Great analysis!
The ending encapsulates the whole story:
"Liberal critics of Obama, just like conservative critics of Republican presidents, generally want both maximal partisan conflict and maximal legislative achievement. In the real world, those two things are often at odds. Hence the allure of magical thinking."
People are in general ....stupid. They voted for Bush in 2004, AFTER we already knew his Iraq war was a total phoney, and that it was unpaid for and not part of the budget, hidden from it!
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