Oxymoron? Wiser GOP Heads Arise

With Republicans and the nation still held hostage by a Tea Party brat pack, there is finally a stirring of sanity among party elders. Wiser heads are starting to push back about life beyond Boehner.

The New York Times reports a GOP Senate lunch erupting into a “lynch mob” against Ted Cruz, with John Cain/Lindsay Graham’s third amigo, Kelly Ayotte, angrily waving a printout from a Cruz-friendly group attacking 25 Republican senators for a procedural vote that it counted as support of Obamacare.

Republican governors are joining the chorus. “This is a huge distraction,” complains Tennessee’s Bill Haslam. “Instead of that being the conversation, we’re talking about the government shutdown, and the average citizen can’t help but say the Republican Congress isn’t helping.”

Another wise elder, former Mississippi governor and head of the National Committee Haley Barbour, adds: “The story people see now is President Obama sinking like a rock for months, and the only thing holding him up are the Republicans.”

Meanwhile, the President himself holds firm. “We don’t expect 100 percent. But...it is not acceptable for one faction of one party in one chamber to say, ‘Either we get what we want, or we’ll shut down the government.’ Or even worse: ‘We will not allow the U.S. Treasury to pay its bills and put the United States in default for the first time in history.’ So the message I have for the leaders is very simple. As soon as we get a clean piece of legislation, that reopens the government.”

He follows that with an even blunter speech: "Speaker John Boehner won't even let the bill get a yes-or-no vote, because he doesn't want to anger the extremists in his party. That's all. That's what this whole thing is about."

Wouldn’t it be ironic if Republicans finally came to their senses and found the President too teed-off to settle with them?

Nah.