QOTD
by digby
Ezra Klein:
...[A]t the elite level — which encompasses everyone from CEOs to media professionals — there’s a desire to keep up good relations on both sides of the aisle. And so it’s safer, when things are going wrong, to offer an anodyne criticism that offends nobody — “both sides should come together!” — then to actually blame one side or the other. It’s a way to be angry about Washington’s failure without alienating anyone powerful. That goes doubly for commercial actors, like Starbucks, that need to sell coffee to both Republicans and Democrats.
That breaks the system. It hurts the basic mechanism of accountability, which is the public’s ability to apportion blame. If one side’s intransigence will lead to both sides getting blamed, then it makes perfect sense to be intransigent: You’ll get all the benefits and only half the blame.
The two parties are not equivalent right now. The two sides are not the same. If you want Washington to come together, you need to make it painful for those who are breaking it apart. Telling both sides to come together when it’s predominantly one side breaking the negotiations apart actually makes it easier on those who’re refusing to compromise.
From his lips to the Villagers' ears.
Unfortunately, their prescription for this problem is for the Democrats to be "grown-ups" which means, in practice, enacting the worst parts of the Republican agenda "for the good of the country." And too many Democrats are inclined to throw up their hands and say "fine" --- then bask in the glow of the approbation of the DC elites who are just so very glad the squabbling over measly cat food prices is finally over and we can go back to talking about sex.