Didn't the GOP Learn from the Last Shutdown?
As the GOP and President Obama go eyeball to eyeball over a government shutdown, I keep thinking of a story from one of Louisa May Alcott's novels, the story of the children who put beans up their noses.
Story:
Mother has to run an errand. She tells the children to behave themselves while she is out - and above all, not to put beans up their noses.
To this point, the idea of putting a bean up the nose had never occurred to any of the children. Yet as soon as mother closed the garden gate behind her, the idea began to acquire an irresistible attractiveness. Beans? Up the nose? Genius!
And of course the mother returned to find her children snorting and choking.
From the experience of 1995-1996, you'd think there was one thing Republicans would know: don't shut down the government. But like the beans, the more the Republicans think about how they should not do it, the more alluringly the idea beckons...