The Soft Right Eats Its Own

This is on the front page of National Review Online:

Did National Review actually think for a minute there were serious cuts in the Boehner budget? Yeah, they did.

NR writes:

We initially supported the deal House Speaker John Boehner cut with the White House to cut $38.5 billion from the rest of the fiscal year 2011 budget. It was only a pittance in the context of all of Washington’s red ink, but it seemed an acceptable start, even if we assumed it would be imperfect in its details. What we didn’t assume was that the agreement would be shot through with gimmicks and one-time savings. What had looked in its broad outlines like a modest success now looks like a sodden disappointment....The $38.5 billion includes real cuts, but also a dog’s breakfast of budgetary legerdemain.

There’s realism and then there’s cynicism. This deal — oversold and dependent on classic Washington budget trickery — comes too close to the latter. John Boehner has repeatedly said he’s going to reject “business as usual,” but that’s what he’s offered his caucus....As they push a bargain that is still not fully understood, Boehner and the leadership have put their members in an awful fix with another deadline to keep the government open fast approaching. We’d vote “no,” even if we understand the impulse to move on to more important matters and to avoid a leap into the dark that might include a politically damaging shutdown.

How naive can NR be? Or are they just part of the machine judging which way the wind is blowing?

Nothing going on in official Washington D.C. is about serious budget cuts. It's all a scam, only the size of the scam is still to be revealed. As I have written on numerous occasions, the details of these budgets are where the truth lies and they are usually hidden from public view. The only good thing about the current year budget is that parts of the scam are being smoked out early and,  as I reported yesterday, there is a long-shot chance that the budget might be killed.