One person who absolutely doesn't believe the GOP is this suicidal is MSNBC's Chris Hayes of All In.
Hayes believes that liberals like myself who think the House GOP will kill the bill are "supplying an excuse for the Republican caucus to do something inexcusable". He believes Boehner's bluster is "staking out a negotiation position in which there's no wiggle room." In fact, Hayes gets very close to saying that should the bill fail, liberals who bought into the narrative that it was doomed in the House to begin with are culpable for its failure.
To which I respond to Hayes's startling naivete with, of all things, Sarah Palin, who is now openly warning about a third party split if the GOP passes immigration reform.
The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican nominee for vice president responded to a Fox viewer’s Twitter question Saturday about the possibility of her and conservative commenter Mark Levin leaving the Republican Party and creating a new political group called the 'Freedom Party.'
Palin hinted that she is open to the thought of going independent and said that if the GOP continues to stray from its conservative roots, others in the party would do the same.
'I love the name of that party — the "Freedom Party,"' Palin replied. 'And if the GOP continues to back away from the planks in our platform, from the principles that built this party of Lincoln and Reagan, then yeah, more and more of us are going to start saying, "You know, what’s wrong with being independent," kind of with that libertarian streak that much of us have.
'In other words, we want government to back off and not infringe upon our rights. I think there will be a lot of us who start saying "GOP, if you abandon us, we have nowhere else to go except to become more independent and not enlisted in a one or the other private majority parties that rule in our nation, either a Democrat or a Republican."
So Chris, given John Boehner's massive incompetence as House Speaker, which is more likely, a masterful compromise on the immigration bill, or a complete fold to the Sarah Palin Tea Party wing and killing the bill exactly like they did in 2006? If this is the reaction to Boehner after he's staked out the position that the Senate bill is DOA, and that he'll be trying to only push piecemeal border security and E-Verify measures, what makes you think, given Boehner's complete inability to pass a Farm Bill that he can pull this off?
They will blow this. It will be their fault. They'll pay for it in 2014 and 2016. The only question is what that eventual cost will be.
I'm always amused by how often the Republicans clamor for people to take more responsibility for their own actions, and how reluctant those same Republicans are to take responsibility for their own actions. It's almost as though they're channelling an internal, paraphrased Leona Helmsley - and believe that personal responsibility, like taxes, are only for the "little people" and not for themselves.
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