Sure, but it might just keep them warm, nights.

You know, taking a look down Squeaker of the House John Boehner's list of demands to get the debt ceiling raised only looks a bit nuts at first. They aren't getting any of it, so why would they demand any of it? Look at this:

The bill, obtained by the National Review, tacks on items including a one-year delay of Obamacare; tax reform in the image of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI); approval of the Keystone pipeline; expanded offshore drilling and other pro-oil and coal energy reforms; increases in military spending coupled with deeper cuts to domestic programs; repealing a fund in the financial regulatory reform bill; means testing for Medicare; repealing the Obamacare prevention and public health fund and medical malpractice reform.

Well, why not?  Now the the House Republicans have got the idea in their heads that you can ask these things and hold the whole economy hostage to the threat of whatever evil fuckery lurks in the wake of a default, why not just ask for whatever their flabby little hearts desire? It's as if Boehner and other House Republican leaders just sat down as said, "WELP. We aren't any good at passing legislation, so why not just attach every little thing we might want accomplished to the one big thing we should do anyway?"

And maybe in this flea circus run amok, this daycare center for the indifferently potty-trained, this sounds altogether reasonable. Maybe it sounds to some of the assorted nuts and flakes like exactly their bowl of granola--a real tangible list of demands they could even get. And wouldn't that be something if the world worked like that? Why didn't every congress do this before? It's the golden ticket to the chocolate factory. It's a magic lamp with infinite wishes.Why didn't previous congresses think about trashing the full faith and credit and saddling the country they profess to love with more debt at probably a higher rate while pretending they wanted to do the very opposite?

Maybe it's for the privilege of being able to say they did. Maybe they know none of it will ever pass--but damn it, they get to show the crazies who sent them to Washington that they tried to do it all. And maybe they will be given a chance to do it all again, and crisis will be our new normal, and the credit rating of the US will take a hit again anyway because these goofy bastards had no idea what they were doing, and just thought they'd try it out--and there was no grown-up telling them why they shouldn't, just one drunken uncle promising a big old Christmas come early to the kiddies in the hopes that they would love him.

It's not nuts. It's what they think works for them. It's that they think it should work for them that's nuts.

Sure, it's just a tactic, after all. It's just everything it represents that makes me kind of heartsick about the direction our politics has taken in this country.