McCain returns fire on Cruz

Less than an hour after Sen. Ted Cruz finished his long speech against Obamacare, Sen. John McCain took the Senate floor to rebut Cruz. McCain started out with two points to make: First, that Cruz was wrong to accuse Republicans of not fighting against Obamacare, and second that Cruz needed to recognize that "elections have consequences" and that it was time to "respect" the will of voters.

Then, after making those two points, McCain spent several minutes tearing Cruz apart for having compared Democrats to Nazis for supporting Obamacare, and for having accused Republicans of being like Nazi appeasers for not opposing them. It was the kind of thing that almost makes you forget that once up on a time, McCain chose Sarah Palin to be vice president of the United States, but it also was a vivid illustration of the fact that Cruz's filibuster has more to do with internecine GOP warfare about political strategy than on it does with any actual policy disagreements they may have with Democrats.

Republican political strategists realize that while Cruz's jihad might be good for Ted Cruz, it's not good for their party. That's why we see silly spin like this:

In a fight between Harry Reid and Ted Cruz, I stand with Ted Cruz any day. #MakeDCListen #StandWithTed
— @Reince

But as John McCain demonstrated, Cruz's tirade wasn't about Ted Cruz versus Harry Reid. It was about the GOP versus itself. And with 2016 still three years away, we've got at least a couple more seasons of this kind of entertainment ahead of us.