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In reply to the discussion: Tell me more about how this White House doesn't know how to negotiate, we're all fucked, etc... [View all]Marr
(20,317 posts)These people who are claiming the GOP could not accept the offer and that Obama built a brilliant strategy around that fact are deluding themselves.
The only thing Democrats could even be said to gain from the offer is that, in refusing it, the GOP looked irrational and recalcitrant. Well, so what? They've been looking irrational and recalcitrant for years. They've built their brand around that attitude. And what could we have lost? We could've had Social Security cuts.
I don't buy for one second that this was some kind of brilliant, 'rope-a-dope' a strategy. I think it was exactly what it looked like; a "New Democrat" White House offering a bit of policy that the Third Way has been openly pushing for years. The fact that the Republicans are paralyzed by their own psychotic wing doesn't change that.