Taxin' my mind

Been trying not to go too crazy over the big stimulus bill, but there was a funny line by John Cole about the difficulty of negotiating with someone who is batshit crazy:

Krugman explained, for example, that the Senate just voted on a
measure to scrap the stimulus altogether and replace it with an all-tax
cut plan.

"We got 36 out of 41 Republican senators voting for that, which is
completely crazy," Krugman said. "So, how much bipartisan outreach can
you have when 36 out of 41 Republican Senators take their marching
orders from Rush Limbaugh?"

Good question. The answer, I suspect, is that you can't have any real bipartisan outreach at all.

It's similar to a point
John Cole made very well yesterday: "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."

It's funny because it's true.