I believe the Republicans are trying to drive me and every other liberal completely crazy.  It’s the only explanation for the way they’ve been acting over budget negotiations.  For days I’ve been listening to the GOP leadership whining about the proposal President Obama presented to them for reducing the deficit.  Mitch McConnell laughed out loud when he saw it.  Orrin Hatch called it a “bait and switch.”  John Boehner essentially said it was a my-way-or-the-highway proposition.

Sounds pretty bad.  If only it were true.  

For all the years these men have spent in Congress, it’s not possible that they don’t know what actual negotiation is, is it?  Did they think the President was going to suggest what they want rather than what he (and most of America) wants?

They probably did.  Mr. Obama has tried to do so in the past – a softy liberal against the hardline conservatives, hoping to come up with suggestions they wouldn’t scowl at.  That made him relatively easy to steamroll during his first term.  Now the Republicans are facing a rare and seldom seen  creature:  a hardline liberal.  No, that’s not quite right.  The President hasn’t yet had the opportunity or the call to be hard line.  The GOP leaders are acting as if it’s the final round, they’ve been beaten up worse than Sylvester Stallone in a “Rocky” movie and they’ve just found out Apollo Creed is wearing brass knuckles under his gloves, when all Mr. Obama has said is, “Here’s what I want.  What, exactly, do you want?”

Shouldn’t they have an answer fully prepared by now?  Presumably if they had actually carried the day on November 6 as they expected, Mitt Romney was our President-elect and they had gained control of the Senate as well as the House, they would have had a plan for dealing with the problem, Right?  They’ve talked about the dangers of the deficit for years.  They couldn’t possibly have been blowing smoke up our nether-regions without ever having settled on exactly what they wanted to do, could they?  How about the last Ryan budget?  They were all in love with that for months.  Isn’t that what they want?  No?  What then?

Our biggest mistake would be in assuming there was ever a possible win for Mr. Obama at this stage.  While they’re unwilling to produce a detailed plan for addressing the deficit, I’m confident that the Republicans were fully mobilized to attack whatever offer they received from the White House.  I’d wager that even a full capitulation on the tax increase for the top 2% would have drawn only ridicule for the President as a weak leader who didn’t have the strength of his own convictions.  As in every other area, naturally, the Republicans cannot or will not see how their own past actions have led to this point (e.g., voter-suppression, transvaginal probes).  Had they ever negotiated in good faith, they might be having an easier time of it now.

News Flash:  It’s not the final round, kids.  The fight hasn’t even started yet.  The two sides have just come out for that civil glove bump before the referee says, “Now go back to your corners and come out fighting.”  But the Republicans have burst into tears and cried foul because Obama didn’t wince when they growled at him.  They’re just afraid because it’s time to put up or shut up.  The former doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon, and we know the latter is impossible for any politician, particularly one who’s in the wrong.

Rocky would be so disappointed.