Fantasies on the Left

The Left has not paid enough attention to realize that Republicans no longer have any power in Washington:

Considering that the Republican party really has been purged of moderates now, I'd say that the GOP is going to be the much bigger roadblock to compromise than the left. They're more radical than ever. The Republican party is now led by Rush Limbaugh. There's nobody else. And when Obama reaches out his hand to Rush Limbaugh he's going to get it whacked off with a chainsaw, at which point, these villagers (who haven't even considered this political problem) are going to blame Obama for being unable to govern in a bipartisan fashion.
All over television this morning the gasbags seemed convinced that Obama had been elected to stop the left from ruining the country. And when it turns out to actually be his supposedly cooperative new partners in governance -- the right -- that stands in his way, they will blame him for being too far left. It's a trap.

This is unmitigated paranoid fantasy. Republicans could not be a "roadblock to compromise" if they wanted to. For better or worse, come Jan. 20, Democrats will run Washington without any effective opposition. Republicans will hold 174 seats in the House and 40 seats in the Senate, with three Senate seats -- Alaska, Minnesota and Georgia -- still in dispute. The GOP can't do anything in the House except complain, and the only influence they have in the Senate is a very shaky filibuster threat.

Pace the idiot bloggers, what has "gasbags" on TV worried is the possibility Obama's administration will be so radical as to spark a political reaction a la 1994. There is no "roadblock to compromise" because there is no GOP opposition powerful enough to require compromise. Democrats are in charge now, and Obama's media friends are worried he'll revert to his Trinity Church "god damn America" roots and alienate some of the 43% of white voters he got on Election Day.