Benen nails this commentary ~ there is no plausible justification for R behavior/games/trickery/dishonesty/dedicated obstructionism beyond ... ego ~  ~ Sooz

ROOTING FOR FAILURE.... Last year featured one of the more baffling, big-picture political debates in quite a while. Just as President Obama was being inaugurated, conservatives began to explore whether it's acceptable to actively root against America's leader as they dealt with a variety of foreign and domestic crises.

In general, the right seemed to agree that there was nothing especially wrong in hoping for failure. The contingent was led by Rush Limbaugh, who told his audience the day before Inauguration Day, "I hope Obama fails." A month later, Limbaugh, talking about efforts to revive the economy, added, "I want everything he's doing to fail... I want the stimulus package to fail."

We don't hear quite as much about this anymore, but the sentiment hasn't disappeared. The latest CNN poll (pdf) asked respondents a pretty straightforward question: "In general, do you hope that Barack Obama's policies will succeed or do you hope that his policies will fail?" Overall, 61% want the president's policies to work, 27% do not. That's not especially encouraging.

But the partisan breakdown was especially interesting. Among Democrats, 89% are hoping for success. Among self-identified Independents, it's 59%. Among Republicans, a 61% majority went the other way, hoping to see the president's policies fail.

Here's that breakdown in visual form:

I guess this isn't surprising anymore, but I nevertheless find it rather depressing. It's always struck me as the bare minimum of patriotism: don't root against the home team. It's one thing to disapprove of, or even actively loathe, the country's elected leaders. But rooting for their failure has never supposed to be one of the options.

It's really not complicated -- the president's policies, whether wise or not, are at least intended to bolster the economy and strengthen our national security. If those policies fail, Americans will suffer more and the country will be weaker.

And yet, a majority of Republicans are nevertheless rooting for failure?

Several weeks ago, George W. Bush noted, "I want my president to succeed because if my president succeeds my country succeeds, and I want my country to succeed."

I have no idea why this concept is so hard for so many to understand.

Rush did that whole "He wanted Obana to fail campaign"  I wanted to throw up when he said he wanted the stimulus to faiil.

I never understood why spending money on fixing an ailing infrastructure was a horrible idea.  It's the government's job to maintain roads, bridges, etc.  It employs the unemployed and unemployable.  Put people to work on meaningful stuff.  Not everyone can spread disgusting disinformation on the radio for multi-millions.

Structural unemployment occurs when people have skill sets to do a job and that type of employment is gone.  For example; the housing industry bottomed out and construction workers were unemployable as there were no construction jobs, particularly in places like rural PA.  I know I cannot be as knowledgable or caring as you are because you are a mighty R and I am a lowly D social work intern, however my dad was a building contractor in rural PA and I know builders need projects to work on or construction guys are out of work.   

I also remember the conversations in the past that deficient candidates like Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell were good enough to fill in the R quota to force Obama to the middle.  Obama's already in the middle, and if you disagree with me explain how he isn't.