Gun control is looking unlikely. At the moment it's looking unlikely in the Senate. But no matter. Because if gun control had a chance of senatorial success, it would only die in the House.
After Newtown, congressional inaction on rational gun control seems incomprehensible. Yet this is the Congress we've chosen, in all its malignancy. And on this issue, conservative Democrats are as cowardly as standard-issue Republicans are insane.
I'd wager immigration reform is powerfully unlikely as well--it being the second of this 113th Congress' two "opportunities" for which plucky optimists possessed some enchanted hope. How cute.
A comprehensive immigration package would be a historic victory for President Obama, and we--or rather Republicans--can't have that. Deny him they must. Plus for once the GOP is actually correct: Obama would get the credit, while they'd get no new Latino votes.
As for the thought of Republicans doing the right thing merely for the sake of doing the right thing? Uh-huh.
Having dispatched--in either the filibustering Senate or the necrotic House--these two prime legislative candidates for bipartisan cooperation, Republicans will of course proceed to throttle any progress elsewhere; nothing on climate change, nothing on tax reform, certainly nothing on any sort of jobs bill.
You can draw up a legislative list as long or short as you like--the result, if you'll excuse the pun, will be listlessness.
What's more, the Obama economy is doing just well enough to merit another Republican assault. Even the GOP realized we needed a breather from its perpetual sabotage, thus the continuing resolution's uneventfulness.
But there's always the debt limit, as early as May, and what better Mel Brooksian fun for Republicans than a late Springtime for Hitjobbers?
I hope I'm wrong--about everything here. I hope my congenital pessimism and learned cynicism are yet greeted by astounding feats of congressional, which is to say some Republican, decency.
For now, though, my money is staying on cynicism.