What does “poisoning the well” really mean?
by David Atkins
The pushback against the noxious idea that Obama’s move on immigration reform has somehow “poisoned the well” with Republicans has been delightful to see. American Bridge, Daily Kos and Huffington Post have all been on the case, showing how often the Republicans have cried out about the President “poisoning the well.”
Two things stand out about it. The first is that a simple google search shows that the phrase was almost never used to describe George W. Bush’s presidency. Somehow, no matter how outrageous and vindictive the Bush Administration became, nothing they did ever seemed to eliminate the possibility of some sort of cooperation between the Administration and Democrats. Democrats were always eager to cooperate to pass bills if there was something on which common ground could be found.
The second is that it’s a thinly veiled indication that Republicans cannot control their own caucus at all.
What does it mean that a Democratic president is constantly guilty of poisoning the bipartisan well (besides being a meaningless rightwing talking point, of course)?
It means that the Republican Party intends to obstruct absolutely everything and wants to blame the President for it when they do. But it also means the leadership of the GOP that needs it to looks slightly less than totally insane will be unable to control their rowdies.
In essence, the GOP leadership is telling the President that if he does anything at all to help people, the crazies that make up the majority of the GOP caucus will get out of line and do crazy things, and that would be bad.
What I don’t understand is why the President would help out GOP leadership on this front? What possible incentive does he have to do that, since GOP leadership hasn’t been the least bit cooperative with him in the past?
Live by the crazy, die by the crazy. That well is already long since poisoned