Why the Super Committee failed

One of the most challenging blogs around is Balloon Juice.  They feature a number of different writers who are generally liberal but rarely see eye to eye on every subject.  Their arguments can get intense - and then there are the readers who throw even more fuel to the fire in the comments section.  If you post a comment, expect to get burned.  I've been called every name in the book there for some of my comments.  Ya' just got to suck it up and wonder, if these are fellow liberals (and not all are liberal), imagine the responses if I posted on a conservative blog (or washingtonpost.com!).  But the bottom line is that Balloon Juice features and attracts some very smart writers.

John Cole is the lead blogger at Balloon Juice and he gets slammed just as hard as anyone by the readers.  I don't agree with everything he writes, but when he's right he's brilliant.

I was reminded today of something he wrote back in 2009 about bipartisanship and in light of the failure of the Congressional Super Committee this week it really resonates with me.

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

The pundits are pissed because the Democrats and Republicans on the Super Committee couldn't work out a compromise.  What they don't understand is that you must never compromise with the insane, and kudos to the Democrats for finally understanding this.

--Trakker

Comments

[horsec]

Alan Simpson (R) ex-Wyoming

Simpson said this AM on NPR that Republicans were more interested in serving their reelection interests than in serving the country. Paraphrasing, 82 were elected to destroy government, not to govern.

Something like that.

[Trakker]

I think the Republican party is beginning to unravel. There have always been a few relatively sane conservatives in the party, Simpson, Snowe, Lugar, and a few others, so why did they let the looney tea party take over the party without a fight? Screw them all. They let the tea party take over their party and bring America to the brink of disaster because they were cowards!