That's one author's take on the recent failure of a budget bill:
This may have been the worst defeat and biggest rebuke ever for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). A number of House members told me after the vote that both leaders had worked the vote hard but couldn’t convince enough (some thought “any” was more correct) to vote for the legislation. Two members even told me that Boehner had gone to the congressional leadership equivalent of DEFCON 1 by moving way beyond twisting arms to threatening GOP members with losing their committee assignments — almost the ultimate congressional punishment — if they didn’t vote for the bill. Even that didn’t work.
. . . no matter how they try to spin it today as being the Democrats’ fault, this in fact was a huge slap in the face of the GOP leadership by the tea party. It’s not the first time the tea partiers have voted against the GOP leadership, but it is the most visible and painful.
