This Obama quote should be carved in stone somewhere

[Marr]

84. Are you willing to bet that the sun will come up tomorrow?

There's certainly precedent for it. There's every reason to expect it to do exactly the same thing it did yesterday. Same deal with the Republicans on their unemployment benefits threat. They made the same threats in the past, and backed off it every single time, because their constituencies were *pissed*. I'm not speculating here-- they floated the idea repeatedly-- and backed down every time.

Now, I'm not six years old, so I don't think that wealthy politicians on either side of the aisle actually give a damn about me. They care about their careers and their parties.

And the fact is that, if Republicans had shattered the precedent and cut-off of unemployment benefits, they would've been handing the next election to the Democrats-- so why did the Democratic establishment fold so quickly? You apparently think it's because they just care so dang much about us poor folk that they couldn't bear the thought of us being screwed over. I think that's fairly ridiculous.

They folded because they *wanted* to fold, but they couldn't do it without political cover.