The tea party faithful are already beating their war drums.
By Donald Kaul
Well, that was
certainly worth 24 billion bucks,
don’t you think? I mean the entertainment value of Sen. Ted Cruz’s faux
filibuster alone was worth a couple billion or so.
And House Speaker John
Boehner’s face when he would come out during the 16-day-long government
shutdown and accuse President Barack Obama of being uncooperative? Priceless.
The Ohio Republican is the greatest deadpan comedian we've had since Buster
Keaton.
But the best thing about getting the lights back on is that we can look forward to another episode of this tragicomedy again in a couple of months or so. The deal that averted a collision with the debt ceiling and ended the shutdown is only temporary.
The government is funded only through Jan. 15, and the debt ceiling may need another boost just three weeks later.
Oh, I know, there are
those who say it won’t happen a second time, that this fight was so bruising
and so costly to the Republican brand that only fools, idiots, and the deranged
would try it again so soon.
You’ve just described
a majority of the Republican caucus in the House.
The tea party faithful
are already beating their war drums, vilifying the more-or-less reasonable
Republicans who backed off of the threat to bring the economy crashing down on
our heads unless the Affordable Care Act was euthanized. In the eyes of the
radical right, they’re quitters, traitors, and cowards.
Admirers are likening
the tea party line in response to having its head handed to it in the fiscal
crisis to Churchill.
“Never give in. Never,
never, never, never.” That was Churchill’s
response to threat of Nazi Germany.
To me the response
sounds much more like the way Bluto responded to getting expelled from Faber
College.
“Over?” John Belushi’s character in the film Animal
House asked his frat brothers. “Nothing is over until we
decide it is. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”
Ignorance and passion
always stir up a cocktail of hilarious comedy.
The White House said
that no one was the winner in this confrontation. That’s silly. Obama, who upheld
the principle that the full faith and credit of the United States wasn't a
bargaining chip, was a winner.
But perhaps the
biggest winner, oddly enough, was Sen. Cruz, the preening Republican from
Texas.
He lost the war,
assuredly, but he emerged as the great conservative hero of the battle. It was
an amazing performance.
He’s the junior
Senator from Texas, barely nine months on the job. A year ago, hardly anyone
outside of Texas knew his name, and he wasn't all that well known in Texas
either.
Yet by simply standing
his ground, against all reason, he has seized control of the base of the
Republican Party — its source of passion and energy, not to mention a lot of
campaign money. If you were to begin to list the potential candidates for the
Republican presidential nomination in 2016 right now, you’d have to put his
name at the top of the list.
They've convened a
House-Senate committee to work on a compromise budget before the December 13
deadline, when another government shutdown will be looming. The panel is tasked
with creating a new budget that trims expenses, closes tax loopholes, and
inspires growth.
Forgive me for not
being optimistic, but when they get to the part about loopholes the crazies
will begin screaming. “Taxes! You’re trying to raise taxes,” they’ll say.” We’re going to
run a primary opponent against you.” And that will be that.
This is an exhausting
process. We've made fools of ourselves in the eyes of the world and delivered a
body blow to our economy.
And there’s no end in
sight. What a fiasco.
By the way, I've retired three times already.
The last time around, I vowed I wouldn't do it again unless I meant it. So I’m
not retiring.
But I am taking a
leave for a while so I can deal with some health issues. I hope to be back in a
few weeks or so.
It’ll be nice not
having to pay close attention to the yahoos in Congress for a while.
OtherWords columnist
Donald Kaul lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. OtherWords.org