At the Cliffs of Insanity

[John Boehner] couldn't get the votes to pass a truly horrid plutocrat's wet dream. He couldn't get the votes to gut Obamacare or Wall Street reform. He couldn't get the votes to throw children off food stamps and he couldn't get the votes to throw the elderly off meals-on-wheels. He couldn't get the votes for a simple, vicious stunt. He couldn't get the votes because he couldn't budge enough Republicans to support a tax increase in the upper .01 percent of taxpayers. He couldn't do it because he had nothing with which to threaten people who look on governing the country as though they are running an evening-drive talk-radio program in Bugtussle. He couldn't do it because he is a Republican pretending to be a fanatic who went hat in hand to a bunch of fanatics pretending to be Republicans.

  Charlie Pierce

[John Boehner:] "There was a perception created that this vote was a vote to raise taxes. I disagree. But there's a number of our members who didn't want to be perceived as raising taxes...The perception was out there and our members didn't want to deal with it."

[...]

Left unsaid, and unasked:

- Who "created" the scary "perception"?
- If it's just a "perception," why did so many of his members act on it, and why was he unable to make them "deal" with it?
- Why is the country being held hostage by a "perception" that so terrifies a rump faction in one house of Congress? And...
- Who's running this rodeo anyway?

The fact is Boehner knows he has no power any more.

  Charlie Pierce

The inmates are running the assylum. [Spelling intentional.]