Pox on One of Their Houses

Noted lefty nutcase Ben Wittes:

To put the matter simply, the current Republican insistence on attaching conditions to a continuing resolution to keep government open is nothing more or less than the elevation of domestic disputes over Obamacare and fiscal matters above the security of the country as a whole and above the physical safety of its population. It is as reckless as it would have been for Democrats to shut down the government over the Bush tax cuts. And it is no less apt to raise questions about the seriousness of those who would do it.

And what of a President who—as Bush surely would have done in my hypothetical and as Obama is currently doing—stands firm and refuses to negotiate away a signature domestic initiative in the face of congressional insistence on linking its denuding to the essential security of the nation? Should we not also question such a president’s seriousness for failing to capitulate, given the stakes? Is this not a case in which it takes two to tango?

I am, generally speaking, a pox-on-both-houses kind of guy, but I have trouble seeing it that way this time. It was the House Republicans, after all, who attached these conditions to the continuing resolution, thus putting the President in an impossible situation—one in which he either lets the government shut down or both gives up a signature domestic initiative and, along the way, makes clear the presidency’s vulnerability to the most grotesque types of brinksmanship and extortion. No president worth his salt would negotiate under these circumstances—and the responsibility for the situation is thus not even between the parties. One side, and only one, created this crisis.