IT'S NOT OBSTRUCTIONISM, IT'S ... ENNUI!

Here's Howard Fineman with a transcendently stupid explanation for why Republicans are going along with the Obama economic plan:

...I have been struck so far by the LACK of bipartisan goodwill on both sides. It's only a week into the Obama presidency and things quickly seem to be degenerating into the same old, same old spats and thrusts.

... There are a number of reasons. Obama essentially started governing the economy weeks ago, so his "honeymoon' was over -- at least among the political and chattering classes here in Washington -- before he was even inaugurated.

... Obama's plans are themselves part of the problem: they are not sufficiently radical to blow up the familiar, paralyzing partisan axis of argument about the role and size of government in our lives.

It's not so much a matter of the plan's size -- though some economists do think it's not big enough -- as it is the lack of imagination and shrewd strategy. In haste to spend, he and his aides in too many cases simply looked for programmatic spigots to turn on.

Lack of focus?

Rather than carefully watering each plant with care, Obama seems to be turning a fire hose on an entire desert. Even America doesn't have enough money for that.

The lack of focus allows critics on the right to pick off one or another line item, stoking outrage among the tax-cut, spending-cut crowd....

So "some economists do think" the plan is "not big enough," but "America doesn't have enough money for" the plan as it now stands. Oh, right -- that makes a lot of sense.

And Republicans really could be persuaded to go along -- but the plans "are not sufficiently radical"! Good grief, how could the Obama people not have figured that out? Everybody knows how easy it is to get Republicans to sign on to "radical" ideas from Democrats!

It's all that plus a lack of "imagination." Of course! Obama can't get the Republicans to buy in because it's all so dull. Instead of turning on the same old tired "programmatic spigots," he should have devised a plan centered on Overlords from another galaxy landing on Earth and using their more highly evolved intelligence to simply eradicate the recession overnight. Republicans would've accepted that in a heartbeat!

Me, I think Republicans aren't going along because they're a cult-like movement of extremist zealots who would rather see the country destroyed than compromise. But I'm just a schmuck blogger, so what do I know?