From the Doublewide, JAB writes in after too long an absence (but do we not always say that about her?):

Dear Your Czarness:

Yes, indeedy, some jack-wagon “supervisor” in some office in DC decided the putting up barricades and tape to prevent “entrance” to open-air memorials and monuments was the very essence of an ESSENTIAL GOVERNMENT SERVICE. Why I bet that at this very moment someone is studying up on how they can put a huge tarp over the Statue of Liberty!

This shutdown is just the AWFULEST, ain’t it? I mean in my local newspaper, I just read the following story “from news services” under the headline, Closure Catches Some By Surprise: At a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, a string of frustrated people showed up through the morning, only to find they had wasted a trip. [I removed her name to prevent further embarrassment] of Inglewood, CA, who works at a casino, didn’t know the government had shut down until a security guard told her the Internal Revenue Service office was closed. “That’s crazy,” she said, “I was trying to get my refund. And the IRS is gone.” [name redacted again] said her cable TV has been shut off, and she hoped the refund would help pay that bill.

And there we have it. The big, bad AWFULEST-EVAH shutdown leads to “closed” open-air monuments and some poor fool having to go longer without her cable TV. Pathetic.

Despite my distaste for defenestration, and in fear of a whack from Your Czarness’ battleax, I wonder if Your Czarness has reconsidered your post of last week extolling the junior Senator from Texas as “a heckuva smart guy”? It seems to me that, while he’s doubtlessly smart, he may not be much of a tactician. The point of chess is checkmate, yes? So if you make some flashy opening gambit named after some dead Russian dude, you sure can impress the pants off some folks, right? But if that doesn’t lead to victory, all you’ve done is engage in theater. Cruz made his point that he really dislikes Obamacare, but there was never, EVAH a chance that he’d checkmate Obama on this point. Like all those pointless votes in the House to repeal Obamacare, it begins to look silly and self-indulgent. Better that they had all spent their time and effort putting forth legislation that might undo the worst and most unpopular parts.

Yours from the Doublewide, JAB

Howdy hey. JAB will probably like the Czar’s answer better than Island Dweller, but be kind to the Czar. He has been very grouchy lately and dinner with visitors—who don’t understand why the Republicans turned away those vets at the World War II memorial…sheesh (New York Times reader, in fact)—made him grouchier.

Your email has two observations: one, that the press seems very desperate to find any story about the shutdown affecting average Americans and, well, either failing or coming up with something embarrassing to Democrats. BG (another operative whom you know) and the Czar have a most friendly wager to see how badly the Democrats will be blamed for the shutdown. BG thinks the Republicans will get most if not all the blame; the Czar believes that Obama will catch a significant if not damaging amount of blame by most Americans. Sadly for both of us, initial polls seems to suggest that everybody is blaming everyone: Democrats, Republicans, and Obama are being painted with equally bad words by a fed up public. Not sure either of us expected that.*

Your second observation is on Ted Cruz, but misses a subtle point. Nowhere did the Czar suggest Cruz was going to overturn Obamacare funding. Cruz has moved up to widespread national prominence and is probably at least as well-known around America as Chris Christie, and right now more people know Ted Cruz than know Rand Paul. Heck, MSNBC is still in sputtering awe over Senator Cruz’s move.

This will sound cynical, but Cruz knew he was not going to defund Obamacare, and it probably would not have made sense to try; rather, he knew two major fights were coming, and knew that the second-up debt ceiling crisis will be focused on the House and probably on Paul Ryan and John Boehner. Ted Cruz would just be some buttinsky senator from Texas. On the other hand, no one seemed to be stepping up for the first-up CR fight…so Ted seized the moment. In a well-executed strategy, he performed a series of clever tactics that granted him an almost exclusive spotlight. From the standpoint of a politician looking to go from marginally known to a demonized soul sucker by the Left, he did it in only a couple of days. Ted Cruz himself has already dropped the defund-or-die mantra: it served its purpose.

So, um, no: the Czar still thinks Cruz is a heckuva smart guy.

*Fed up. We just got that pun.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.