Obama insists on maintaining a disastrous woodenheadedness and apparently is throwing his lot in with the destructive deficit hawks.

And dunderheaded Democrats with their ignore-the-facts blinders are acting like hybrid lemming Chicken Littles.

Meanwhile, the media has become a cheerleader for deficit zealot fearmongering rather than researching and reporting the nuts and bolts reality.

Jonathan Tasini at Working Life writes:  [Both Republican and Democratic parties] "hold the same view--that the fiscal deficits are a great danger and that "painful" cuts await us. If you argue over the same terrain, of course, you can't compromise

"But, they aren't dealing with the facts.

"THE FISCAL DEFICIT IS NOT AN ISSUE. The problem is what we view as our set of priorities and what we spend money on and how each of us contributes to society's welfare.

"The greatest challenge right now--the greatest crisis--is jobs. Period. We should not be holding back from spending more money to make sure people have work. I'd say we need another one trillion dollars for that task. Now.

"And the fiscal deficit? It would disappear pretty easily, and certainly be manageable, if we did two simple things:

   "1. Reinstitute an ethos in America that people have to pay their fair share, not as a penalty, but as a cost of having a decent society. That means that the wealthiest people have to pay more--and Wall Street has to pay a transactions tax on its business because it cannot have a thriving business without a decent society with roads, education and all the infrastructure that makes Wall Street a profitable business ("profitable" should mean not obscenely greedy and outrageous pay).

   "2. End the wasteful, immoral, tragic waste of hundreds of billions of dollars on foolish wars, with the most recent example Afghanistan. There was not a serious debate--by either party--over the $700-plus billion defense budget proposed by the president. Have we gone mad?"