Something senseless this way comes. How overreach guarantees chaos.

Gerson points out that ten years ago there was bipartisan support for sensible Healthcare Reform,  immigration reform, AGW remediation and I'll add one other: Social security reform. Today all are points of brutal partisan war why?

1. Big differences on big issues with big consequences. Obviously.

2. Winner takes all attitude by dems

3. Borne of their religious dogma to wit:

- our coalition is destined to dominate
- what we believe is right and moral and inevitable

Needless to say this is ludicrous madness, easily shredded as soon as you think seriously on it. But when you invest your temporal beliefs with transcendent significance you reduce your room for maneuver and compromise.

And the President is the most ardent believer of all: on immigration he could have passed the Bush package that narrowly lost in his first two years - or even something more to his liking. But instead, believing his "inevitability of righteousness" shtick he dawdled. And then he deliberately provoked the majority of the nation by issuing amnesties and de facto opening the southern border to unlimited illegal immigration.

And his religious dogma leads him to dismiss his critics as a dwindling band of white haters rather than recognizing that in politics, like physics, every action eventually  creates an equal but opposite reaction. Without a doubt Obama's super amnesty will result in the lamest of lame ducks trying to rule like a caudillo via "Presidential Decrees" leading to a real blowout and total Republican hegemony in two years.

He's really going to piss the country off, poisoning the Democratic brand for some time to come. But when you've been told how swell you are so much and given prizes for doing nothing not to mention being regularly compared to Jesus Christ you begin to believe you're invincible.  And even after being trounced.

From childhood this President has been systematically kept away from reality. Six years in the White House has led him to float completely away. If he were Idi Amin this would be the "kill and eat your opponents" phase of his administration. Thank God he's not. But he is seriously detached from reality.