I was watching Jane Hamsher on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show The Last Word.  She was on there with three other progressives and one pseudoprogressive.  I’m sure that Jane will put up a post with all the gory details, but what struck me with all the subtlety of a sledge hammer to the face was O’Donnell’s raging contempt and arrogance toward progressives.

Basically, O’Donnell took the opportunity to knock the naivete of progressives “who have never had to govern.”  This seems to be O’Donnell’s big lick.  He enjoys demonstrating his insider knowledge of the workings of government to the uninitiated.

And the topic for discussion was the foolishness of progressives in opposing Obama’s compromise with Republicans on extending the Bush tax cuts.  According to O’Donnell, the most strategically important thing for Obama to do is to avoid raising middle class taxes, so Obama HAD TO TAKE THE DEAL.

I didn’t sit through the whole nauseating segment because I was going to throw something at the TV, and I can’t afford to buy another one.

Essentially, letting the Bush tax cuts expire will spell doom to the Democrats and Obama.  It is the overriding  political and economic imperative.  Nothing else seems to matter.

Sorry Lawrence, but I don’t buy that line of thinking. 

Frankly, I think that Paul Krugman says it best in his latest column.  Krugman, just a naive Nobel Laureate in Economics, argues that the economic damage caused by letting the Bush tax cuts lapse is overstated.  Yes, there will be some damage to the economy because raising taxes during a recession is a no-no.  But lets face facts. The Bush tax cuts were not all the stimulative to begin with.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t be in this damn economic depression if the Bush tax cuts had been all that great.

The greater economic danger lies in rewarding Republican hostage taking.

The Republicans will now use this same stunt to demand further concessions out of Obama.  One way they will do this is with the debt ceiling issue.  The Republicans will not vote for raising the debt ceiling unless they get massive budget cuts out of Obama, and we all know what that means – Social Security and Medicare cuts.

But I suppose that I am just being a naive, hysterical progressive who doesn’t understand how government works.  I don’t know Lawrence.  Senator Bernie Sanders seems to think the same damn thing, but what does he know?  He is just some old socialist from the podunk state of Vermont.  It is not like Bernie Sanders knows anything about how politics and government works.  Shit!  Presumptuous old Sanders!  Does he think that he has some insider knowledge on what Republicans are thinking or planning?  Ha!

Hey Lawrence!  If Republicans got to decimate Social Security in order to save the U.S. credit rating, would that be OK?  Is saving the U.S. credit rating more important than Social Security? 

I’m sure that seniors would just rejoice when Obama tells them he had to make cuts to Social Security to save the U.S. credit rating! 

Oh, and by the way, on that tax cut issue, you remember that Obama passed a tax cut for all Americans in the stimulus bill?  Yeah, most folks didn’t either.  In fact, 90% or better of Americans didn’t remember it when the midterm elections came around.  The American public was so grateful for those tax cuts that they voted the Democrats out out of power in the House.  

Seems Americans don’t like high unemployment, even if you give them a tax cut.  The ungrateful bastards!  They act like progressives! Never satisfied!

Somehow I think that same voter ingratitude will persist in 2012 if unemployment is still high, with or without a middle class tax cut.

How dare we progressives challenge the wisdom of Democratic insiders like O’Donnell and Obama!