Do They Still Not Get It?

When John Boehner said on a TV news show this Sunday that he would consider voting for the Obama tax cut even if it doesn't include rich people, I was stunned to see Democrats reacting as thought they had won some major victory. "Did Boehner Blink" read one headline, and a number of others also suggested that Obama had made the Republicans back down.

When, the very next day, many other Republicans made it perfectly clear that they were never going to let Obama have a victory that way, we got stories with headlines like this one, from Talking Points Memo:

"A furious 36 hours for Republicans trying to undo John Boehner's Sunday morning gaffe on tax cuts.

Republicans are trying to limit any damage John Boehner may have done by agreeing, reluctantly, if given no other choice, to support allowing tax cuts on the rich to expire."

Guys, after all this time, do you still not understand how this game is played? There is only one thing that is in any way slowing the billion dollar Republican juggernaut as we approach the midterm elections, and that is the "party of no" meme, which has actually (given the Dems' pathetic performance at this sort of thing in the past) gained some traction with the voters. Boehner's statement, and the similar actions that we are going to see in the next two months, have one single purpose: to combat this image in public without giving up a single thing in reality. It costs them nothing to have their leaders make these hollow promises of conciliation, when anyone with a brain knows they have absolutely no intention of fulfilling them.

This is similar to the tactic that they have employed for the last year or so of having a "designated Republican" vote with the Democrats on any highly popular legislation, while working as a united party to destroy it. Just today, George Voinovich, who is not running for re-election, voted with Democrats to pass the small business bill, while his party did everything possible to prevent Obama from winning even this minor and business-friendly victory. By doing this, they hope to prevent Democrats from claiming that any popular legislation was passed on a strictly party line vote.

So, anyone out there who was so foolish as to think that a Republican leader actually rediscovered his conscience and considered doing the right thing: forget it. By this time, you should have figured out that such a thing is never going to happen.

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