THE REPUBLICANS WHO KILLED BOEHNER’S PLAN B. “This was a botched GOP House Leadership issue.”

Related: Why Republicans Failed. “The Democrats don’t understand how Boehner couldn’t get things through his caucus because Democrats operate differently. They are a centrally planned bureaucracy. It’s top down, monolithic decision making. The head speaks and the party machine enforces discipline so everyone follows the same line. . . . 21 Republicans didn’t vote for the plan that was passed. Why? Because it didn’t go far enough. They wanted even more budget cutting.”

Also: “Leaders” Are People With Followers. “Boehner really ought to have been playing chess, and not poker. . . . The Republican Party, if interested in turning around both its and the country’s decline, ought to consider a full reform platform, and start selling it to voters for the 2014 election. Something that admits that the last century of collapse into a single Progressive uber-State is a pair of deuces that thinks itself a royal flush. Something that builds upon ideas, e.g. Barnett’s Bill of Federalism, that redistribute power, not wealth.”

UPDATE: Randy Barnett writes:

Why doesn’t the collapse of Plan B not *increase* Boehner’s negotiating stance for a better deal? If he can’t deliver his caucus for this deal, the President will need to offer a better deal or get none. And if he wants no deal (as many assume) then there won’t be a deal anyway, unless it’s a bad deal for Republicans. Why aren’t the conservatives in the caucus not functioning as the “bad cop.” What am I missing here?

That’s a plausible strategy. But proper execution would have involved Boehner saying in advance that he wasn’t sure he could bring the Tea Party folks along, rather than being blindsided at the last minute.