Who’d a Thunk It?

The editors of the Washington Post are appalled at the Senate Democratic minority’s lack of willingness to compromise:

There are legitimate concerns about whether the Hyde Amendment’s provisions — it allows abortions only in the cases of rape, incest and danger to the mother’s life — are broad enough to cover young women forced into sexual exploitation. But the question of whether and how congressional appropriations can be used for abortions has long been settled, for better or worse. There is, as we wrote earlier this week, a reasonable way for the two sides to compromise on the trafficking bill, but both sides need to be reasonable. Sadly, that was not the case for Senate Democrats this week.

I’m beginning to lose track. Is a hardline stance by a Congressional minority obstruction of progress, childish stubbornness, and the next thing to treason? Or it is high-minded principle and a refusal to surrender the good of the people to the heartless majority?

Maybe it’s exactly what you’d expect in today’s political climate in which through gerrymandering (and increasingly sophisticated get-out-the-vote strategies) legislators pick their constituencies rather than the other way around and the political views of the legislators are more extreme than those of the communities they notionally serve?