Seven weeks since their seismic losses in the midterm elections, liberals continue mouthing their moronic mantra that the results were a mandate for Republicans to "get things done" with President Obama.
On This Week with George Stephanopoulos today, uber-Dem Howard Dean trotted out a variation of the threadbare theme, that Republicans better work with Obama or face dire consequences in the 2016 election. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol proceeded to pounce. It made for entertaining Sunday morning television --
DEAN: I'm with the president on this one because he's right, 50 years of a policy that doesn't work probably ought to be looked at and that's what he's going to do (alluding to Obama's call to strengthen ties with socialist soulmates in Cuba) and I think it makes a lot of sense.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Has he run into the limit, though, of what he can do on his own? It seems like he was getting a lot done during the lame duck before Republicans have united opposition, united control of both the House and the Senate. Won't he have to find places where he can actually work with Republicans?
DEAN (clearly uncomfortable with this line of inquiry): Well, yes. I think my own guess is, and this is a hopeful guess, is that the Republicans actually want to get something done which they haven't for four years. McConnell's got a lot on the line here, he's now the majority leader. If they don't deliver, it's hard to make a case that you should have a Republican running anything in 2016. So I actually think it is possible that they will strike a very difficult bargain for both sides.
COKIE ROBERTS: And they say to me, the Republican leaders, that they really do want to get something done and they were really mad at Ted Cruz. Now the Democrats were really mad at Elizabeth Warren too, but you really have some people there now who at least claim to be willing to get some work done.
Sure thing, Kristol responded -- while pointing out that this can be interpreted any number of ways. For liberals, its meaning is quite singular -- getting done what Democrats want --
KRISTOL: The first thing they should do is stop a horrible deal with the mullahs in Iran... There's a lot that Republicans can do but a lot of what they have to do is to stop and check the president of the United States, they only control Congress, and lay the groundwork for 2016 and 2017.
DEAN: If they do that for the next two years, I think whoever you nominate is toast. What people want to see is progress (especially "progressives") and this can't be just stop the president ...
KRISTOL: The Democrats fought pretty hard in 2007 and 2008 against George W. Bush and it didn't seem to hurt Barack Obama at all in November of 2008.
Moreover, I don't recall many Democrats during that time, aside from lonely renegade Joe Lieberman, suggesting that what the party needed most was "progress" in working with Bush.
Dean somehow misses the obvious, that it'll be harder for Republicans to convince anyone that they should run the government if they're indistinguishable from Democrats.
