Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: GOP capitulation on Obamacare, losing one's mind over sequestration

Jonathan Chait, among others, points out that David Brooks' awful column on the sequester is merely a symptom of centrist inability to admit one side compromises and is reasonable, and Republicans are in another place altogether:

A virulent example of [crazy from the center] has emerged during the latest iteration of the fiscal debate. Advocates of what Matthew Yglesias calls 'BipartisanThink' have found themselves trapped between two impulses. On the one hand, they fervently believe that the country's most vital priority is to pass a plan to reduce the deficit through a mix of cuts to retirement programs and reduced tax deductions. On the other hand, they believe with equal fervor that the two parties are equally to blame for the country's problems in general, and the failure to pass such a plan in particular.

Their problem is that one party agrees with them completely, and the other rejects them. This creates a paradox between the two mental tentpoles of BipartisanThink. The solution is to simply wish away the facts, thus bringing them into line with reality.

David Brooks today devotes his column to upholding the known truths of BipartisanThink. He lashes out at the obstinacy of the Republican Party and its refusal to compromise on the deficit. But he has to balance it out by asserting that President Obama, too, lacks any such plan...

Second Update: Brooks does an interview with Ezra Klein, which ends up as a total takedown. Brooks admits Obama does have a plan, but takes refuge in the claim that the Congressional Budget Office didn't score it. Klein informs him that the CBO doesn't score informal negotiating offers, but did score the elements as they appeared in Obama's budget. The best part is when Brooks asserts that a centrist Democrat like Robert Rubin would be proposing something way more moderate than what Obama is offering:

Brooks: In my ideal world, the Obama administration would do something Clintonesque: They'd govern from the center; they'd have a budget policy that looked a lot more like what Robert Rubin would describe, and if the Republicans rejected that, moderates like me would say that's awful, the White House really did come out with a centrist plan.

Klein: But I've read Robert Rubin's tax plan. He wants $1.8 trillion in new revenues.

That is a brutal bluff-calling.

Here's the key points from the Robert Rubin et. al. tax plan David Brooks didn't have time to read: http://t.co/...
' @mattyglesias via Tweetbot for Mac
Ezra's interview with Brooks is here. It took place at the salad bar at Applebee's.

What did David Brooks think the upside was in doing that dialogue with @EzraKlein?
' @mattyglesias via Tweetbot for Mac
David Brooks' postscript:

The above column was written in a mood of justified frustration over the fiscal idiocy that is about to envelop the nation. But in at least one respect I let my frustration get the better of me. It is true, as the director of the Congressional Budget Office has testified, that the administration has not proposed a specific anti-sequester proposal that can be scored or passed into law. It is not fair to suggest, as I did, that tax hikes for the rich is the sole content of the president's approach. The White House has proposed various constructive changes to spending levels and entitlement programs. These changes are not nearly adequate in my view, but they do exist, and I should have acknowledged the balanced and tough-minded elements in the president's approach.

Many of his columns aren't fair for similar reasons, but this time he got called on it. Good for the pundit community for doing so.

More below the fold.