re: #112 BeachDem

Paul Krugman, talking about everyone’s favorite, Ron Fournier
(bold mine.)

Well, I’ve know for years that many political pundits don’t think that understanding policy is part of their job. But this is still extreme. And I’m sorry to go after an individual here — but for God’s sake, don’t you have to know something about the actual content of a policy you critique?

And what’s actually going on here is worse than ignorance. It’s pretty clear that we’re watching a rule of thumb according to which if Republicans are against a proposal, that means it must be leftist and extreme, and the burden on the White House is to find a way to make the GOP happy. Needless to say, this rewards obstructionism — there is literally nothing Obama can do to convince some (many) pundits that he’s making a good faith effort, because they don’t pay any attention to what he does, only to the Republican reaction.

krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

As Matt Yglesias noted in the article Krugman borrows from, the GOP has known since the President took office that any failure to convince them to reach a “bipartisan” agreement would be blamed on him, so they’ve had every incentive to be as confrontational as possible. We actually saw that in action during the Bush years, when Democrats were the ones lambasted for the White House’s refusal to compromise or “come to the table” with the opposition. The Cult of Bipartisanship seems to have collectively reached a consensus that Republicans will never compromise, so Democrats are the ones who must sacrifice their ideals “for the good of the people.”