Chupacabra Files

No need to meet GOP halfway
Gene Lyons - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

For President Obama to treat individual Republicans with civility is one thing. Etiquette, however, has its limits. Embracing bipartisanship as a political goal can be a snare and a delusion.

It has certainly seemed so of late, as GOP congressmen responded to Obama's friendly overtures by voting unanimously against his desperately needed economic stimulus, persevering in their party's cultlike faith in tax cuts and aligning themselves with a bombastic radio talker who brags that he wants the president to fail.

In a recent interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, the rare Democrat who appears to relish spirited give and take, correctly pointed out that "the largest spending bill in history is going to turn out to be the war in Iraq. . . . And I don't understand why, from some of my conservative friends, building a road, building a school, helping somebody get health care, that's wasteful spending, but that war in Iraq, which is going to cost us over $1 trillion before we're through-yes, I wish we [wouldn't] have done that. We'd have been in a lot better shape fiscally."

In short, the past 16 years couldn't have done more to expose the wrongheadedness of the Republican "war on arithmetic" had it been a laboratory experiment. GOP tax-cut theology is sheer superstition, on the level with sacrificing goats and reading tea leaves. Meet grandstanding GOP congressmen halfway? What for? Democrats swept the 2006 and 2008 congressional elections precisely because the public finally gets it. Pretty much everybody except Rush Limbaugh's faithful listeners has caught on.