Another take on crazy

A commentator interviewed by one of the MSNBC news shows Wednesday night (sorry I can't remember who it was) had a good line.    When asked about Republicans' demands that President Obama "negotiate" with them, he said:

 "It's hard to negotiate with crazy."

Amen.  And that's what we have going on in the House Republican caucus.  Here's another way to look at that crazy:

They wanted to shut down Obamacare, so they attached it to the government funding bill.  Instead of shutting down Obamacare, however, they shut down the government.

The other crazy part of this is that they delude themselves in thinking the American people will blame the president.  Instead, by a goodly number, people blame the Republicans.

Still they persist.   So of course everybody is dragging out that old adage, often attributed to Albert Einstein:

"Insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results."

Republicans are making everybody else look like Einstein these days.   They go on TV and rail about how they're the ones standing up for the American people, because in the House they're passing these piecemeal re-appropriate driplets -- always the thing that's most damaging in the news.

But it would be so simple to end the shutdown:   21 House Republicans now say they would vote for a clean bill.  With the Democrats, that's more than enough to pass the Senate bill and end this whole thing.   They could do it in an hour.    Instead, John Boehner refuses to bring it up -- so they can continue their (false) blaming the Democrats and the president.

Now that is crazy -- unless of course your goal is simply to maintain your power and think this is the way to do it.

Ralph