Today's Cartoon And Reads

Love "The G.O.P.'s Long-Term Plan" diagram.

(click to enlarge)

(Brian McFadden, via gocomics.com)

From E.J. Dionne, Jr., on dealing with the Republican Congress:

[Sen. Mitch] McConnell’s main argument with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), and his followers is not about ends but means. McConnell is no less focused than Cruz on bringing down Obama and discrediting Democratic governance, but McConnell needs to be more subtle about it.  [snip]

Solving the country’s economic riddle would be a much better use of their time than investing in the fantasy that McConnell and [Weeper of the House] Boehner will try to make Obama look good. 

Charles Blow looks at the more general mood and methods of the right-wing opposition:

His term must be tarnished; his accomplishments erased. 

Some people blame the president for not cultivating more congressional relationships, across the aisle and even in the Democratic caucus. There may be some truth to that, but not much, I believe. No amount of glad-handing and ego-stroking would compensate for the depths of the opposition. Nor would messaging. 

This is a president who was elected by an increasingly diverse national electorate that some find frightening, a president who is pushing a somewhat liberal agenda that some have found intrinsically objectionable, and a president who is battling some historical personality tropes that many cannot abandon. 

To his opponents, this president’s greatest sins are his success and his self. 

So, if you're listening Democrats, don't repeat the mistakes of the past 6 years by thinking the Republicans are acting in good faith or with good intentions.