House Tarnished, Senate Is The Power Broker In Debt Talks
“Longtime observers of Congress have never seen a more embarrassing setback. The real fall guys are Cantor and McCarthy, whose job it is to count votes and whose claim to fame is understanding the tea party. Apparently they can do neither. Even if the House passes something, it will be so tarnished with this failure and the dark-of-night changes to make it less bipartisan that it is now an even more pointless exercise. It’s really all about the Senate now, and what reasonable compromise they can work out with the White House. And Boehner will have to swallow a bill that has spending cuts and extends the ceiling into 2013, which half his caucus will abandon him on. The irony is that is the exact same deal he could have [taken] this weekend, and saved himself this embarrassment.”
