Reply #4: The GOP called Obama's bluff and won. This is all there is to it.

[Mass]

When you see moderates like Hoyer or Matt Miller or reasonable people like James Fallows mad at this deal and at the president, it tells me all I have to know. That Katrina is unhappy is no surprise. She would have been unhappy with most anything that could have passed the US Senate in 2010 anyway. But that moderates are just as unhappy tells us what we need to know.

Obama allowed blackmail to become an institutional tactical technique, and nothing will be done during the next year. I have tried until now to keep an open mind, given the stupidity of the GOP, the ambient racism, and the economic difficulties, but this the the extra drop. I will work to reelect Markey and beat Brown, but as MA is a safe state, I will sit this one. Which is worse is that Obama is trying to tell us that the GOP did what we told them to do with our emails. Really? I could be ready for: this is not what we wanted but we have to do that to avoid default. I cannot accept being lied to by a president that promised to change politics.

I know Kerry will vote for this, but I would hope he will express his disagreement loudly (I doubt it), and hope Markey will vote against it.