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The over-the-top reaction of Republican party to the President’s immigration actions are way more than just a reaction to Obama. The whole party is in trouble. McConnell and Boehner are trying to hold things together. John McCain refers to the tea party upstarts as “young punks.”

The moves announced Thursday night by Obama — which will protect millions of illegal immigrants from deportation — have sparked an immediate and widening rebellion among tea party lawmakers that top Republicans are struggling to contain.

Despite expanded powers and some new titles, soon-to-be Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) remain sharply limited in their ability to persuade their most conservative members. The duo has been thrust back into the same cycle of intraparty warfare that has largely defined the GOP during the Obama years and that has hurt the party’s brand among the broader electorate. …WaPo

The hysteria within the Republican party is very visible to Washington and to voters across the country. If the Washington Post has it right, the White House is well aware of the internal trouble facing Republican leaders and is using it.

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a moderate from the Philadelphia exurbs, said the leadership is asking his colleagues to “not play into the president’s hands.”

“The president wants to see an angry and intemperate response, thinking the Republicans will do something that leads to a shutdown,” Dent said. “Don’t take the bait, and don’t have a hysterical reaction. We can be strong, rational and measured.” ...WaPo

Wow. Asking fellow Republicans to be “rational and measured” seems like a serious reach for a party that feeds on irrationality.

From the very beginning the tea party has been bad, bad medicine for the party and for the country. And it must be said that –for at least four solid years — Democrats could have used the tea party as a tool to strengthen support on the left. But they didn’t. Big mistake.

Cross posted from Prairie Weather

Image via shutterstock.com