LOL WHUT

Michael Kinsley, the New Republic writer last discussed in these pages after making an absolute arse of himself talking about same-sex marriage, has a terrific new column in which he actually posits this as a serious argument:

President Obama should give in. Yes, this mess is all the Republicans' fault. Yes, it's outrageous that they can hold the government hostage in order to reargue a law that's been voted on, signed, enacted, and upheld by the Supreme Court. Yes, it's a terrible precedent. Nevertheless, he should give in.

...The media will no doubt call Obama weak because he gave in. So let them. Sticks and stones. Meanwhile, will the Republicans really take the past couple of weeks as a precedent and push him around on every issue that comes up? Highly unlikely. They are already getting most of the blame. They surely don't look forward to trying to convince voters it was such a swell experience that they're going to put us through it again and again.

LOL FOREVER.

This, my friends, is a well-compensated political journalist arguing in a national publication that President Obama should give in to the Republicans, just this once, because it's "highly unlikely" that the Republicans would be emboldened by such a concession. In other words, this is a man paid a hell of a lot of money to write about US politics who evidently doesn't actually pay the slightest bit of attention to US politics.

I bet he complains bitterly about an uninformed electorate at dinner parties with other self-satisfied leftist journos who nod sagely and rinse away the taste of irony with beautiful wine.

See also: Scott Lemieux.