The National Review Invites Obama to Nip the Call-For-A-Balanced-Budget-Amendment Gimmickry In the Bud Tomorrow Night. Really.

The National Review scoops the Senate GOP’s next move, and note in particular the last paragraph:

Frustrated by the months of non-stop budget fights, Senate Republicans are set to mount a fiscal counteroffensive this week with the reintroduction of a balanced-budget amendment.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and minority whip John Cornyn are leading the effort. They hope to unveil a bill by Thursday with unanimous Republican support. […]

House Republican aides say most conservatives in the lower chamber are going to support the Senate’s plan. Speeches and media appearances are being arranged for later this week. […]

According to a Senate GOP aide, the legislation would cap federal spending at 18 percent of GDP. It would also require a supermajority for tax hikes and debt-limit increases.

Okay, why would the National Review, or any high-profile non-mainstream source, put this out a day before the State of the Union address, if not to give Obama a chance to mention it, along with an accompanying explanation of how such an amendment would, say, cause recessions to spiral into depressions–during which time the availability of, say, unemployment compensation would decrease rather than increase, and emergency FEMA funds for, say, the destruction of South Carolina’s coastal region after a major hurricane would have to be offset by cuts in, say, veteran’s benefits or payments to active military personnel?

Any alternative theories about why the National Review did this today?  I can’t think of any.

If Obama doesn’t take this ball, this magnificent gift, and run with it tomorrow–if he doesn’t expose this crowd for the unremittingly sophomoric gimmick-a-day ignoramuses that they are–then I’m throwing up my hands.  

The National Review’s editors and staff must be starting to really fear the sequester.  And I’m not saying that facetiously. 

They also must actually recognize the likelihood that last November’s election results weren’t a fluke. A majority of the public even in some seemingly-safely gerrymandered Republican congressional districts and red states with Senate elections next year are not necessarily going to want to hand a box of matches to lunatics and mental adolescents, now that they’re learning that that’s what these people are.