After 2 years of 'herding cats', John Boehner's fragile caucus has totally imploded leaving House Republicans without a leader, a common philosophy and any cohesive plan for doing their part to govern this country.
By failing to even take a vote on the Senate-passed tax bill - the clean one with the $250,000 ceiling for extending the cuts - the House has abdicated its responsibilities and, for all intents and purposes, ceased to function as a Republican-controlled segment of the government.
It is also abundantly clear that there are enough nihilists (read tea-baggers) in the Republican caucus to prevent passage of any reasonable (read Senate-passable) solution to the fiscal curb without help from the Democratic minority.
This means that no matter what President Obama and Harry Reid negotiate (yes, that's what Boehner said should happen now), there is neither time to get it through the Senate - even without the almost-certain 'hold' placed by some wing-nut like Rand Paul or Jim DeMint - and even if a bill passed, the House Republicans wouldn't even consider it.
We know all that - so now what?
The first possibility is that Boehner, in a fit of 'My God, what have I done to our country?' patriotism, gathers together enough sane Republicans the day after Christmas and, along with the Democratic minority, passes the $250,000 ceiling tax-cut bill. That cuts the fiscal curb in half. But what about the rest?
My hope (maybe no more than a fantasy) lies with the slender (18 seat) majority the Republicans have in the incoming Congress.
Watching the tea-bagger tail wag the Republican dog for the last 2 years, I've always thought that there must be at least some number of old-school legislators on the Republican side who just don't agree with the in-your-face, ideological purity above anything philosophy of the 'young guns'.
Right now there are 37 Republicans in the House who have been in office since 1994 or earlier and another 24 since before 2001 (some won't be around in the next Congress). Are they all dyed-in-the-wool tea-baggers? I think not. These are the people who should be the adults in the room. They know the difference between politics (getting elected) and governing (compromise for the greater good). They all went through the balanced-budget fight, where they worked together with the Democrats (while at the same time impeaching Clinton, I admit) for the good of the country.
They know better.
So my hope (read fantasy) is that there are enough sober, mature Republicans in the House who have been disgusted enough by the dysfunction of their caucus and its ideological extremism to realize that in times of crisis - and this is indeed one of those times - it is necessary to work for the common good.
Unfortunately, I think Nate Silver would give me a pretty low probability of being right.
Cheers.