Debt Ceiling Surrender

He Shoulda Posed In Front of Four WHITE Flags ... AMIRTIE!?

Yesterday Boehner allowed a vote on a clean debt-ceiling increase and whattayknow? It passed with 28 traitorous Republican votes. The Tea Party is, as you might expect, pretty angry at this (they want to, erm, repeal Boehner ... or at least delay him--like they wanted to do to the ACA). Newsmax headlines with 'Outright Surrender' and the conservative wing of the party is right behind them.

What Does This Mean?
Well, it might mean that the GOPe has finally kicked the Tea Party to the curb--but the reality is that, apparently, there just wasn't enough agreement to be found anywhere for 200+ votes in his own conference:

For the past week, Boehner said, he had gone through all of the possible options with the conference, had mulled a variety of scenarios, all with the hope of getting 200-plus Republicans united. But nothing ever gained traction, even the military pension fix, which he thought could win Democratic votes.

In other words, there was no hostage compromise tasty reasonable acceptable enough to risk it all propose a deal over. And really, after the absolute drubbing the GOP took for their last shutdown / default attempt, what kind of insane person would suggest doing it again on the cusp of a totally-winning election year when EVERYTHING is going your way?

Just read the comments.

Well, The Base Keeps Getting Told "This Isn't The Hill To DIE On" ...

While no one should ever embrace compromise, especially moral compromise, as an intentional end-state, it takes a special kind of denial to believe that the realities of compromise itself are immoral (in this case: Denial of the fact that congress spent the money being released by the Debt Ceiling process).

There is a theory that the "bad behavior" of Sharon Angles and Todd Akins of the world are not per-se gaffes but rather required signifiers to the base saying "I am one of you." In this case they aren't exactly misspeaking so much as flashing the gang-signs in front of the wrong set of cameras (and today, everywhere, including, apparently, Sochi bathrooms, is filled with the wrong set of cameras).

The Base response to the debt ceiling vote gives credence to that theory. It's small wonder the GOPe is doing everything it can to reduce the footprint of the 2016 Presidential primary.