Fooled again

Over a week ago, I said this:

Unfortunately, the Republicans are not playing by the same rules, or even the same game - their goal is not to move America forward, it is to destroy Obama, and the economic security of Americans is just collateral damage in that struggle.

Yeasteday and today, Andrew Sullivan got on board with what I said, and has he ever gone on the warpath against the GOP, charging (correctly) that they are simply at war with Obama and out to destroy his presidency, no matter the consequences. And unlike my blog, people actually read the Dish.

Yesterday:

This much is now clear. Their clear and open intent is to do all they can, however they can, to sabotage the new administration (and the economy to boot). They want failure. Even now. Even after the last eight years. Even in a recession as steeply dangerous as this one. There are legitimate debates to be had; and then there is the cynicism and surrealism of total political war. We now should have even less doubt about what kind of people they are. And the mountain of partisan vitriol Obama will have to climb every day of the next four or eight years.

And today:

The GOP is not interested in the long term fiscal health of this country. Their reckless stewardship over the last eight years proves that. They are not interested in helping this new president, who has done everything he can to create a civil atmosphere, to use this moment to prevent the worst in the short term and move to improve matters in the long term. Instead, they spin.

I cannot say that I was in favor of the events that followed Judd Gregg's miscarried appointment as Commerce Secretary. I was - and said so here - disturbed that Gregg was going to stay out of the stimulus debate, and that it looked like a Republican was going to be named to fill Gregg's senate seat which was likely to otherwise be filled by a Democrat in the next election cycle upon likely retirement of the incumbent Gregg. But I'm a political stooge like that. At the same time, I understand what President Obama was trying to achieve here, to create goodwill and an emissary, in order bring Republicans on board with his vision of economic reform including, as Sullivan points out, entitlement reform (which is not necessarily one of my leading issues for concern, since I disagree with a number of things Obama says on that issue and don't believe that the problem is with entitlements per se, but that's not my point). Gregg had to have understood that when he sought the position.

But the well has now been poisoned. Whatever the arguments from Gregg's camp that he couldn't be the ambassador for an economic plan that he didn't support, he knew - had to know - what he had volunteered to do. He wanted to be part of this process. But the politics have changed. There is no role to play as an emissary, because there are not two sides seeking peace. Each time the Obama camp makes an offering, the GOP is going to toss a grenade into it.

And so it goes.