Eugene Robinson: The Grinch Who Stole Washington

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http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_grinch_who_stole_washington_20101202/

The Grinch Who Stole Washington
Posted on Dec 2, 2010
By Eugene Robinson


Why did Republicans go to the trouble and expense of winning the midterm elections? It looks like they’re about to prove, once again, that you can get your way in Washington without a congressional majority—if you have a firm sense of purpose. Maybe the Democratic Party will find one someday.

Or maybe not. Sigh.

What has me exercised—OK, frothing—is the ongoing fight over the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which are set to expire at the end of the year. By all rights, this shouldn’t be a fight at all. The Republican position is so ludicrous that it beggars belief.

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What is the Democratic Party’s bottom line? Who knows?

The White House, for the umpteenth time, has approached a negotiation by signaling in advance its willingness, if pushed to the wall, to make major concessions—in this case, a temporary tax cut extension for the rich. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize this as a flawed bargaining strategy. Voters may want more bipartisan cooperation in Washington, but I believe they also want their president to fight for the principles that got him elected.

Democrats in Congress are all over the map. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the House leadership, predictably, are ready to have a fight on what they see as favorable political terrain. In the Senate, Democrats have to parse the implications of a GOP threat to halt all business until the tax cut issue is dealt with. And everyone wonders whether the White House intends to stand tough, or has decided to give in, or has already caved—or, perhaps, has a specific preferred outcome in mind. If so, the White House doesn’t seem to have made clear what the objective is, much less how to get there.

Power without purpose, in fact, doesn’t get you anywhere.