"Tea Party Senators jump the shark"
Tea Party Senators jump the sharkBy Greg Sargent at the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/23/tea-party-senators-jump-the-shark/
"SNIP.......................
In a key moment on the Senate floor this morning, John McCain came very close to stating outright that Tea Party Republican Senators are in the grip of what some of us have been describing as a kind of ”post policy nihilism” that has taken over the GOP. This should be a real clarifying moment: Tea Party Senators have pushed their disregard for basic governing norms so far that even fellow Republicans are calling them out for it.
Far right Senators Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul have been insisting that Democrats and Republicans should not enter into conference negotiations over the budget unless Democrats agree in advance not to push for a rise in the debt ceiling as part of the talks. McCain took to the Senate floor today and laid into Senator Lee very hard over this:
(video)
As McCain rightly pointed out, the Tea Party demand is effectively is that Republicans must not negotiate over the budget “unless certain conditions are imposed” on the negotiations beforehand “that happen to be important to a small group of United States Senators.”
“Obviously that would paralyze the process here,” McCain continued. The Tea Party Senators have complained that conference negotiations amount to back room dealing, but as McCain pointed out, whatever agreement is reached is subjected “to an overall vote of both bodies” of Congress. McCain suggested that governing can’t happen if the two sides can’t enter into negotiations, and in a reference to Lee’s claims about the debt ceiling, added: “maybe the senator from Utah ought to learn a little bit more about how business has been done in the Congress of the United States.”
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--so the other GOP's have to repudiate them or go down with them. I mean, it's not like they haven't been doing this obstructionism trick for, what? six years now? And what did these elder GOP reps do during those years? They stood behind them and shouted "go team!" Because they didn't want to lose their seats as so many other elder GOP reps did for being too "moderate."
NOW they've gone too far? If the Tea Party reps were still going strong (and the GOP with them) these GOPs wouldn't be saying a word--and most especially if the voters weren't finally beginning to wake up and say, "gosh, this not compromising stuff is hurting me...." Hel-loooooo! 
Self-serving cowards all!
...back in the mid-1800's. Maybe you heard about it? They were from red states, too, curiously enough.
Something like that.
Whatever it was, I enjoyed hearing Cruz repeat it on the Senate floor. 