PETER SUDERMAN: The Debt Deal Won’t Save America’s Credit Rating. Well, why should it? When you’re using your Visa to pay off your MasterCard, getting the credit limit raised on both doesn’t actually improve your position.

READER MICHAEL COSTELLO WRITES: “Is there any way that this would fit into the higher education bubble narrative?” Meet the college chancellor with a suburban sex dungeon. Not without torturing the narrative beyond recognition.

Hey, see what I did there? . . .

ED DRISCOLL: Why Is Richard Cohen Upset By Bipartisan Support For the President’s Agenda? Heh.

Plus this: “Incidentally, nice bit of Orwellian doublethink to call the grass-roots, libertarian-oriented Tea Party ‘Totalitarian.’ This has to be the first ‘Totalitarian’ movement in the history of mankind that, if it gets everything it wants…will leave you the hell alone.”

SPENGLER: “If the Tea Party wanted most of all to govern, it would declare that a split government cannot accomplish the agenda on which its members were sent to congress, and that the 2012 presidential election would become a national referendum on America’s future. It would then agree to an interim compromise on the debt ceiling.” Isn’t that pretty much what happened?

CLAIRE BERLINSKI: The Questions No One Is Asking About The Turkish Military. “Who exactly is running the military now? Because the idea that one military commander is the same as any other is kind of a historically famous mistake (Tukhachevsky might have explained why had he not been purged). . . . I’m well aware that if you superficially follow the news from Turkey, you might not realize that. But in fact, Turkey needs every bit of military strength and cunning it’s got: This is a damned dangerous neighborhood.”

POLL: America Held Hostage: 41% Self-Identify as Extremist Fringe Tea-Bagging Terrorists. Heh.

BYRON YORK: Dems eat Satan sandwich, GOP looks to next course.

WHAT? “REVOLUTIONARIES” JUST APPARATCHIKS’ TOOLS? SAY IT AIN’T SO! Baader-Meinhof terrorist may have worked for the Stasi. From “fight the power” to “fight for the power.” Of course, he only lost his media protection when he shifted rightward. . . .

MEGAN MCARDLE: Next, internal fighting within the Republican and Democratic parties.

JAMES TARANTO: Fine! Call My Bluff! Obama maximizes his losses by going all in on a weak hand.

Remember a few weeks ago when President Obama reportedly said to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor: “Eric, don’t call my bluff”? Lots of commentators said that this was a “tell”–that by referring to “my bluff,” Obama was admitting he was bluffing.

Actually, his play was even worse than that. A bluff is a pretense. The bluffer knows he has a weak hand but bets as if he has a strong one in order to induce his opponents to fold. Obama had a weak hand but thought he had a strong one. His next words to Cantor, according to Politico, were a vow to “take his case ‘to the American people.’ ” He actually believed–for all we know, he still believes–all that World’s Greatest Orator nonsense.

Thus he ended up maximizing his losses.

Regardless of what you think about the deal, this has been a debacle for Obama personally. He’s looked weak but petulant, disengaged but inept, and his polls have plummeted. This debacle isn’t, by itself, the end of Obama’s re-election prospects, but he’s doing to himself in one term what Democrats needed two terms to do to Bush — stage a long, slow attrition of credibility, likeability, and follower loyalty.

Plus this:

Speaking on the House floor Saturday, Politico reports, silly Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi invoked “Star Wars,” declaring that Boehner “chose to go to the dark side.” The Tea Partiers could do worse than to follow a bit of counsel from that classic movie: “Great, kid. Don’t get cocky.”

Always good advice, but it won’t be hard to follow here.

TELEGRAPH: The real story of the US debt deal is not the triumph of the Tea Party but the death of the Socialist Left. “Most pundits are crediting this U-turn to the political muscle of the Tea Party and it’s true that President Obama would never have agreed to this deal if the Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives hadn’t engaged in the brinkmanship of the past few weeks. But to focus on the Tea Party is to ignore the tectonic political shift that’s taken place, not just in America but across Europe. The majority of citizens in nearly all the world’s most developed countries simply aren’t prepared to tolerate the degree of borrowing required to sustain generous welfare programmes any longer.”

