 trillion over a ten-year period by digging past the bare bones, down into the marrow, and finishing by Thanksgiving Eve or risk triggering automatic cuts.

Doomsday cuts.

Cuts designed to frighten politicians from the most stable of districts.

That's right: These cuts would include large slashes to the military.

A majority of the committee, equally...