What If the Supercommittee Fails?
Debt debacle, round two: supercommittee members John Kerry and Jon Kyl laid out their differences over debt reduction on Meet the Press, at times sparring with host David Gregory over a potential failure. Kyl said cuts will happen “one way or another,” but they come down to the committee’s decisions. “We’re going to have $1.2 trillion dollars in reduced spending. It can either be done the ugly way … or we could do it more intelligently,” he said. As for Democrats’ point of view, after calling Pat Toomey’s plan a “unicorn,” Kerry disputed his party’s inflexibility: “We put every single sacred cow on the table.”
Rice: Candidates Should Know Foreign Policy
Is the GOP presidential field lacking in foreign policy experience? The former Secretary of State told Candy Crowley on State of the Union that the candidates ought to at least know the basics. In the wake of Herman Cain’s Libya stumble and other GOP gaffes, the No Higher Honor author had some advice: “Yes, you don’t have to know the ins and outs of foreign policy because nobody would expect that kind of exposure, but the basics of foreign policy, you can master those during the campaign,” she said. For Rice, “Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan” is no laughing matter.
Hensarling: Deal Is a ‘Huge Missed Opportunity’
Get ready for a new round of finger-pointing. On Fox News Sunday, supercommittee member Jeb Hensarling accused Democrats of missing an opportunity to compromise on a bill to create jobs and reduce debt. “Unfortunately, what we haven’t seen in these talks from the other side is any Democrat willing to put a proposal on the table that actually solves the problem,” he said. Still, he added, the gridlock isn’t “anybody’s fault” in particular.
Ron Paul: Don’t Bomb Iran!
How do you discourage Iran from building nuclear weapons? According to Paul, the answer is to play it cool. On Face the Nation, the congressman said that the U.S ought to keep calm and engage diplomatically with Iran. “The greatest danger now is for us to overreact, and this is what I’m fearful of,” the 2012 hopeful said. Paul added that he’s opposed to placing sanctions on the country, too: “Sanctions are the initial step to war.”
Emanuel: GOP Won’t ‘Budge’
Fresh off of his speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, Rahm Emanuel went to bat for the president on This Week. When Christiane Amanpour suggested that Obama hasn’t taken a big enough role in the now foundering supercommittee, Emanuel got a little testy. “He has a plan, they have an ideology," he said. “They have refused to budge on a single piece of their agenda. That is not how you get to an agreement.” You can take the Chicago mayor out of the White House …
Inside the Penn State Coverage
Have TV interviews with Jerry Sandusky and Mike McQueary been hyped up? On Reliable Sources, the panel weighed the effectiveness of Bob Costas’s interview with Sandusky and CBS’s quick hit with McQueary. Let’s just say the kudos went to the former. “Costas did elicit something in there and he did it with really some superb interviewing. He pushed just enough without sort of hectoring Sandusky,” Baltimore Sun TV critic Dave Zurawik said. The saga continues.
Zandi: Investors Have Low Expectations
What happens if the debt deal dies? On Fox News Sunday, Mark Zandi said the bipartisan gridlock in Washington sounds more like “no deal” to him. The Moody’s Analytics chief economist said that while there may not be a “significant market reaction” if a deal falls through, investors’ predictions of the outcome are more influential. “It’s all relative to expectations and investor expectations with regard to the committee I think have been and are still very, very low,” he said.
