What Next?

Seeing as how I do not possess the advanced spiritual insights of a Michele Bachmann or Louis Gohmert, I can't say for sure, but in general I'd bet hard on the near-future unspooling something like this:

1. On America's Sunday Morning Mouse Circus, there will probably be a brief flurry of recriminations rather like what happened after it became clear that Iraq had gone totally tits-up: a general, grudging acknowledgment that some (Small! Very Small!) fraction of the minority party of crazy (In the same way those damn hippies were crazy!) But they're sincere. You have to admit that! They really think they're doing the right thing. Yes, very very sincere.


2. There will be a one or two people you might mistake for Liberals in a dark room if you were very drunk, and those TeeVee Liberals will cluck their tongues knowingly. Tsk-Tsk!


3. Thanks to a miracle of timing, Senator-Elect Cory Booker (Ultra-cautious, Centerville) will have a chance to count coup very lightly on the GOP with absolutely zero risk whatsoever of anyone mistaking him for a Liberal...after which he will plead for a return to the good old days when Reasonable People in Both Parties ignored the Extremes in Both Parties...and blah blah blah.


4. In general, there will be an overwhelming compulsion within the Beltway Media to zip past recent events as fast as possible with as little honest analysis (Don't look out the window!) as possible, and get all of this untidy unpleasantness in the rear-view mirror where it can be safely ignored, thus liberating them to sprint back to their Fake Centrist happy place.


5. And so, within a week or 10 days, the courtier press will be right back rooting around like truffle hogs for hippies to blame for at least half of every problem. They will, as always, be ably led by David Gregory who will put his shoulder right back into pushing a "Both Sides" narrative with all the gusto of a man whose Chevy Chase country club membership depends on it.


6. Our friends at MSNBC will bounce up and down angrily at the media's (Fox News, CNN) complicity in shoving this latest bale of Republican dereliction, lunacy and sabotage down the memory hole.  Our friends at MSNBC will also studiously avoid mentioning that many of their colleagues at NBC/MSNBC are leading the charge to stomp this latest bale of Republican dereliction, lunacy and sabotage into forgetful oblivion.


7. The Left will continue to be ignored wholesale even as indignant Conservatives-in-Exile continue to expropriate our entire book of common prayers one page at at time.


8. Andrew Sullivan will continue write like a Liberal circa 1994, to the delight of his hundreds of thousands of daily readers and his 30,000 paid subscribers.


9. David Frum will continue his job at the Daily Beast of remaining fixated on 2009 as the moment when the Right lost its mind and he had to take his principled leave from their august company.


10. David Brooks will continue to remain on vacation "book leave" -- whatever the hell that is -- and will continue to take breaks from his vacation so that he can share his insights with NPR, PBS and various colleges and National Big Brain Seminars are America.


11. And like every other doomsday cult the day after the world fails to exeunt on time, the GOP will return from the desert, chastise the vile, material world for causing some of the faithful to waiver in their True Belief thus postponing the apocalypse, re-consult scripture and discover that they'd made slight rounding error, and begin laying the groundwork for their next chance to bring down the United States government.


12. This last one's a longshot, but I'm pretty sure sooner or later Charlie Pierce will start writing about my Mom.  And he'll do it really well.  This will not bother me half as much as the 191 commentors who will stop by his place by to say, "Thank God at long last someone finally has the guts to write about driftglass' Mom!"

UPDATES:

Check #11 off the list (from The Daily Banter)

 Also from TPM:

As Congress looked to end the budget and debt crises – at least for now — a Republican congressman offered an ominous outlook on Wednesday.

Pledging to vote against the plan to re-open the government until Jan. 15 and raise the debt ceiling until at least Feb. 7, Rep. John C. Fleming (R-LA) indicated that he's already looking toward the next showdown.

“I’ll vote against it,” Fleming said, as quoted by the New York Times. “But that will get us into Round 2. See, we’re going to start this all over again.”

And from the belly of the Beast:

American taxpayers betrayed by chicken-hearted RINOs

American taxpayers have once again been trampled by establishment Republicans – a thundering herd of chicken-hearted Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) galloping to the Left.

The debt ceiling deal struck between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is a victory for President Obama and Democrats.

ObamaCare is still the law of the land. The government is still spending money it does not have. And thousands of government workers just got a two-week vacation courtesy of the taxpayers.
...

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham still appears to be distressed that conservative lawmakers would actually follow through on their campaign promises and represent the interests of the people.

“This has been a very bad two weeks for the Republican brand,” he said.

What about the American brand, sir? Is anybody in Washington concerned about that?