Capital Times editorial: Obama’s deal with ‘nutters’ is bad for America

“Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time,” said Harry Truman. If the 33rd president was right, then Barack Obama just did himself and his party a world of hurt.

Faced with the threat that tea party-pressured Republicans in the House really would steer the United States toward default, Obama had to do something. But instead of bold action — borrowing a page from Ronald Reagan to demand a straight up-or-down vote on raising the debt ceiling; borrowing a page from Franklin Roosevelt to pledge to use the Constitution to defend the full faith and credit of the United States — the president engaged in inside-the-beltway bargaining of the most dysfunctional sort.

In cutting a deal with Republicans that places Democratic legacy programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — at risk while cutting essential programs for working families and the poor, Obama has positioned himself to the right of where mainstream Republicans such as Howard Baker, Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush used to stand in fights with the fringe elements of their party.

Now the fringe is in charge of the GOP. And Obama is cutting deals to satisfy Republicans that Britain’s banking minister describes as “right-wing nutters.”

-snip-