WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), during an interview Wednesday night, criticized President Barack Obama for naiveté in congressional relations. The White House, the senator told Larry King, routinely underestimates Republican opposition, often spinning its wheels in a fruitless effort to craft a legislative compromise.

On Thursday, Sanders told reporters he may have been similarly victimized by that opposition.

Sanders, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, announced that after weeks of trying, negotiations between him and House Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) over legislation to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs had ground to a halt.

The disagreement wasn’t only substantive — though major details still needed to be hammered out. Rather, Sanders accused his Republican counterparts of not being honest brokers. He chastised them for valuing political theater over actual negotiation, and insisted they were demanding votes only on their proposals.

Miller’s “idea of negotiation is: “We have a proposal. Take it or leave it,’” Sanders said on the Senate floor. ‘Any sixth-grader in a school of the United States understands, this is not negotiation.”

The disintegration of VA reform negotiations, bursting into public view on Thursday, has been abrupt and dramatic. With just days remaining before Congress adjourns for August […]