Just Fix the Fiscal Cliff, already! Notes from Paradise

It's a big contrast between my idyllic surroundings in Hawaii and the stress my husband is feeling, and sharing (or foisting) with me about the impending fiscal cliff.

I think our President wants us to tumble, because he's in the position of power and revels in it. He wants Republicans to look bad, and after Speaker Boehner's failure with Plan B, you know we do. By so doing, he looks good, of course, his favorite way to look.

Even better for him is feeling powerful, and now's his moment. He wouldn't dare linger one more day in Kailua (on the other side of Oahu from Waikiki) with the fam, when he can watch the nation plunge off the precipice and gloat.

"Suffer, you poor stubborn Republicans!" And incidentally, everyone else, who very quickly will pile on his side and yell for the selfish, stinky, eeeeevil Republicans who want to protect their rich 1% cronies, to cave. Truth is, they--we--are stuck at the mercy of the grinning Potus once paychecks shrink and inheritances crumble--and stocks plummet and jobs disappear and we're all screaming--pleading!--for relief.

"Help us! Oh, help us, dear President!" And with his magnanimousness, our Nobel Laureate, who obviously knows a thing or two about keeping the peace, will accept the bow of those who once were too stiff-necked to see his truth.

There is no reason for our president to want to "cobble out" a compromise; no need for him to do more than stand parentally watching the bad boys and girls who want to protect the filthy rich realize their folly. He wants to save us. It frosts me, which takes a lot when the night-time low temperature is 75, that he gets to feel so superior and so right.

He thinks what he wants is best for the country. Going over the cliff, even to win his point, will hurt a lot of people. But in the end, he'll remind us, we'll be better off.  When that doesn't happen, possibly because people smart enough to earn more than $250,000 annually are also smart enough to figure out how to avoid taxes, he'll still blame Republicans.

It's a beautiful view here in Hawaii, with the aqua surf, stark Pali mountains, lush tropical flowers. Our president can certainly tell you that. But from his vantage, the view is even better in Washington, because he'll watch his opponents tumble into place like the white cascade of the waterfalls in paradise.

And the rest of us, no matter our surroundings, are left with stress...