How many more rounds of this must America take?

How many more times must the economic neck of the nation have a knife pressed against it by Republicans demanding a ransom?

It seems the answer is at least once more — or twice.

Washington is still wrangling over a way to avoid a government shutdown next week, while Republicans are already gearing up to refuse to raise the debt limit — something that no Congress under any other president has ever refused to do.

But those presidents were not Barack Obama, the bane of the far right’s existence, and those Congresses were not as infested with members who saw disruption as part of their duty.

As long as Obama is president, these folks will be flush with fever. Opposition to Obama is their raison d’être. America’s national interests are subordinate to their selfish ones.