Republican House Leadership
Certainly not a pride of lions. Perhaps a congress of salamanders. Listen:
Holding Firm
Robert Costa / National ReviewThe same question keeps popping up: why doesn’t Speaker John Boehner just pass a “clean” continuing resolution to fund the government? It’s a ubiquitous query at the Capitol, and it was asked many times this afternoon as House Republicans left their closed-door conference meeting.
It’s a ubiquitous query at the Capitol, and it was asked many times this afternoon as House Republicans left their closed-door conference meeting. But most Republicans, when pressed by reporters, rolled their eyes. They know what Boehner knows: A clean CR has never been an option. Peter King of New York and his allies may want one, but the leadership privately believes it’d almost certainly raise tensions within the ranks and cripple their negotiating position.
Instead, the leadership is digging in for an extended impasse with Senate Democrats. Based on my latest conversations with insiders, their plan isn’t to eventually whip Republicans toward a clean CR and back down after a few days of messaging the shutdown, as some have believed; it’s to keep fighting, and, in the process, preserve the House GOP’s fragile unity — and maybe, if they’re lucky, win a concession from Senate majority leader Harry Reid….
And there, in a nutshell, you have “The Big Muddy” transferred to the Halls of Congress. These Mayberry Machiavellis have managed to shoot themselves in the collective foot and now double down by taking aim at the other foot.
As Friedrich von Schiller observed: “Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.”
House GOP leadership explained
And so this national nightmare will continue, even as the Dime-store Goebbelses of Faux Nooz buy into the insane notion that if they call it the “Government Slimdown” instead of the “Government Shutdown” it will suddenly become palatable and not a fuster-cluck of epic proportions.
(As though by calling this temper tantrum a diet it will no longer seem so insane and selfish — never mind that they RAN on shutting down the government in 2010 and 2012.)
Well, they can call it a “shower” all they want, but it’s still a killing chamber and Zyklon B. (From their spiritual forebears.) As Goya said: ‘The sleep of reason breeds monsters.’
He just didn’t know that “monsters” would be spelled “GOP.”
Courage.
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A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.