If this peg seems a little too square to fit in the hole Republicans drilled out for themselves, that is because the President deliberately designed the automatic cuts to be so damaging to the Republican donor base that Congressional Republicans would have to respond or suffer dire consequences. As we all know, they're not real good at the "doing their jobs" part of their jobs, so a response turned out to be impossible.
It doesn't really matter what they're saying or what we think. What really matters is what the defense industry thinks. They pay legislative analysts far too well to miss the fact that this is a Republican problem generated by a Republican crisis designed to make Americans worse off so that Republican interests could profit, and it failed so spectacularly that it completely reversed the election results their despicable behavior was designed to generate.
They failed entirely, and the President made sure to frame the problem so that the consequences fall thickly and disproportionately upon the wealthiest and most powerful Republican interests: tax hikes on the rich are passed and irrevocable; reduced payouts to fossil fuel industries are passed and irrevocable; a trillion dollars in Defense cuts, without the help a single Democratic vote in the House are passed and probably irrevocable.
Now all the people with the money are in a very uncomfortable position, because they have already betrayed, vilified, and damaged the one political block that is still competent enough to save them. They still have all the money, but their hired help sucks and the union won't work for them.
Right now they're contemplating which corner of the shit sandwich to bite first. Do they run off the incompetent boobs they installed in Congress by putting up new primary candidates against their own candidates and drooling Tea Party trogs, ensuring absurdly expensive three-candidate primaries sure to default to the stupidest and most hateful candidate? Do they open up some races by releasing the dirt-files on those Republican Members who failed them? Do they jump tracks and start trying to find Democratic Members dumb or corruptible enough enough to forget what they've done (Democrats have done an awfully good job of policing themselves these past ten years....)? Do they hedge and fund both parties evenly, ensuring that most of the money they spend will simply cancel itself out?
It's like King Minos bricked himself into the Labyrinth he built, and now the Minotaur is pissed off and coming to hunt him down.
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