Crossposted from Brother Bob’s Blog
*** Game of Thrones Spoiler Alert ***
If you are among the many who recently finished watching the HBO series based on George R.R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones” but have not read the following four books (Book #5 has just been released) in the series, stop reading now. This post contains spoilers from one of the subsequent books, so if you’re interested in this post, bookmark this page, go read the books, and come back when you’re done. I’ll wait here.
For everyone else who has either read the books or does not care about the books I’ll briefly recap the relevant pieces of the storyline that get to my point. The part that I am referencing takes place at the end of the third book, “A Storm of Swords”. Following the death of King Robert Baratheon, Westeros is in chaos. From across the sea Daenerys, daughter of the murdered king Aerys Targareon (Robert’s predecessor) is rumored to be raising an army and is planning to invade to retake her throne. To the north the men of the Night’s Watch are sending pleas for weapons and men. Their brotherhood that mans the northern Wall built to defend the kingdom from the savages and creatures of the northern wilderness have been warning of growing threats from beyond the wall and are lacking the manpower to defend the realm against them. Westeros itself is being racked by a bloody civil war. Stannis Baratheon, the older brother of the departed king, has just been defeated in his efforts to assault Kings Landing and to seize the throne which he claimed was rightly his by the rules of succession. At this point, despite the aid of some powerful magic at his side Stannis’ claim to the throne no longer has any chance.
Going back to the north, one of the developing storylines is the very real threat of invasion from the beyond the wall. The barbarian hordes have begun an assault on The Wall, and despite several attacks being repelled by the Night’s Watch, the numbers are too great and defeat is inevitable. After a few attacks, the leader of the north men, Mance Rayder, calls on Jon Snow, one of the leaders of the Night’s Watch, to meet him for parley. During the discussion Mance reveals that in addition to his forces he also now possesses a horn that is powerful enough to blow down the Wall itself. Having softened his opponent to the point where he is ready to listen to negotiations, Mance suggests terms of surrender rather than have any more people killed or the wall itself destroyed. If this were a professional wrestling match Jon Snow would be the hapless babyface tied up in the ring ropes after several heels had ganged up on him and are now beating him senseless over the protests of the eagle-eyed referee and the booing of the crowd.
At this point one of Rayder’s men returns to inform him that a large attack force is moving toward them. At first Mance suspects treachery during the parley, but quickly realizes that the force is too large to be the men of the Night’s Watch. The sound of approaching trumpets warn that this force could not be additional northerners, and the attackers emerge to reveal a force of several battle lines of mounted cavalry. These well disciplined, well equipped, battle hardened knights easily dispatch the ragtag group of wildlings. Despite a huge numerical advantage, their lack of equipment and training sends the barbarians scrambling as they are routed while the cavalry are waving banners bearing the prancing black stag of House Baratheon and raising shouts of “Stannis!”. You could almost hear pro wrestling announcer Jim Ross screaming “Good God! Tha- that’s Stannis Baratheon’s music! THAT’S STANNIS BARATHEON’S MUSIC! WHAT ON EARTH IS HE DOING HERE?!?”
Once the battle settles down and back in the confines of the Wall, self-proclaimed King Stannis summons Jon Snow to discuss what will happen next. When telling why, after ignoring his pleas for so long Stannis finally came to the aid of the Night’s Watch, Stannis’ explanation was something that has always stuck with me ever since I first read it:
“Lord Seaworth is a man of humble birth, but he reminded me of my duty, when all I could think of was my rights. I had the cart before the horse, (he) said. I was trying to win the throne to save the kingdom, when I should have been trying to save the kingdom to win the throne.”
