Joe Klein admits today that he loves himself some good old-school Democrat bashing, but he’s just not up for it these days:
And so, here we are. Our nation’s economy and international reputation as the world’s presiding grownup has already been badly damaged. It is a self-inflicted wound of monumental stupidity. I am usually willing to acknowledge that Democrats can be as silly, and hidebound, as Republicans — but not this time. There is zero equivalence here. The vast majority of Democrats have been more than reasonable, more than willing to accept cuts in some of their most valued programs. Given the chance, there was the likelihood that they would have surrendered their most powerful weapon in next year’s election — a Mediscare campaign — by agreeing to some necessary long-term reforms in that program. The President, remarkably, proposed raising the age of eligibility for Medicare to 67.
The Republicans have been willing to concede nothing. Their stand means higher interest rates, fewer jobs created and more destroyed, a general weakening of this country’s standing in the world. Osama bin Laden, if he were still alive, could not have come up with a more clever strategy for strangling our nation.
I don’t think that most Republicans, or even most tea partiers, actively want the American economy to tank. At the same time, an awful lot of them sure don’t seem to care very much. They’re more focused on getting Obama out of the White House, and the truth is that a little bit of economy tanking makes that goal a little easier to achieve. And so, here we are.