It is difficult not to have great respect for anyone who accommodates working with morons incapable of producing any useful result for a problem regardless how large or small the intended goal may be. Parents and teachers learn to recognize the pointlessness of reasoning with petulant young children, and yet they exercise patience and continue guiding them despite the seeming futility of their effort out of concern for the welfare of children in their care. President Obama has learned that dealing with Republicans is an exercise in futility regardless the issues facing the nation, and in private he must acknowledge that it is seemingly impossible to negotiate with ideologues who ran for office for the sole purpose of obstructing the government and causing as much damage as possible as ideological purists.

Throughout the President’s first term, Republicans opposed every single proposal and piece of legislation President Obama supported in spite of the damage to the nation’s security and economic health, and the fiscal cliff negotiations have amplified the GOP’s intransigence despite the damage their obstruction will wreak on economic recovery. When House Speaker John Boehner’s absurd Plan B failed to garner enough Republican support to pass the House, he joined forces with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to demand the White House and Senate Democrats submit a proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff so House Republicans could take up the bill and do what they went to Washington for; reject it out of hand.