Like everyone else in the world right now I'm a bit preoccupied the new year, but like many I've also been preoccupied with the fiscal cliffhanger.
As we're reportedly on the verge of some kind of agreement to keep the economy from freefall, the one figure who keeps resonating with me, and disagreeably, too, is Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who back in 2010 gleefully announced his party's resolve to make Barack Obama a one term president.
Well, guess what: McConnell failed. The president won reelection, and handily, but remember that he won reelection on his pledge to address the issue of income equality in this country. Going from adamant insistence that those who earn more than $250,000 a year will have to pay more taxes, or about 2 percent of the population, to an agreement that looks to 1 percent of the population, those who earn $400,000 to $450,000, as a source of revenue is hardly a credible way to address income inequality. More importantly, it suggests that McConnell's curse, and that of the obstructionist party, may be working after all.
Who was the last Democratic president who presided over a robust economy? Bill Clinton, of course. Remember what happened to him? The same obstructionists who went after Clinton, if for no other reason than that he was good at what he was doing, are at play with Obama this time. They may not find any White House interns to pin on this president, but the wingnuts of the Republican Party haven't gone anywhere in the past twenty years. They've only organized better. Now, it's the Democrats' turn to do the same.