Tilting at windmills.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Barack Obama; Chuck Todd; Republicans

The hand he was dealt

Liberals' anger at Obama during the default debate was based on the fact that they actually seemed to think he had the power to do what they wanted him to do. In fact, he did not. The only cards he held were the power of the veto and the Senate Democrats' ability to reject any Republican legislative proposal. They were no better than a pair of deuces in the poker game he had to play. All he really had was bluff--because to avoid default he had to not merely defeat or veto a bill, but rather get one passed by both houses. To do that, he had to win the support of at least eight to ten Republicans in the Senate and thirty to forty in the House. The votes were never there for a bill liberals would like. The moderate Republicans needed to provide those votes simply do not exist. They are, alas, an extinct species.

If Obama had tried to avoid default by following Bill Clinton's suggestion that he invoke a never-before-asserted presidential authority implied by the Fourteenth Amendment, his sure and certain fate would have been the same as Clinton's--impeachment by House Republicans.

The Monkey Wrench Gang

Chuck Todd, NBC's White House correspondent, recently filling in for Chris Matthews on Hardball, expressed "shock" and seemed to think that it was outrageous for Senator Chuck Schumer to question whether Republicans are "slowing down the recovery on purpose," so they can win in 2012.

I did not find it at all shocking. In fact, I think it is true of many Republican leaders. You will recall that in October 2010, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, told the National Journal that "the single most important thing for us to achieve is for Obama to be a one-term president."

When Obama was inaugurated, Rush Limbaugh said, "I hope he fails." As recently as July 23 of this year, he declared, "Helping Obama hurts the country." Grover Norquist, the man behind the no-tax-increase pledge signed by 95 percent of Republicans, said this way back in 2003: "We will make it so that a Democrat cannot govern as a Democrat." And can anyone have any doubt that Eric Cantor, Karl Rove, and Roger Ailes would stop at nothing short of indictable felony to defeat Obama?

Not quite guilty

I will concede there are some innocents who sincerely believe the Tea Party line. But it's hard to give similar credit to the Republicans who so steadfastly refused to raise the debt ceiling even though they had voted for Paul Ryan's budget, which, as columnist Matt Miller was first to point out, "[r]acks up over $5.4 trillion in fresh debt over the next decade."

Status symbol

During the recent embarrassment of Anthony Weiner, I was impressed by much of the praise for his wife, Huma Abedin, but not by Robin Givhan's in Newsweek: "When Abedin posed for Vogue in 2007, she established herself as a Washington power personality. Last year, she made a return appearance in her wedding gown: a succinct pronouncement that her social currency had only risen in value."

The drunks still have the car keys

Evidence that the financial industry has not reformed comes from a recent story buried on an inside page of the Wall Street Journal, in which Gregory Zuckerman describes how Morgan Stanley suffered tens of millions of dollars in losses, "in a high-stakes game of chicken over inflation."

Zuckerman writes, "The trades are a reminder of the risks banks still take, even after the financial crisis." I wish the Journal's editorial page and its ideological allies shared the reporter's insight.

Massey, still at large

I keep asking when the Department of Justice is going to indict Massey Energy officials like Don Blankenship for their role in causing the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster.

The latest revelation by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration of the company's criminal behavior, reported by the Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward Jr.: "Massey...