ROSS DOUTHAT: The Diminished President. “The administration would no doubt blame this judgment on the steady stream of miserable economic news. But it should save some of the blame for its own political approach. Ever since the midterms, the White House’s tactics have consistently maximized President Obama’s short-term advantage while diminishing his overall authority. Call it the ‘too clever by half’ presidency: the administration’s maneuvering keeps working out as planned, but Obama’s position keeps eroding.”

AT AMAZON, today’s deals in Electronics.

TROPICAL STORM EMILY threatens Florida.

STEPHEN GREEN: “Obama’s goodie bag is empty. . . . Santa Claus has left the building, and the Grinch has taken his place.”

JONATHAN ADLER: LEARNING HOW TO FISH. “Overfishing is one of the world’s more serious environmental problems, but it does not have to be that way. In 1974, less than ten percent of the world’s fisheries were depleted or overexploited, according to the FAO. By 1998, over 30 percent of fisheries were overexploited and depleted. At the same time, the percentage of fisheries under or moderately exploited dropped from 40 percent to 15 percent. There is an urgent need for better fishery management. . . . If property-based fishery systems are the key to avoiding fishery collapse, why aren’t they more common? . . . Existing fishery management systems, which largely rely upon command-and-control regulations of various sorts, have been failing, but some stakeholders remain resistant to change. The ‘race to fish’ may be wasteful and inefficient (not to mention dangerous), but some fishermen like it that way.”

ED DRISCOLL: ‘Wait, Does That Mean Obama Won the Terrorist Vote?’

Plus, Let Us Look Back at the Calm, Rational Rhetoric of the Debt Ceiling Circus.

UPDATE: The Veep Goes Vile.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Is Gabby Giffords a “terrorist?”

DO YOU EVER WONDER what your dreams mean?

DEBT-CEILING BILL passes the House. “Democrats lost on virtually every issue of principle (taxes, a clean debt bill, real spending cuts) because the president insisted above all else on getting himself to the next election without another showdown. . . . Republicans should be cautious. The House held off the president and the Senate. It refused to raise taxes, and thereby maintained a stark and compelling distinction between the parties. It made some real, if not overwhelming, cuts. More was not possible. You can’t get Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform bill with only the House. You can’t insure an adequate level of defense spending with only the House. You can’t get Medicaid and Social Security reform with only the House.”

EATING INVASIVE SPECIES: Recipes For Nutria And Feral Pigs.

THE SPENDING IS NUTS: First Prize Winner In the Power Line Prize.

UPDATE: Andrew Klavan emails: “Hey, Glenn. Just in case you didn’t know – the winner of the Power Line contest, Justin Folk, is PJTV’s own: he does the visuals on my Klavan on the Culture vids. Guy’s brilliant.” I had no idea.

LARRY RIBSTEIN ON going after LegalZoom for unauthorized practice of law. Hey, lawyers shouldn’t have to give up their jobs because of automation.

TEN THINGS not to keep in your wallet or purse.

I, FOR ONE, WELCOME OUR NEW ROBOT WORKFORCE: Foxconn To Automate: Be Careful What You Wish For. “These robots are being used at Foxconn for the same reason that self-service checkout counters are being used in supermarkets, for the same reason that self-service yoghurt shops proliferate. The change in relative prices between labour and machines means the machines are being used in place of the people. Those who have been agitating for higher wages can pat themselves on the back for those who keep their jobs will indeed be getting higher wages. But there will be fewer of them as a result. Manufacturing jobs, minimum wage jobs, service jobs, whatever, the result is always the same: raise the price of labour and more automation will happen.”

Some related thoughts of mine are here.

HATE SPEECH: Biden: Tea partiers like ‘terrorists.’ What a sad, pathetic, hateful little man we have as VP.

UPDATE: A not terribly convincing denial from Biden. At least he feels he has to deny it. Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.