RIGHT, DIGBY, BECAUSE WE KNOW REPUBLICANS NEVER LIE

Mediate reports on a Mitch McConnell appearance today with Brett Baier on Fox News Sunday:

... Baier, filling in for Chris Wallace, pressed McConnell on what would happen if no deal could be worked out and whether he was concerned with the consequences of what might happen if the debt ceiling is not raised. McConnell confidently responded, "nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling. I haven't heard that discussed by anybody." Yet Baier informed him that Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, among others, have explicitly said just that. Baier even quoted Bachmann saying "don't let them fool you that the economy is going to collapse" if the debt ceiling isn't raised....

Digby absolutely believes that if Mitch McConnell says that "nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling," then that must be the God's honest truth. Digby believes that Mitch McConnell simply wouldn't go on Fox News and lie. She titles a post in response to this report "Old Mitch Lets the Cat Out of the Bag":

I'm fairly sure he's talking about the people who are negotiating the deal, not Michele Bachman. And yes, they all agreed up front that they must raise the debt ceiling. Nobody is seriously contemplating walking away. The President hasn't even made the slightest feint in that direction by issuing a veto threat if they send him something outrageous, so the Democrats aren't even pretending to play that game. And McConnell just let the cat out of the bag (it has never exactly been in) that they don't take the Tea party caucus seriously either.

While they may be playing around the edges with tax hikes, the trial balloons all show that the "negotiation" is really over how much cutting -- and in what areas --- each side can agree to. And since austerity is counterproductive and illiberal in any case, the GOP has already won. They are actually just negotiating the spin.

Sorry, I don't buy this for a second. It's McConnell's job to go on TV and do as convincing an imitation as he can of a reasonable man. More to the point, it's his job to spin any failure to reach an agreement as 100% the Democrats' fault. Elsewhere in the clip posted by Mediaite, he says:

Obviously, the other side, the other political side, controls most of the government. They have the Senate. They have the presidency. You can't get an accomplishment without some kind of bipartisan agreement, and that's part of what the meeting tonight is about, and we hope it'll be successful.

Translation: Who, us? Responsible for anything that goes wrong?

Obviously Democrats are given far too much away -- but Republicans are crazy and extreme and are the drivers of this process. I'm sick of hearing that this is just kabuki and everybody's just having a lovely dance around the maypole to "Kumbaya" while faking brinkmanship to gull the rubes. If that were the case, they could have shook on a horrible deal weeks ago. You want to bet the rent money that there'll be a deal before the debt ceiling is reached? Be my guest, Digby.