A party divorced from sanity

The great debt ceiling showdown would be a non-event if it weren't for something called the Tea Party

By Gene Lyons
Salon.com

No wonder people are cynical. The nation increasingly appears to be governed by cheap political theater: made-for-TV melodrama more like professional wrestling than actual combat. As I write, the United States allegedly hovers on the edge of a fiscal crisis.

Should Congress fail to raise the National Debt limit between today and Aug. 2, the government will default on its debt for the first time in U.S. history -- a cataclysmic event, should it happen.

Dressed in his big boy suit, Republican House Speaker John Boehner put it this way on CBS News' "Face the Nation" back on May 15:

"I understand what the President was saying about jeopardizing the 'full faith and credit of the United States.' That's why I've said in every public and private utterance that our obligation is to raise the debt ceiling ... We could see the end of our economy if we don't act."

True, Boehner reads from a different script sometimes. Meanwhile, President Obama has made similar noises all along. Never mind that debt default by the world's largest economy could trigger a worldwide depression. Last week he told CBS that a failure to raise the debt limit might mean he couldn't guarantee Grandpa’s Social Security checks. In keeping with the time-honored precepts of Washington theater, Republicans cried foul.

(More here.)