New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
This op-ed by David P. Barash makes some standard and relatively obvious points about game theory and the debt-ceiling standoff, but I'm guessing he didn't really think his metaphor through to the end:
To achieve their mating goals, male elephants will sometimes play games of chicken, with one individual essentially giving the impression that he is crazy and has become an irrational player in a game premised on shared rationality and predictability ...
In either case, whether you’re confronting a rogue elephant or a rogue nuclear state, the advice is the same: stop playing the game. Avoid the elephant or shoot it; politically isolate the rogue state or use military force to disarm it.
What does all this mean for the debt-ceiling debate? So far, President Obama and the Democrats have insisted on negotiations, assuming that the looming threat of debt default would force the Republicans to cave in on their strident demands and accept a compromise.
Instead, given the Republicans’ continued insistence on an unobtainable wish list of spending cuts and constitutional amendments, it’s fair to conclude that Mr. Obama is facing the political equivalent of an elephant in must — a player who simply won’t play the game.
To be clear: I don't think David Barash is actually calling for our President to avoid or shoot our Congress. I just think he's kind of a sloppy thinker who got a bit too excited thinking about elephants in heat.
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May '10
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
Elephants playing chicken, it sounds like a Larson cartoon? What a weird collection of metaphors. Besides the President hates guns and gun owners, clinging as they do to guns or religion.
This is a better metaphor for Congress and the President negotiating:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/images/2010_12_05/nepals-gentle-giants-do-battle-on-the-polo-field-2010-12-05_l.jpg
Jul '11
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
I am positive if Andrew Breitbart analogized shooting some dumb donkey there would be a few more taking umbrage.
Really, how is it that there are supposedly educated fools that believe Mr Obama is the adult in the room?
How do they propose just brushing aside the will and representatives of the American people?
Is this desire to side step the house in keeping with Mr Obama's recent dictatorial ramblings of doing it all on his own?
Mr Barash is a different word for donkey and his days of influence through the written word are on the wane.
Dec '10
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
When my youngest was three, we took her and her sisters to the Oakland Zoo. I walked her over to see the elephants, and just at that moment, a bull elephant came up to the barrier and drained its bladder, its drainage hose fully distended. My daughter said, "That must be a boy elephant: it has a different kind of bottom."
Jun '10
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
"To be clear: I don't think David Barash is actually calling for our President to avoid or shoot our Congress. I just think he's kind of a sloppy thinker who got a bit too excited thinking about elephants in heat"
Sloppy and STUPID. But You're probably correct, Claire. He is no doubt flushed all over thinking of those big bad Male elephants.
Jul '10
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
The New Republic's Jonathan Chait has some interesting (and more coherent) reflections on the current negotiations here. It is behind the pay wall, but if you subscribe to the RSS feed the full text is there.
Chait does not acknowledge the existential threat represented by the debt crisis while making the case that this Republican House is using tactics and breaking long-standing conventions that light the way to a new era frustration and deadlock in American policy.
In 2006, Democrats won a landslide victory at the polls, sweeping to majorities in both houses of Congress. And then, the Democrats proceeded to do … hardly anything at all. Their agenda consisted mainly of halting George W. Bush’s domestic agenda. Even on the Iraq war, the unpopularity of which fueled the Democratic wave, the party did not make a serious effort to defund the campaign. Ultimately, Democrats funded a troop surge.
The rough equivalent would be if Republicans this year wound up expanding the Affordable Care Act to cover illegal immigrants. ... This scenario, of course, is unimaginable.
Chait cites individual instances where Obama has "evade[d] congressional inaction," but never the bulls rush of regulations and czars and executive orders.
May '10
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
If there's a post that contains the words "game theory" anywhere, I think we are obligated to link to Ricochet's favorite Jesuit-trained poster, KC Mulville. He's got multiple posts on game theory, for example, this one and this one and this one.
(And yes, the rampaging horny elephant metaphor is wildly inappropriate. GOP congressmen are never horny.)
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
Brooks seems to have forgotten that the Democrats were supposed to pass a budget for 2011 in 2010 and could have, but chose not to for fear that they would suffer at the polls. The fact that the Republicans are not simply rolling over is a sign that Obama's revolution has failed. Brooks still has his eye on the crease in the man's pants. He will never be able to bring himself to admit that he has made a colossal fool out of himself.
Jun '10
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
Amen to that. Why is it that Brooks is still categorized by many as a conservative? On his good days, he's a middle-of-the-roader, but often-times he sounds like a mildly coherent liberal. I don't remember the last time he sounded like a genuine conservative.
Edited on Jul 27, 2011 at 12:01pmJul '10
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
Claire Berlinski, Ed.:
Since when, exactly, has the NYT crowd's preferred approach to rogue nuclear states been to "politically isolate the rogue state or use military force to disarm it," as opposed to endless negotiations and concessions?
I guess the Bush Doctrine isn't so bad when you apply it to your domestic political opponents. You could write a whole DSM about these people.
May '10
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
James Taranto's Best of the Web column in the Wall Street Journal makes short work of this unpleasant man's unpleasant essay today. Worth the read.
Dec '10
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
I just cannot imagine the NYT printing a similar piece, were the subject Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Jun '10
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
Brooks?
Aug '10
Re: New York Times to Obama: Shoot Congress Like a Rogue Elephant!
The NYT didn't seem to mind the rogue donkeys who gave us Obamacare in the face of such widespread opposition.