M.S. is located in Amsterdam and perhaps her/his distance led to the development of a severe case of strategic myopia: the Republicans have made a bad bet on their 2014 victory at the polls, with 36.6% of eligible voters taking part. The Republicans are so eager for electoral justification, as a party, that they are already making foreign policy:  Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Mr. Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress, and this utter political misstep, or just the usual Republican blundering,  as reported in the NYT:

‘WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Thursday formally abandoned plans to vote on a contentious bill that would make most abortions illegal after 20 weeks of pregnancy as they struggled to mend another unwelcome rift that threatens to tarnish their party’s image with women and younger voters. Instead, the House approved a separate and more limited measure to forbid the use of taxpayer funding to pay for abortions.
Republican leaders decided on Wednesday night to cancel a vote on the 20-week ban bill to quell a revolt from women within the party who objected that the legislation did not do enough to accommodate victims of rape.’

The Republicans can’t even quell the rebellion of their Conservative women on this issue!
The ‘pantomime’ that M.S. refers to is the fact that President Obama’s completely modest political proposals are, in effect, dead on arrival. M.S. fails to recognize that this is the opening salvos of Campaign 2016, that with any luck will prefigure the coronation of Ms. Clinton and or the triumph of New Dealer Senator Warren,  if all goes as planned. In the speculations/plans/strategizing of the New Democrats. The Republican’s hunger for political power has made them reckless, and leads to the most salient question: What happened to the public relations savvy of the Republican Party of the Reagan era? The Republicans are now controlled by the political nihilists who don’t think strategically, but react like Pavlov’s dog, to the perceived provocations of President Obama’s modest proposals. This unrelenting political nihilism is what Mrs. Clinton or Senator Warren will successfully campaign against.

Political Observer