Jacob Weisberg writes another one of those articles about how while the Republican party may profess to worship Ronald Reagan, they sure don't like most of the principles by which he ran his administration. Here's an excerpt…
Once in office, Reagan said that anytime he could get 70 percent of what he wanted from a legislature, he'd take it. Today's congressional Republicans won't settle even for 99 percent: Their mentality has shifted away from having policies and governing and toward a kind of bitter-end obstructionism.
In the early days of the presidency of Bill Clinton, congressional Republicans essentially went on strike, treating any legislative accomplishment as a Republican defeat, but they came to the table for a budget deal in 1997. With President Obama, they have largely refused to accept the basic legitimacy of a Democratic president. The tactical obstinacy of the 1990s has curdled into the belief that any compromise constitutes betrayal, a dynamic now playing out in the primaries.
Every time I turn on a political show lately, I seem to find John Kasich being interviewed, talking about the kind of President he would be…like that's going to happen. He keeps claiming he can get things done because he knows how to work with Democrats — and maybe he does. I just wonder how he'd work with Democrats if they acted like Republicans. Also, his idea of working with the opposition party does sound a lot like, "Okay, I want to paint the wall red and you want to paint it blue. Let's work together and find creative solutions and compromise and paint it red!"