Lessons from Serena Southerlyn

In a highly memorable episode of Law & Order, Assistant District Attorney Serena Southerlyn finds herself tricking a hostage-taker into thinking that she is his lawyer. She then gets hauled before the disciplinary committee, which reprimands but does not disbar her. Why do I mention this? Because when you're dealing with a hostage situation, you say whatever you have to in order to get the hostage released. Then you don't keep your promises. If, while actually being an A.D.A., you suggest that you'll represent the guy with the knife and tell his side of the story, etc., you do not then actually become his lawyer. And I think that it would be kind of nice if the Democrats would follow that strategy, too.

The structure of these debt limit negotiations is that, because the Republicans control the House of Representatives, they have the power to destroy the U.S. economy. Moreover, they have decided to leverage that power and attempt to get concessions from the Democrats, in return for refraining from using their power. Because of this, the Democrats, including Obama, are in talks to pass policies that they do not like and would never ever agree to without a knife to the throat of the nation's, nay, the world's economy. It's quite possible that the spending cuts in such an agreement will be backloaded into the later end of the upcoming decade, since in the near future we're dealing with an economic slowdown. So here's the lesson of Serena Southerlyn's hostage adventures for Obama and the Democrats: if you agree to lots of long-term spending cuts in this debt ceiling deal, and then in the 2012 elections you happen to take back control of the House while getting Obama re-elected, please do not hesitate to undo those spending cuts. There's no reason not to: avowedly the only reason you're agreeing to them now is this hostage dynamic. Once that's gone, if you have the power to, you might as well undo that damage. Obviously one of the keys to this strategy is not to let on that you're doing it (and some Republicans have already said they're suspicious that long-term spending cuts won't actually materialize), but it would be really nice if Obama and his team have this option in the back of their minds going forward.