Wouldn't you be an alcoholic too if you had his job?
Conservative writer Byron York,
reporting from the front lines of his party's civil war:
Just look at what a member of the Republican majority told me after House Republicans had taken another step toward confrontation. "Analysts say the Congressional GOP doesn't understand strategy," the Republican said. "I'm like, 'Congressional GOP' my ass! It's 30 idiots who can't get us to 217."
Sorry dude, it
is the "Congressional GOP". House Speaker John Boehner could ignore those 30 idiots. Just look at how the House Dem leadership has long ignored the much larger (and decidedly non-idiot) Progressive Caucus. Instead, he's empowered his pet idiots even as an outsider—backbencher Sen. Ted Cruz—pulls the strings.
But yeah, they're idiots. We can all agree on that—a rare moment of national unity and bipartisan agreement.
4:25 PM PT: A supposed "moderate uprising" garnered two Republican votes from the center (four more came from the crazy caucus including Reps. Louie Gohmert, MIchelle Bachmann and Steve King).
This was the perfect out for Boehner -- have the "moderates" derail the crazy caucus' approach and surrender to a clean CR. That's not even a surrender! It locks in sequester-level spending levels that Dems don't want. But he didn't take this out. Instead, his whip operation was clearly in action, with a block of about two dozen wavering votes hanging for a while, then coming in support of the GOP's bill en masse.
So if the leadership's whip operation is whipping the entire caucus behind the approach favored by "those 30 idiots", then whose fault is that?