The Crux of the Matter

To the observer who can only see my face rather than what I'm looking at, I must appear to be a mouth-breathing moron. My jaw's been nearly permanently agape since the Cons started strutting around Washington like they still owned the place. I mean, I knew they were audacious, self-important fuckwits, but damn.

I need to buy a copy of the DSM-IV. I'm not sure from what little I recall of my abnormal psych class what the Cons' diagnosis should be. They seem to be a group of psychopathic narcissistic histrionics with an interesting array of psychoses on top. Is there a disorder that encompasses such a spectrum, or would any psychiatrist faced with them throw up his or her hands and declare themselves just as stumped as I am?

They've got a serious problem. They took their teeth away in a hat in the last two elections. They're well on their way to becoming the smallest regional party in American history, yet they're still strutting around as if they're the mighty kings. They're completely unaware of their raging stupidity. And therein lies the crux: the first step in getting well is admitting you have a problem. They seem to be congenitally incapable of doing so. And that's what's irritating me so very, very badly right now.

This morning, just before bed, I'd decided to write this post, explaining just why I'm so fed up with these fucktards. Synchronicity being what it is, Digby nailed exactly what I wanted to say:

The Republicans should, by rights, feel tremendous pressure to sign on to the popular president's bill. They should be cowed by the fact that they just got their asses handed to them in the election and are barely even hanging on to their power to filibuster. A normal American, who believes in democracy, would believe that they should probably adapt themselves at least somewhat to the will of the people, which the elections since 2006 has clearly been a repudiation conservative governance. But they don't really believe in democracy.They see politics purely as a power game in which their only job is to leverage whatever power they have to attain their partisan goals. Obama can try to unilaterally declare bipartisanship to be inoperative but it won't work if the other side doesn't sign on.

I suspect that the administration thought that because we are in a major crisis the conservatives would deal with them as the Democrats dealt with Bush after 9/11 in passing the Patriot Act. But that's naive. The past thirty years have shown that good times and bad are always seen as opportunities for the Republicans to leverage partisan power. That's how they roll. (Democrats just roll over.)

There is a problem with partisanship in Washington. But as Greenwald so deftly demonstrated in this post, it's a Republican problem. Democrats have, over the years, been nearly supine in their willingness to accomodate Republicans.

It's time Democrats got this through their heads: Cons will not negotiate in good faith because they have no concept of good faith. They're just like toddlers: they believe the entire world revolves around them, and they throw screaming fits when it doesn't. In the last two elections, the American electorate has expressed rather clearly what they want done: let the crybabies scream and pound their little fists on the floor. Ignore them. Go off and do what adults have to do. When the Cons are ready to put on their big-boy pants and start acting like good little men, then we can teach them the concept of sharing. But it's going to take years. They are, after all, psychotic spoiled brats, and they've gotten away with it for far too long.

In the meantime, the Dems have a mandate to govern. I suggest they do it, rather than trying to play the indulgent parent to a group of self-absorbed infants.

And for those in the audience who may think that's harsh, take a look at two things. First, there's Michael Steele's disingenuous comment:

When host Chris Wallace pointed out to Steele that conservatives may come off looking like obstructionists, Steele simply replied, “I think you propose something that is not in my best interest, why am I an obstructionist if I don’t agree with it?”

A commenter on Think Progress explains the difference for the terminally hard of thinking:

Wrong, Mr. Steele. You are not obstructionist if you don’t agree with it. You’re obstructionist if you claim you can’t support the bill unless certain things are changed, and when those things are changed to your liking, you vote against it anyway. That’s obstructionist. And then to have Senate Republicans threaten to filibuster the bill, just because they don’t like it, is obstructionist."

It's also infantile. And I'm absolutely through with babies in the White House. This country cannot withstand more Republicon dumbfuckery.

How many times do we have to vote them down before they get the message?