Let's have a play date

Man, I have got to hand it to Barack Obama. If there is such a thing as the Political Maneuvers Hall of Fame, and if he had anything to do with it, the unveiling of the recommendations from the panel convened to determine how to get the national debt under control after the elections should be inducted. Many of our conservative countrymen and women have been quite indignant over the national debt. And since Obama has been president for almost 23 months now, it is his fault. Many of our fellow conservatives arranged their campaigns neatly around this simple message: You balance your household budget, and so too should ‘the government.’ It’s a great “message,” and many of them won. And our president, or his advisors, or someone decided that it would probably be best to not clutter the already cluttered pre-election messagefest with numbers and projections and that sort of thing.

So, a week after the elections, with a thud that caught even the most in-the-know pundits completely off guard, came the recommendations: the national debt is a big problem, and getting it into order is going to be a big and painful undertaking.

Before I go any further, I have a confession of sorts. I loathe Rand Paul, the newly elected senator from Kentucky. I loathe his over-simplified, smug brand of saviorism. I loathe his whining, his condescension. I loathe his tone of voice, which says, to my ears anyhow, you should know the answer to this question, but since you don’t, let me explain it to you, even though I shouldn’t have to. I would love to say that I’m open to Rand Paul’s ideas, that I’m open to listening and watching, but that would be a lie. Though I criticize conservatives for taking the same approach to dethroning Obama, what I’m looking forward to is watching Rand Paul walk into a trap from which even his most sermon-esque foolishness won’t liberate him.

And on Sunday morning, on Face the Nation, I got a little taste of exactly what I’m hoping for: Rand Paul, being asked what he thinks, now that he’s elected, about the recommendations to balance the budget. The recommendations, which are not pretty, call for, among other things, a dramatic reduction if not elimination of mortgage-based tax breaks, raising the retirement age, cutting social security for wealthier seniors, reducing the size of the federal government by reducing the number of employees and, best of all, raising taxes.

We should not cut defense spending, the soon-to-be senator opined. Strong national defense is the most important thing. And we shouldn’t look at reducing the salaries of soldiers and other military personnel, because the sacrifices they’ve made are amazing. And we should not raise taxes at all, because, you see, America is inspired by the private sector, by entrepreneurs, and raising taxes isn’t good for that. We should definitely reduce the number of government employees.

The best part of the discussion had nothing to do with the issue (it rarely does). Rand Paul was asked if he’d heard from the president, who is apparently “reaching out” to the newly elected. No, he has not. What will he say to him when they speak? Well – and here he laughed that gross little ah-shucks part laugh part grunt of his – when he talks to the president, he’d really prefer the conversation not be all about politics. Because there’s more important things. What he’d really like is for his kids to play with the president’s kids. Isn’t that adorable? He’d like for the little white kids to play with the little dark kids.

And that’s when it occurred to me that this is going to be far more entertaining than I’d ever imagined.