I think Brian Beutler makes important and fair points when he argues that John Boehner isn’t much different from the nut-jobs he just picked a fight with, but I’m not sure that Beutler has sufficiently considered the ramifications of the battle that will result. I think, for example, that Boehner’s decision to ream out the Heritage Foundation and the Tea Party was not unrelated to Harry Reid’s decision to change the filibuster rules. In both cases, a congressional leader had seen enough dysfunction and took a dramatic step to marginalize the obstructionists.
It was striking that Boehner admitted that the recent government shutdown wasn’t his idea and was never a plan he agreed with. No similar admission has come from Mitch McConnell, whose relentless obstruction led to a revision of the Senate rules. But it hardly matters which party is responsible for fixing the problem, so long as it is the lunatics who are sidelined.
Now, it might seem that there is less disagreement between Boehner and the Jim DeMint contingent than meets the eye, but things are not static. As Beutler notes, Erick Erickson of Red State has responded to Boehner by saying that “he is done as speaker.” Glenn Beck just said that Boehner is a “worthless, worthless Republican” who “ha[s] to go” and called Mitch McConnell “the biggest two-faced liar I’ve ever seen.” Rush Limbaugh complained, “it just seems like the Republican Party is absorbed, is consumed with eliminating any conservative influence inside the party whatsoever.” Dan Holler of Heritage Action, said that Boehner’s message to conservatives was “We use you guys to get elected.”
Whether it was his intent or not, the fight that Boehner started sucked in McConnell, as well. The radicals didn’t even notice that McConnell voted against the budget because they seem to understand that McConnell is just pandering to them. They see McConnell as indistinguishable from Boehner because he, too, has been blasting outside conservative groups recently.
This development cannot help but lead to changed dynamics in how the Republican Party and their messaging machine function. I believe it is the beginning of a slow process whereby the Republican Establishment comes somewhat to terms with the fact that the business community is fed-up with their refusal to accept that fact that Barack Obama is our president and will remain so for another three years.
Letting the president staff the courts and his administration, and ending the crisis budgeting strategy are two parts of the same thing.
The Republicans went insane. And now we all have to manage the consequences.