When In Doubt, Take Hostages.

I agree with Paul Krugman, if you're shocked and surprised by the House Republicans threatening to blow this whole muthafuckah up if they don't get what they want, then you haven't been paying attention for the last 20 years. Clearly, the President wasn't paying attention. They won't settle for anything less than $ 1.7 trillion in gold and a plane to Rio.

These folks have been around for about 60 years. They first announced their presence to the world when the Republicans picked Eisenhower over Robert Taft in 1952 and they loudly complained. They haven't stopped since. The John Birchers that William F. Buckley threw out of the Conservative movement (and were too extreme even for my GOP Dad) are now in charge of the whole show with lots of corporate money and a whole cable TV network selling them. They now make the agenda and set the terms of the whole debate that EVERYONE now accepts either out of laziness, self-interest, or cowardice.

I think this all boils down to tribal politics, and always has. Obama handed them just about everything except his own head, and they wouldn't take it. Obama gave away the whole store and the deed to the house, and they still said no. Obama lost my vote next year, and they still said no. No President from anything other than their own tribe will ever be legitimate in their eyes, especially a black one. The Faithful Remnant of the Chosen cannot possibly negotiate with such.

Big Capital historically backed far right parties in many countries in order to stop threats to its interests from the left. Bankers, industrialists, and others imagined that they could control the far right, that they, with all of their money and influence, were always the ones in charge, and could yank the leash when the loonies got out of hand. And then, they always wake up one morning to find that the lunatic that they thought worked for them is standing over them holding a gun to their heads ordering them out of bed and threatening to burn the whole house down. So it is now as the very corporate powers that helped put the far right in power anxiously wait to see if their creatures let the country slide into default and take the world to the precipice.