As I was flipping through the channels yesterday, I stopped on Bill O'Reilly's show and Dick Morris was discussing what he'd tell Barack Obama to do. And while I instinctively hate most of what Morris was saying, I actually found myself agreeing with one part of his argument. Of course, that actually just made me angrier at Morris.

During the health care debate, I ticked off some people I worked with because I said that I thought we should try to regulate the insurance companies before going full steam ahead into universal health care. I rarely heard this as a fully formed argument from the Right, which always bothered me. Yes, now and then, when forced to answer, they'd bring up other ideas instead of socialized medicine but those ideas often revolved around giving doctors or insurance companies more power or less responsibility.

What Morris said yesterday made sense. He mentioned that Obama could have passed health care reform easily. He said the financial reform bill could go through if he pulled away a few of the big government elements. It almost looked like Morris was actually trying to work with the President and CREATE something rather than just heckling from the cheap seats.

And this is the most depressing part of our current political situation. The Republicans and conservatives like Morris have realized that actually working with their rivals or actually putting forth compromises gets them nothing. Sure, it might help the USA but it doesn't serve their own agenda. From Day 1 of the Obama administration, Republicans have been focused on winning the 2010 elections. To act like they've been try to govern is laughable. They just bash the current proposals and play the fear card as often as they can.

That goes doubly for Morris who can't answer a single question without plugging whatever new fear mongering book he has out. I don't think Morris ever made such a calm, rational argument about compromise during the health care debate. Now that it's over, he treats the words that he wouldn't dare utter like they were the common sense approach.

Which they would have been

Anywhere but Washington

Sadly, "compromise" in Washington doesn't mean groups meet halfway. It means one side sticks to their extreme agenda but throws a bone and lets in a couple elements of the other sides agenda (and often, the opposing agenda isn't even about the subject at hand. It'll be an amendment about something completely different like gun control.) And the media just makes matters worse; whenever there is a story, they just run to the extremes and cheerlead rather than actually looking at the problem at hand.