The Republican Jihadis
Paul Krugman has a good look at the origins and delusions of the Great Default Plot. It seems that it was cooked up in Mordor, AKA The Heritage Society, by the usual Koch Machine nuts. He thinks that their problem is not just their radicalism, but their complete lack of realism. To see what I’m talking about, consider the report in Sunday’s Times about the origins of the current crisis. Early this year, it turns out, some of the usual suspects — the Koch brothers, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation and others — plotted strategy in the wake of Republican electoral defeat. Did they talk about rethinking ideas that voters had soundly rejected? No, they talked extortion, insisting that the threat of a shutdown would induce President Obama to abandon health reform. This was crazy talk. After all, health reform is Mr. Obama’s signature domestic achievement. You’d have to be completely clueless to believe that he could be bullied into giving up his entire legacy by a defeated, u...