Oh, good. Something new and different.

In a stunning reversal of Republican bipartisanism and goodwill, Senator McCain announced that his Democratic counterparts had "poisoned the well" and that there would be, and I quote, "no cooperation for the rest of the year."  How this tremendous shift in the status quo will impact the legislative process remains to be seen.

This, from a man who would have been president. 

I mean, seriously?  Are you kidding me?  What the hell happened to "Country First?"

Bear with me here, as I'm about to posit something utterly insane: but perhaps it would have better served the Republican Party, not to mention its constituents, if it would have made a good faith attempt at working with the Democrats on this one.  Perhaps they could have seized a golden opportunity to improve the Democrats' proposals and devise solutions for flaws in the bill.  Perhaps -- just perhaps -- they might have taken their lusty eyes off the midterm elections, abandoned the ill-advised dream of turning health care reform into a humiliating and crushing defeat for the president (a la Clinton in '94), cooperated with Democrats to produce a mutually agreeable bill, and done their fucking jobs.

Nah, what am I saying?  Better off to waste an entire year on obstruction and hysterical rhetoric, then spend the next twelve months crying foul after that strategy fails to hamstring their opponents.

Comments

[Manzo]

That's what I'm talkin' about!

[erika]

Very well said.