One of the few pleasures, perverse though it be, of watching the debt-ceiling idiocy unfold has been the spectacle of the very powers who helped create the American far right—helped elect it, and contributed mightily to its ideology—pleading with the congressional Tea Party acolytes to support legislation (John Boehner’s latest effort in particular) to raise the debt ceiling. From Grover Norquist to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the guys who write those deranged Wall Street Journal editorials, the right wing’s powers-that-be have spent the past few days imploring the Tea Party congressmen, as one might a slow-witted and recalcitrant child, to realize that refusing to raise the debt ceiling, particularly now that all tax increases have been taken off the table, is a really, really bad idea.

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