Trust Us, Jake: The Dysfunction in Washington is Nothing Compared to This Show

Attention all Imus in the Morning guests: Imus has cancer. When you innocuously ask, “How are you?” he will reply, “Well, I have cancer, [insert name of guest],” as Jake Tapper and scores of others have learned over the last two years. Sensing Tapper’s disinterest this morning, Imus added, “I’ve pulled this on you before, haven’t I?”
 
But Tapper is used to this sort of immature conduct: after all, he’s been covering the shenanigans in Washington, DC for twenty years, a fact that stunned Imus. “You don’t look that old,” he told his 42-year old guest. “Not that I’m hitting on you or anything.”
 
An advance from Imus would be far less offensive to Tapper, the chief White House correspondent for ABC News, than the silliness he’s been covering lately, namely the inability of lawmakers to reach on agreement on how to raise the debt ceiling before next Tuesday’s default deadline.
 
“At midnight in one week is when the U.S. is no longer able to pay 100 percent of its bills,” Tapper said. “While there will be revenue that continues to come in, the IOUs, the debts, the payments will far exceed what the U.S. government will be taking in.”
 
The veritable stalemate between Republicans, Democrats, and President Obama is not for lack of ideas; everybody has a plan, it’s just that nobody likes what anybody else has come up with, and partisan lines are as strong as they’ve ever been.
 
“You have on the House side Speaker Boehner pursuing a plan that will raise the debt ceiling, but only be a short-term raise with a longer-term plan for debt relief, for deficit reduction,” Tapper explained. “But Senator Harry Reid said that’s a non-starter in the Senate. Then Harry Reid has got a plan in which there will be more than $2 trillion in spending cuts, raising the debt ceiling, and the Republicans are saying his plan is full of gimmicks, that they’re not real spending cuts.”
 
Even more bizarre, in Tapper’s view, is that neither side is willing to take responsibility for the breakdown in talks. “Democrats say Republicans are just completely refusing to compromise and agree to any tax increases at all,” he said. “Republicans say that’s not true—Speaker Boehner was working with the President on a plan that included new revenues, but then the President all of a sudden wanted more.”
 
Tapper innocently tried to compare the behavior of these adults as being less mature than that of, say, children at a camp like the Imus Ranch. “Camp’s suck,” Imus declared, interrupting Tapper’s analysis. “It’s a ranch.”
 
Confused, and nearly in tears, Tapper clarified, “I just meant you’re familiar with kids because of the great work you do. I meant it as a compliment. I don’t know how it came out on the other end.”
 
Nobody ever does, Jake.
 
Following an apology from Imus and a tedious discussion of the weather, which has been unbearably hot almost everywhere, Tapper suggested corralling all the top players in the debt ceiling negotiations into a room, turning off the air-conditioning, and telling them they can’t leave until they reach a solution.
 
“Or, give them a bunch of cocaine,” Imus said. “It always made me talk, but I never made any sense.”
 
Unlike, say, now, as Bernard bravely pointed out.
 
-Julie Kanfer