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The combination of this Washington Post article , with its references to Grover Norquist’s sacred texts, and the Jon Stewart clip below had me highly entertained today: Far-right Republican fundamentalists have led their party straight into a concrete dead end. No one except their own tiny minority of no tax/no government churchgoers is buying their shtick anymore, and they are trapped. No fact can reach them, because their dogma is too thick. No argument or logic will sway them. Polling showing them losing the issue debate by big numbers doesn’t matter. Appeals to their morality fall on deaf ears. But now they are in even deeper trouble, because their corporate masters have come calling. The bankers on Wall Street know that while most Americans would feel the effects of the economic consequences of not raising the debt ceiling, they would be the first to feel the pain, and that isn’t acceptable to them, so they are calling in their massive amount of chits. John Boehner being willing to cut a deal with Obama on taxes was the first sign of it; Mitch McConnell turning tail and crying uncle with his rather strange proposal was the second signal. There’s a problem, though: the Republicans have dug themselves so far in with the tea partiers on the lunatic fringe, they are having trouble returning to the land of reality. In the 30 years I have been involved in politics, the Republicans have been one of the most disciplined, lockstep political machines in American history, but today they are in complete disarray. It’s called meltdown, and it isn’t pretty. Caught between crazy tea partiers and big business guys used to having their orders followed to a T, they are in a very bad place. I have plenty of complaints about Democratic politicians, but at least most of them are sane. The Republicans have locked themselves in a big building that looks increasingly like an asylum, and they are in deep trouble. We’ll see what happens next, but it doesn’t get more interesting than this.