The shutdown

As a Democrat and someone who views politics as a sport, I am loving the shutdown.  Where else can you see your opponents commit fratricide?  As an American it makes me sick.  We like to blame both sides in an argument because both must be at fault at least a little... but in this shutdown it is 100% on the Republican side.  "Give us what we want or we kill the hostage."  They ran against Obamacare in 2012 and here were the results:

Democrats - having to defend a law that had not even been enacted - won the presidency, Senate and House.  The only reason Republicans have more members in the House is that the districts are gerrymandered.

Now having defended my side let me criticize my side.

Grover Norquist is a guy who 20+ years ago started making Republicans pledge that they would never, NEVER vote for a tax increase.  To my knowledge no Republican has ever voted for a tax increase after Papa Bush pushed one through.  In other words, Grover is pretty much a Godfather in Republican politics.

That's why this quote yesterday caught so much attention.  He said Cruz (the freshman senator from Texas who pushed House Republicans to the shutdown):

"He pushed House Republicans into traffic and wandered away."  

That is hilariously damning.  It earned coverage of every news site I read.   So, YAY! as a Democrat I love reading of the Godfather criticizing a fellow Republican...

But he had another quote in the same interview that I think is much more interesting.  Speaking of Obama and the Democrats:

"Look, these were the guys who thought sequestration was a great win for them and who made 85 percent of the Bush tax cuts permanent. The Bush tax cuts were an upper hand he could have used to control the country for years. If he would have extended it for a year we’d be talking about whether there should be a tax increase right now. You shouldn’t spend too much time thinking you’re dealing with political geniuses here."

Norquist - aka Satan - is right.  Obama caved big time.  Obama caved in 2011 but Boehner (thankfully) didn't accept.

If you want to know why Democrats are so unified against negotiating the answer is that we have no faith in the guy negotiating on our side.