The Morning Plum: Behind jubilation about scandals, GOP is rudderless and adrift

By Greg Sargent, WashPost, Updated: June 4, 2013

As I’ve been saying here for some time, behind all the GOP noise and hoopla about Beltway scandal-palooza is a stark reality that can’t be obscured. House Republicans are confronting two major challenges – what to do about the debt limit and about immigration reform, both of which will require cooperation from House conservatives that they aren’t prepared to give — and they don’t have an answer to either one.

This is driven home in fresh and vivid detail by today’s big Post story on the deep divisions within the House GOP caucus. As the story details, there is no strategy for dealing with either the debt limit or immigration:

[T]he most momentous policy decisions, including an immigration overhaul and a fresh deadline for raising the federal debt limit, have no coherent strategy to consolidate Republicans, much less take on the Democrats.

And there is rising fear among some Republicans that House conservatives won’t accept any debt limit hike:

Many within the party wonder if there’s any approach Republicans will unify behind this time. Several veteran Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity to criticize their colleagues, said they fear there are too many extreme budget hawks to approve a deal with GOP votes alone, further hampering their leverage in negotiations with the Senate.

(More here.)