That phrase rings true when we see what is happening today in the negotiations between the Republicans and Democrats over raising the debt ceiling. As the Vice President Biden led talks started breaking down a few days ago Speaker John Boener issued an interesting challenge – he called on President Obama to take command and be the one to show leadership in resolving this impasse. At first I was wondering why Boener would have done this, given the president’s obvious distaste for actually being a leader. The results were predictable – rather than lead Obama went straight to the demagoguery playbook, throwing a tantrum that involved calling anyone who disagreed with him extremists, and calling for tax increases that will have no meaningful impact other than to score points with his political base. Of course, he offers no numbers to support his tax increases (exactly how many months of borrowing will they cover?) given that it would expose how meaningless they would be in the overall picture other than increasing unemployment by further punishing the people who actually create jobs. Then Obama goes on to condescendingly insult his opponents by suggesting that his daughters get their homework done on time and that Republicans should as well. Ironically, the president himself hasn’t even bothered to do his own schoolwork in that he submitted two “budgets” this year, the first being unanimously voted down by the Democrat controlled Senate, and the second not even being scored by the CBO for its lack of substance.
It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to predict the president’s behavior, so why did Boener raise the stakes? I have my own theories, and if the president had Admiral Akbar at his side he would have seen it. Boener knew that this battle would be long and nasty and understood that no matter what happened the press would paint him and the GOP as the unreasonable villains while giving the Dems the standard sympathetic treatment as the defenders of unsustainable debt the American people. What Boener did was goad Obama into very publicly showing the ugly side of his temperament and lack of competence, and the president bit hook, line, and sinker. Nothing will change how the press treats the GOP, but Boener got Obama to show his true self very publicly in a manner that will serve his opponent in 2012 well. In the end a deal will get made – some noses may get bloodied and some broken bones may need to mend, but whatever happens when this resolves would happen with or without the president’s help. With the Chinese and some of the larger bond traders growing leery of our looming debt, something has to change, and sooner will be better than later.
So what should the Democrats have done? Personally, I say to give the Republicans enough rope to potentially hang themselves with. Let them work to reform our entitlement programs and send the message to business that our government is not looking to punish them any further. Since the several rounds of stimulus, deficits, additional regulations and threats of higher taxes to pay our ever expanding deficits haven’t worked, maybe we should try something different? For the Democrats it should be a potential win-win scenario. If the Republican plan fails, then there is still plenty of time to use this issue to argue for why they should stay in power in 2012 and the need for more stimulus, regulations and higher deficits.
But if the Republican plan works, then we can start on the path toward actually emerging from the Great Recession. We can finally begin to make serious reforms to unsustainable entitlement programs, start showing that government can manage taxpayer money responsibly when it must, and maybe we might even get a budget out of this!
Sadly, for our president that scenario is entirely unacceptable, because the only credit that he could take would be for getting out of the way. And more importantly, this would hurt his chances at reelection. Obama has seen his ascension to the presidency as his divine right, and to quote an old political science professor of mine who was describing LBJ, “He loved being president, but he hated the presidency.” Unlike Stannis, Obama does not even seem interested in the kingdom, but rather only is interested in the throne itself.
Granted, the main reason Stannis did the right thing was because he was out of options, but at least he finally did. At the end of the day (or at least book three) he put the kingdom ahead of the throne.
Stannis in 2012!
Good tale, but wasn’t it Eric Cantor, not John Boehner, who pushed Obama over the edge?
I have read those books and also found that line somewhat enlightening. Another way of expressing the point made there is that many people try to achieve a goal without actually performing the necessary actions required for that achievement.
That line is also a great way to express many of the current politicians in DC, no matter what their political affiliation. They wish the power, and justify that wish by explaining that they then can save the nation, when, in fact, the power should be the last things on their mind, if they were honest and truly humble enough to actually be serving the people. They are not, however, and there aren’t very many in DC at the moment that I would exempt from terming “power hungry”.
First off, thank you for posting me, Curt!
@John Cooper: It was Cantor that caused Obama to storm out of the meeting, but it was Boener who publicly called him out to join in the first place.
It’s a trap!
Brother Bob, thank you,
I find it very interesting enough to get the book some times,
in the future, I took note of it