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" It was bound to happen. The Pod People have taken over Tiger Beat On The Potomac. I mean, everybody has to sleep, right? And they come when you sleep, and they leave behind the Pod People, all of whom look like Reince Priebus, who&amp;#039;s pretty pod-line himself, now that I think about it. Consider just the headlines this morning: Dems big 2014 obstacle: Obama Senate bill to omit Obama priorities GOP senators stick by their leaders Tax reform a tough balance for Dems And the stories get even more podworthy as you read through them, the harmonies quite startling on the general theme that the president has failed to make nicey-nice enough to the Republicans, who lost that election last fall that didn&amp;#039;t really count because Nate Silver might be gay or something. Anyway, here&amp;#039;s the first one on the list. President Barack Obama says he&amp;#039;s ready to do whatever it takes to help Democrats win the House next year - a feat that could make the difference between limping to the end of his presidency and going out with a bang. But some Democratic candidates and operatives in the districts on which control of the House will hinge said in interviews with POLITICO that the message and issues Obama has emphasized since the election are creating a difficult political headwind for them. The first of the &amp;quot;some Democratic candidates&amp;quot; folks quoted is Jim Graves from Minnesota, who very nearly beat Michele Bachmann last fall. Also quoted are a guy from Arkansas who hasn&amp;#039;t decided if he&amp;#039;s running for Congress yet, the former political director for the House Blue Dog Coalition, an anonymous &amp;quot;former (Rahm) Emanuel aide,&amp;quot; and the executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. (The kidz at TBOTP cast a very wide net, indeed.) The fact that the difficulties primarily stem from the ongoing Safe Seats For Lunatics Project financed by various conservative sugar-parents is mentioned only in passing, and only in the context of describing the failure of the president&amp;#039;s Lunatics Outreach program. The next story on the list gives up the damn ghost in its first six words. Paying a price for his indifference, President Barack Obama is expected to get little or none of the extra money for health care and Wall Street reforms that the administration has been seeking in a six-month stopgap spending bill coming to the Senate floor this week. Sooner or later, they have to run out of ways to call the man lazy, right? Indeed, a statement of administration policy last week on the House bill said only that the White House was &amp;quot;deeply concerned&amp;quot; with the House bill and never even hinted of using the president&amp;#039;s veto leverage. This ceded effective control to Republicans and led Democrats to turn their focus more to protecting long-standing priorities such as investments in transportation or programs like Head Start for low-income children. This paragraph makes sense only if you have been in an absinthe haze since January of 2009. The sequester was a terrible idea because the president fundamentally misapprehended the depth of Republican nihilism, not because he hasn&amp;#039;t waltzed on the Truman Balcony with Barbara Mikluski. Moving to the next performance on our program today, we find that Republicans are stalwart people of principle, especially if they think they&amp;#039;re going to be primaried from the right. Saxby Chambliss appears to be a ripe target for President Barack Obama on the grand bargain: He&amp;#039;s a retiring Republican senator who for years has been eager to cut a large-scale deficit deal. But will he and other GOP senators buck their party&amp;#039;s leadership in order to strike a deal with the White House?&amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not going to happen,&amp;quot; Chambliss told POLITICO. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re not going to negotiate; that&amp;#039;s the leaders&amp;#039; role.&amp;quot; I take the initial point \u2014 Saxby Chambliss is pretty ripe. But what we have here is the assumption that the president will try to rally the Republicans onto a Grand Bargain \u2014 according to the plan that every Republican &amp;quot;leader&amp;quot; says he doesn&amp;#039;t have \u2014 that will make the president&amp;#039;s own base scream like scalded cats, but only Saxby Chambliss&amp;#039;s desire to see Mitch McConnell saved from the threat of Senator Ashley Judd is standing in the way. That this is a fairly clinical example of political dysfunction seems to elude the pod children. And on the last thing, well, you will be amazed to learn that, on tax reforms, Dems Are In Disarray. When it comes to rewriting the federal Tax Code, Senate Democrats hailing from deep red states are finding themselves in a politically treacherous bind. On one side, the president and party leaders are salivating over the prospect of more tax increases. On the other, there are restive voters back home ready to toss out anyone who votes for another increase. Salivating? Really? Did you write this while waiting on hold for Rush or Sean. Plus, have we decided whether tax &amp;quot;reform&amp;quot; \u2014 fairly defined as &amp;quot;closing some obscure loopholes in Subparagraph F that will be reopened within a week in Subparagraph G&amp;quot; \u2014 actually represents a &amp;quot;tax increase,&amp;quot; saliva-soaked or otherwise? In related news, I&amp;#039;m sure this is all very good news for John McCain. Double Prestone, my good man, and see what the pundits in the back room will have. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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