Look around, the left has already tired of multilateralism, compromise, negotiation — they want action, with or without the help of potential allies. The Huffington Post has a banner headline “Ignore This Man,” a reference to this piece in the Hill about liberal activists pressuring Senate Democrats to move forward without Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley. “We are encouraging Finance Committee members and Senate Democrats to do their own bill and not compromise with a bunch of Republicans who are not going to vote with them anyway,” Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, tells the paper. There was some talk like that on the right about a second security council resolution on Iraq prior to the invasion.

Washington Monthly blogger Steve Benen asks, “shouldn’t this tell Democrats something about the utility of negotiations, and the futility of finding a bipartisan compromise?” Benen and other “progressives” support negotiation and compromise with Iran and North Korea, but Republicans? Forget about it.