From an anonymous Republican “leadership aide”:
We are mulling other options and trying to figure out the best way forward on this.
The topic here is the upcoming debt limit increase. Everyone in the Republican caucus with a room-temperature IQ knows that provoking yet another debt ceiling crisis would be a debacle. It didn’t work before, and it won’t work now. What’s worse, it takes attention away from Obamacare and reinforces the public view of Republicans as irresponsible grandstanders who are willing to risk the good credit of the United States for no reason except to kowtow to a bunch of know-nothing tea partiers.
But it turns out that those know-nothings aren’t willing to accept reality yet. They’ve rejected the latest plan—which already demanded more than they were ever likely to get—and now the GOP leadership is stuck. The yahoos won’t let them back down further regardless of how much damage it might do. As a result, it looks an awful lot like Republicans are going to incite yet another debt ceiling crisis a few weeks from now, whether they want to or not. Buckle your seat belts.