Epic Fail: America 16, Republicans 0

Your Head Trucker is enormously proud of President Obama for having the balls to stand up unflinchingly to the wretched Republican terrorists who were bent on bringing down the government of the United States in flames.  Rachel summarizes the outcome of the 16-day slow-motion coup attempt by the Stupid Party - a must-watch:

Update, 7:15 p.m.: Okay, so the Maddow Show has a new website which must have been designed by the same birdbrains who came up with the Obamacare roll-out. I can't get the video to embed and display properly, but go watch it here.

Also worthy of note: Conservative writer Rod Dreher, via Andrew Sullivan:

Can the Tea Partiers’ beliefs be falsified? I don’t think they can be. I mean, is there any evidence that could convince them that the fault here lies with themselves, in the way they conceive politics, and in the way they behaved? It sure doesn’t look like it. In that sense, they think of politics as a kind of religion. It’s not for nothing that the hardcore House members stood together and sang “Amazing Grace” as the impossibility of their position became ever clearer. They really do bring a religious zealotry to politics.

Let me hasten to say that I’m not endorsing the “Christianist” meme, which I find far too reductive, among other things. Besides, many of the Tea Partiers and fellow travelers are not motivated by religious faith, but by a religious-like zeal for their political ideology. It was like this on the Right before the advent of the Tea Party. There has long been a sense on the Right that the movement must be vigilant against the backsliders and compromisers, who will Betray True Conservatism if you give them the chance. Again, the religious mindset: politics as a purity test. In this worldview, a politician who compromises sells out the True Faith — and faith, by definition, does not depend on empirical observation to justify itself.