I have to say, yesterday's events shocked me. I'm pretty cynical and I didn't think our politicians were that incompetent. If the end result was going to be almost total capitulation to a deal which bought those shutting down the government nothing, what was the whole point of the last few weeks? If I didn't know any better I'd say the Republicans were intentionally sabotaging the Tea Party half of their party.
I gave this some semi serious thought about a week ago.
The GOP, if it is dong that, is playing a very dangerous game. If it alienates the Tea Party enough and they decide split into a separate party the GOP is sunk.
Now, another question is that is the Tea Party smart enough to see what just happened to them and know that the GOP humiliated them in the most public way possible?