Ted Cruz's silly theatrics over on the Senate side today had everyone briefly reaching for their smelling salts on the debt ceiling vote — accent on "briefly." In the end, 67 Senators voted "aye" and restored a teeny semblance of sanity to the federal government. But they also temporarily obscured the drama that happened yesterday in the House.
So let's quickly revisit that before we all get buried in the snow.
Some in Pundit World were spinning John Boehner's clean-debt-ceiling-bill as a take-charge, heck-with-the-Hastert-rule victory for him (even as the Freepers and other right-wing nuts predictably exploded in rage). But we cats think it was more a case of cracks in the veneer than crack-the-whip.
Why? Because what a difference a day makes. As late as Monday, House Republicans were saying they could tie the debt ceiling to restoring the military pensions cut by Ryan-Murray. But even with that politically popular goal — how can you be against our brave men and women in uniform? — Boehner and his "leadership team" couldn't pull it off. They had to turn to Democrats to force a clean bill and save the country from chaos.
To add insult to Boehner's injury, only four members of that team supported the clean bill. Even the woman who gave the official Republican response to the State of the Union voted no. We cats can only assume that Cathy McMorris Rodgers knew she'd suffer no consequences for that. Which says to us that Boehner's GOP is still, and ever will be, a caucus out of control.
As we and others suspect, this Speaker's days of "polite golf claps" are most likely numbered. Which probably wouldn't bother him at all. We've long thought that he'd like nothing better than to retire to a corner table with an ashtray and a glass of Merlot. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, ya'll.
UPDATE: Glorioski, the ever-lame Cillizza lad took four days to catch up with us on this notion. Maybe The Washington Post should hire us cats.
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