CT Blue

There is a tale unfolding in Washington that beggars belief.

I’ve said before that, in Washington, if your opponent hands you a knife, you are honor bound to stick it into him.

Well, the Republicans just handed the Democrats a knife of finest steel, honed razor sharp, and if rumors are to be credited, and they probably should be, the Democrats are about to use that finely honed knife to commit hari-kari, committing an act of political suicide while inflicting needless harm on the nation.

Republicans are demanding that Democrats join them in the Medicare trap, thus neutralizing it as an issue, as the price demanded for increasing the nation’s borrowing limit. Eveyone knows that were their bluff called they would cave, and anyone with an ounce of political skill can see that skillfully calling their bluff would probably enable the Democrats to reclaim the House.

But the Democrats seem poised to give that all away, and one must ask “why?”

Haves the House members learned nothing? Are they not prepared to say “never”, when doing so protects their re-election and serves the nation? Is Obama so addicted to false compromise-the kind in which he gets nothing except the ability to say he compromised- that he is willing to throw away any chance he has to accomplish anything in a second term, provided he doesn’t achieve the historical feat of losing to one of the jokers lining up to oppose him? What’s going on here?

There is only one conclusion: that makes sense. The Democrats actually want to destroy Medicare as much as the Republicans. Why is another story. Destroying Medicare, like destroying Social Security, seems to be a Holy Grail for the right, something to achieve for its own sake and not because it appreciably affects them in their pockets. Destroying it does almost nothing to serve the interests of the plutocrats, except those that go by the maxim that “it is not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail”. But perhaps the hyper-selfish are outsize contributors to incumbents on both sides of the aisle; nothing else can explain the alacrity with which the Democrats appear to be ready to slash Medicare.

Then again, maybe the Democrats will grow a collective spine.