The Long and Short of the Super Committee

Indeed, the entire endeavor was set up for failure from the start.  With a committee packed with liberals -- and co-chaired by the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee -- what could possibly go wrong?!  In truth, the entire enterprise was doomed as soon as Nancy Pelosi made her appointments.

No doubt Democrats hoped that Republicans would "compromise" and renege on the no-taxes pledge that is a key element of their "brand" -- thereby enraging their base and all but ensuring the emergence of a competing third party that would thus guarantee Dem electoral dominance.  Fortunately, that didn't happen.

So now, the blame game begins.  Republicans should attempt to stop the disastrous cuts to defense and -- rather than being in a position where they are splintering their coalition through a debate about whether to accept a "compromise" tax increase -- let the Democrats decide whether they want to follow their leader (MIA throughout the process) in his determination to gut America's defenses.

One final note: Through such veto threats, the President may hope and believe that he will somehow gain political credit for being a "deficit hawk."  But it's worth considering that this spectacular failure of politicians and Big Government may well, at the margins, do more to hurt the image of the party (and President) who is constantly insisting that we should put our trust in Big Government -- not the party that believes in the primacy of the private sector.