I Was Afraid of This

Just last night I was saying the following:

. . . the whole post-partisan song is nothing more than a political game, a super-shrewd, exotic political tactic Obama is employing in order to cast the GOP as obstructionists.

Not exactly that, of course - That comes from Glenn Greenwald's post today regarding Dick Armey's latest display of class. Obama even invited the Rethugs to the White House for cocktails! How brilliant!

This morning, however, I'm afraid that might be just a story we tell ourselves in order to preserve a shred of dignity in the wake of the House vote on the stimulus package.

More Glenn:

As I've documented many times before, Beltway "bipartisanship" means that Democrats adopt as many GOP beliefs as possible so what ultimately is done resembles Republican policies as much as possible (anyone doubting that should simply review these "bipartisan" votes of the last eight years). I'm glad that the stimulus package yesterday -- which Democrats watered down and comprised on as much as possible to please Republicans -- did not attract even a single Republican vote in the House: not one.

Republicans aren't interested in "bipartisanship" except to the extent that they can force Democrats to enact their policies even though they have only a small minority thanks to being so forcefully rejected by the citizenry. And why should they be interested in bipartisanship? Why should they vote for a stimulus package that they don't support and that is anathema to what their most ardent supporters believe? It's very hard to find any virtuous attribute of the contemporary Republican Party, but one thing that can be said for them is that -- unlike Democrats, whose overarching desire in life is to please the needy harmony fetishists by adopting as many GOP views as possible -- Republicans are willing to incur criticisms by opposing what they oppose and supporting what they support.

Argh. I'm going to have to continue to hope that Obama's a game-changer who will outsmart the GOP's goons. It's going to be awfully tough, though, with the wimpy wing of the Democratic Congress being their usual spineless, Charlie-Brown-with-Lucy's*-GOP-football selves. Harry Reid?? GAWD. Can't we just let Jim Webb get up there and kick some ass?

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* - I apologize to Ms. VanPelt for using her name and "GOP" in the same phrase.