News is spreading now (via the usual media – Twitter at the forefront) that Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeiden, seized earlier this morning from what was supposed to be one of the most secure locations in Tripoli (the Corinthia Hotel), has been released.

Now that things are all right in that regard – for now – perhaps we can look back at a peculiar previous tweet from the BBC:

So “detained legally,” eh? And indeed, if you want to click through to the article (go ahead, you can do it right above on the tweet itself), there is some scattered talk of the militants who seized the PM operating to fulfill some order – to arrest the head of government, mind you – from the “prosecutor general.”

Hmmm, maybe we see here an interesting technique for getting certain US legislators out of the way, and thereby getting the US Government funded once more and in a position to fully pay all its debts, and on time?

OK, on second thought forget that – this governmental paralysis, instigated by a radical Republican faction, is already coming to resemble far too much the America of just before the Civil War.

Uh-oh. It seems a certain American English expression is spreading overseas, and not one we might prefer:

US-Haushaltsstreit: “Go f… yourself!” – Washingtons Nerven liegen blank http://t.co/XlE06lIu

January 3, 2013 4:48 am via SocialFlowReplyRetweetFavorite

@welt

DIE WELT

This is of course the Twitter-link to Die Welt’s recent coverage of that ordeal of the “fiscal cliff” (Finanzklippe in German, if you’re interested). And, since it’s a reliable way to let others provide you with grist for your column (just ask the NYT’s Thomas Friedman, for example), journalist Ansgar Graw gives us here, right off-the-bat, a cabbie interview. The driver’s name’s Timothy, he comes from Jersey, and at least he’s capable of keeping a civil tongue as he transports Graw to his DC destination. “If I can’t make ends meet with my money,” he observes, “I can’t simply demand more from you [or “youse guys”?]. I have to start saving. But what does Washington do? They raise taxes, to avoid the ‘fiscal cliff’!”

That’s quaint. First rule of Macroeconomics: the family budget is a faulty analogue for the financial issues of a government, particularly one in charge of its own currency. Back to the Congress, Graw attributes all that profanity flying around to the “frayed nerves” left over from the recent brinksmanship. He errs, however, when he tells his readers that John Boehner’s headline “request” to Harry Reid occurred “in the White House lobby” – accounts rather place the incident to just outside the Oval Office, as both Congressional leaders were waiting to confer with President Obama.

Maybe we shouldn’t begrudge Boehner his letting-off of a little steam, though, because (as Graw notes, and everybody knows) an equally fraught confrontation over the US debt ceiling is less than two months away. Speaker Boehner might even be out of a job by then: he was left high-and-dry when his House Republican majority refused to back his “Plan B” budget program of December’s last week, and his immediate deputy, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, was careful to vote “No” himself on that “fiscal cliff” legislation.

UPDATE: Goodness, goodness. Now this completely uncensored bit from Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza:

Go fuck yourself http://t.co/dSLBpgdr

January 5, 2013 5:01 am via Gazeta WyborczaReplyRetweetFavorite

@gazeta_wyborcza

Gazeta Wyborcza.pl

Apologies to anyone who needs them, this blog has never claimed to be G-rated. The occasion for this particular tweet, by the way, is a Gazeta twit – just click through to behold his mugshot – who needed an attention-getting title for his time-line editorial recounting the “fiscal cliff” craziness.

Here is the judgment on the US debt-ceiling deal from Germany’s authoritative Die Zeit:

Als Präsident verloren, als Präsidentschaftskandidat gewonnen – Obama und die Einigung im Schuldenstreit http://j.mp/oHryqr (mh)

August 3, 2011 7:55 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@zeitonline_pol

ZEIT ONLINE Politik

That is, chalk up a loss for Obama as president, but a win for him as 2012 presidential candidate.

Why the defeat? Because “the compromise bore the signature of the Tea Party,” even as many among their Congressional representation voted against it out of a conviction that it did not cut spending enough. Still, in view of their intransigence this was the best that the responsible parties in the affair – the president, his Democratic Party, even a few moderate Republicans as might be left – could achieve to avoid the catastrophe of a debt default. (It’s unfortunate that the Die Zeit writer – as usual, unnamed here – either overlooked or just did not mention the 14th Amendment option, which would have defused the whole problem and prevented any future recurrence.)

But: “Whereas the President gave in, the polarized political climate creates new chances for presidential candidate Obama for 2012.” He has firmly captured the decisive middle-ground of American politics, including by the way he showed himself willing to defy his own party to get this compromise done, all of which should gain him votes even from moderate conservatives at the next election. And seizing that middle-ground also put him on top in the Gerechtigkeitsfrage, i.e. the justice/fairness question. The proper way to resolve America’s budget difficulties is both spending cuts and higher taxes, especially on the rich. Polls show voters overwhelmingly are of this opinion. Congress, apparently, is not, but Obama now has the opening to campaign in 2012 even as a sort of opposition politician to gain future opportunities to force this vision through.