What digby says ...

This can't be repeated enough. Obama is wrong, period. He will not get the Thugs on board by trying to 'work' with them unless he chooses to govern the way the Thugs want. They do not negotiate. They demand and obstruct. George Warmonger Bush was the perfect president for them. The nation is not their interest. They don't care what happens to the majority of Americans. If all of America were slaves in reality, rather than just financial slaves, they would not care. In fact they might just like the idea.

digby: Obama is facing a weaker Republican Party but a much bigger set of problems, with the stakes being exponentially higher. We just don't have time for this nonsense again. At some point, the Democrats are going to have to confront their central political problem, which is that the conservatives are not appeasable and that political and media elites have either been brainwashed by conservative propaganda or are conservatives by choice and they have to convince the citizenry that their ideology is better for their personal well being and the well being of the country. Until that happens, the conservatives will remain in power even as an opposition force and their failed ideology will continue to destroy this country. This isn't a game anymore. They have to pass good policies.

What Obama is trying to do is not new. He is repeating past mistakes.

I agree with Steve Soto. Clinton would not have been such a wuss, but then, in all fairness to Obama, Clinton knows from experience what the GOP are. Here's hoping Obama chooses to work for the people of this country, soon ...

Re-stating the absurdity:

Steve Benen: I'm trying to wrap my head around Halperin's logic here. By his reasoning, the only appropriate thing for Obama to do was let Republicans -- who failed at governing, and who've been rejected by voters -- shape the bill, addressing the crisis they helped create. If the far-right House GOP caucus was unsatisfied, it was Obama's responsibility to make them happy. Why? Because Mark Halperin says so.