GOP shows their true colors holding country hostage: When will the Democrats ever learn

Didn't Obama once say, 'bever bring a knife to a gunfight'? Once again the Democrats get kneecapped by Republicans behaving badly. It's Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown at the last second, the audience knows it, only poor Charlie Brown wants to kick that football so badly he get suckered into Lucy's bullshit promises one more time, only to land flat on his ass again.

Take a leaf out of the Harry Truman playbook. In the 1946 mid terms Truman lost both the house and senate. He chose to play a poker instead of follow the results. History as it that on being informed of his defeat his message to his wife was that he wasn't worried about it, he would still continue to do whatever the hell he wants.

Obama needs that. Hes been behaving more like a scolded schoolboy caught smoking in the locker room than a leader. Apparently, when he met a few days ago with Republicans he confessed to not reaching out enough to them. When he did reach out to GOP Senators like Olympia Snowe and Chuck Grassley on health care reform they kept stalling and moving the goalposts for months before pulling the Lucy football routine.

They GOP has done that over and over again in the past two years. Today the Republicans pulled of their most brazen Lucy impersonation. Just hours after the Democrats and Republicans had agreed to negotiations on a tax deal and Defense Sec. Gates had issued a call to repeal DADT based on a very positive response to a survey from the troops, the entire GOP senate bloc signed on to a letter threatening to block everything until the tax issue is resolved and the government fully funded.

So much for eaching out across the aisle. The Washington media elite are still tut-tutting that Obama needs to move towards the middle and compromise more, something that far too many Democrats have themselves proposed. For fuck's sake, the GOP leadership has already said they only legislative goal is to ensure Obama is a one term President. They will do the ame thing over and over. What is now this hypothetical "middle" is in reality Reagan or Bush the elder.

There is no middle ground with the radical right which is now mainstream Republicanism. Obama has a choice. He can either keep waffling about bi-partisanship or start to fight. The GOP is quite happy to hold the country hostage on extending unemployment, ratiional nuclear treaties supported by the old guard Republicans so that millionaires can continue to pay lower taxes without giving a flying fuck about the defecit.

A clear majority of Americans support extending the Bush tax cuts for all but the top 2 percent. Republican's arguments that this will hurt small businesses is bullshit yet they keep repeating it over and over. Most of the country isn't buying it. Obama should let them hold the country hostage and fight back by letting the country know exactly what the GOP is doing. Let unemployment expire, let the Bush tax cuts expire. People will be hurt but they are hurting anyway and caving in to the GOP now will only extend that hurt.

But first, every Democrat has to get behind Obama. Somewhere along the line Obama and the Democrats have to take a stand. Now is the time.

Update Apparently the Democrats are going to bring the tax issue to a vote tomorrow, extending the cuts for all but the top 2%. Good, let the country know exactly where the GOP stands.