That Is Cool

Greg Sargent finds Marco Rubio trying to redefine the nature of budget blackmail, declaring that it’s not about Republicans threatening to shut down the government unless Obama defunds heath reform; it’s about Obama threatening to shut down the government unless he gets to implement the law. No, really. Rubio:

I think the real question is: Is Barack Obama willing to shut down the government over ObamaCare? In essence, I think we should pay our military. I think we should fund the government. I just don’t think we should fund ObamaCare. And what the President is saying is we either fund ObamaCare or we don’t fund anything. And I think that’s an unreasonable position. And that’s the position he’s taken and the Democrats have taken.

So, where have I heard that before? In Lincoln’s Cooper Union address, in which he talks of slave interests declaring that they will break up the Union if Northerners vote in a Republican, which will make secession the fault of … anti-slavery forces:


Old Abe would have recognized today’s Republicans — and would probably have been saddened that this modern equivalent of the people he fought against bear the name, though none of the spirit, of his party.