As I noted
yesterday, the Republicans yesterday made complete buffoons of themselves in trying to pretend to have a response to President Obama's fiscal
cliff curb offer. The Republicans are buffoons. They prove it again and again and again. But what does that make someone who is willing to toss their longtime principles in order to appease the buffoons, and when that doesn't work then goes even farther and offers to use that initial willingness as but a starting point to toss
even more?
Those trying to excuse the Democrats' behavior this week have claimed that it was a ploy to trick the Republicans into tripping themselves up, as they did yesterday. If that had been the case, the Democrats today would be saying that they tried, they bent over backwards, they were so willing to make a deal that they offered to sacrifice even core Democratic Party principles, but the Republicans wouldn't even come to the bargaining table, and now, since the Republicans are unwilling to negotiate in good faith, it is necessary to move forward without them. And let the Bush tax cuts expire. And try to pass the Obama middle class tax cuts. And protect those core Democratic principles, not to mention the millions of people who depend on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which now will not be cut. Or the Democrats could even continue to pretend to want to try to reach a deal, and say that we're back to square one, and everything previously put on the table is now off it, but if the Republicans have a specific plan, they can offer it and the Democrats will listen.
But no.
The Democrats just won a mandate election, and then this week they offered to compromise the very principles on which they campaigned. Once again, they negotiated with themselves, giving up plenty in exchange for nothing, and once again getting even more nothing for it. And then the Republicans once again revealed themselves as embarrassments to the very concept of competent governance. And now the Democrats are responding by offering to give up even more. It is beyond stupid. In the face of the collective failure of intelligence and integrity that is the modern Republican Party, and despite having just won a mandate election, the Democrats' only response is to beg the Republicans to accept their obeisance.
If the Republicans don't like what the Democrats have given up, the Democrats will give up even more. The Republicans don't even have to bother pretending to want to negotiate in good faith. They can fumble and flail and fall on their faces and prove themselves the complete buffoons that they are, and the Democrats will just stand there begging. The longer it goes on, the more the Democrats will give. The Republicans might as well enjoy themselves. They might not know how to win, but the Democrats are trying damn hard to figure out a way to lose.