Let us now praise five Republicans who are placing the country’s economic interests ahead of their party’s political interests. The list includes two governors, Charlie Crist of Florida and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, and three senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

All five have supported President Obama’s stimulus package, and all have offered explanations similar to the one that Crist delivered on “Meet the Press”: “There are times when you’re in a crisis, and we all need to work together to get through those times.”

He’s absolutely right, but in today’s Washington, working together is usually derided as a weak-kneed, fainthearted and hopelessly naive approach to politics. The forces of instant indignation and ideological purity are ready to leap in front of a cable-TV camera and denounce anyone who dares speak words like compromise or accommodation.

Just a few months ago, Barack Obama was campaigning on the promise to change the way Washington works. The voters gave him a decisive victory, yet many Republicans are acting as if the election never happened.

Not a single House Republican voted for the president’s economic program and in the Senate, only Snowe, Collins and Specter crossed party lines to support him. The GOP’s calculation is as clear as it is cynical: They’re betting, even hoping, that Obama will fail. Then they can run in 2010 on the slogan: “It’s their fault. Vote Republican.”