David Brooks: "Republican fanaticism caused this default," and they're not fit to govern.

I love Ezra Klein's email newsletter editorials. They always seems to sum up exactly what's going on when it comes to the debt ceiling.  

The Republicans are not looking good in the eyes of the public. But how could they, when their agenda is the opposite of public opinion polls across the board? Republicans are going to need to make a very tough decision over the next couple of weeks: Are they a party that's very good at saying "no" in order to get the best deal possible? Or are they a party that's incapable of saying "yes" even once they've gotten there?

The Democrats have agreed to limit tax increases to cuts in "tax expenditures" -- a category that no less eminent a Republican economist than Alan Greenspan says should properly be understood as "government spending" rather than "tax cuts" -- rather than the marginal-rate increases that Republican economists say are truly harmful to growth. That's given Republicans an out, if they want it: They can say they're cleaning the code rather than raising taxes.


But there's little evidence, at least as of yet, that Republicans are going to take the deal -- or even that they can take the deal. That raises the question of whether they've gotten here by being savvy, tough negotiators, or whether the reason they keep saying "no" is that they've lost the ability to say "yes." As David Brooks writes today, "If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern. And they will be right."

Here's another moment in time when I'm in complete agreement with David Brooks:

"We can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative. The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no. The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it."