The Christian terrorists are backing down. Thank God.
President Obama, by clearly and repeatedly saying that he would not negotiate about policy with an opposition using the debt ceiling vote and economic stability as a threat, has taken away the box cutters from the republicans. In fact he did not even let them on the plane.
The republican Christian terrorists are not quite as committed as their siblings--Al-Qaeda. In the fiscal cliff debate recently they allowed the timer to reach one on the countdown, but then pulled the wire out of the plastics package..... So they are prepared to strap the bomb on their person and walk into a public room, but in the end they balked.
Then when stared down by the authorities (Obama) on the latest looming debt ceiling, they seem to have at least temporarily set the bomb down altogether.
To be sure, a substantial segment of conservativism, both within their elected representatives and the rank and file are completely resolved and absolutely in favor of detonation. An even larger segment at least fantasizes about it and enjoys talking about it.
This seems to be the one area where the modern republican party deserves high praise. They have somehow stopped short of replicating Al-Qaeda all the way to the final step. I must re-emphasize, of course, at least for the time being.
The Mullahs of the GOP are just like the Mullahs of Islam. THEY are not suicidal. No fucking way. They cherish their positions of power and all the perks. The suicidal part is left to the pissants. And the pissants of the republican party are doing all they can possibly do in primaries to get a bin-Laden at the top. They don't need the Whitehouse or the Senate. They only need to maintain their party majority in the House (achieved by gerrymandering), and then somehow garner the force to place their own in the leadership positions, who will grant the holy blessing of the bomb exploding.
I think that is highly unlikely. But the Christian terrorists are a hard-working-full-time lot. They never take their eye off the trigger device.