Possible Hazards Found to be Associated With Russian Roulette

Kevin Drum thinks the Republican's have painted themselves into a corner and are now scrambling desperately to find a way out.  Except for those who aren't.

Republicans now seem to be a hair's breadth away from outright panic. Graham is right: at this point, no matter how desperately they try to pretend that it's Obama standing in the way of a deal (and that's clearly the conservative talking point of the day), it's simply too obvious that it's Republicans who are unwilling to say yes. Obama is almost embarrassingly eager for a deal, but they won't agree to send him a clean debt ceiling increase, they won't agree to a grand bargain, they won't agree to a medium-sized bargain, and they won't agree to revenue increases even in the form of closing virtually indefensible loopholes on hedge fund moguls and other assorted members of the millionaire class. Hell, a sizeable chunk of the GOP's tea party faction actively thinks that default would be a great thing. They're practically slavering over the possibility while their leaders watch slack jawed, wondering just how you explain to these guys that, yes, pressing that red button over there would be really, really bad.

The tea party was pretty useful to the GOP leadership for a while. But now it's gone from being a handy campaign tailwind to a Force 5 hurricane on a path to destroy the country, and they don't know what to do about it. Under other circumstances it might be fun to watch them all get their comeuppance over this, but not if means turning America into a banana republic along the way. They better figure out what to do with their problem children, and they better figure it out fast.

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