I say that the presumed "losers" in the Shutdown Follies may really be winners, because they didn't lose anywhere near bad enough

Okay, fair's fair. This came as an e-mail from "My Democrats," and I've chopped off a button labeled "CHIP IN," out of sheer cussedness at all these e-mails whose purpose turns out to be to shake money out of us. Still, if you want to "chip in," here's the link.

by Ken

There's a lot of tut-tutting, gloating, and outright taunting in the wake of what The New Yorker's John Cassidy is calling "the Great G.O.P. Cave-in." A note of caution, friends: Not so fast, buckos. (And this includes you, Cassidy, with your "Obama to G.O.P.: Do You Want Another Beating?"

For the record, here are Cassidy's "Ten Takeaways from the Great G.O.P. Cave-in" (lots a links onsite):

1. President Obama won. For once, he held firm, and it worked.

2. The G.O.P. lost, and so did the Tea Party. Both saw their approval ratings fall to record lows.

3. It was a big waste of time.

4. The United States
was also a loser. Its reputation in the eyes of the world was further damaged. U.S. “soft power” took another blow.

5. Republicans need remedial lessons in game theory. If you aren’t willing to go over the cliff, and your opponent knows that, there’s no point in engaging in brinkmanship.

6. Ted Cruz is a charlatan. He pushed for a government shutdown and then joined a protest by veterans and Tea Party members against the closure of national monuments.

7. If anyone has a justification for smoking, it’s John Boehner. Really, wouldn’t you want a Camel Ultra Light if you had his job?

8. The two-and-a-half-week government shutdown probably reduced quarterly G.D.P. growth by about 0.3 per cent. But much of that loss will be made up when the government re-opens.

9. Warren Buffett came up with the best quote of the crisis: “Creditworthiness is like virginity. It can be preserved but not restored very easily.”

10. We get to do it all again in January and February. But next time, we’ll all be aware in advance that the G.O.P.’s threats to force a debt default are empty.

But anyone who thinks these folks, the Coalition of the Stoopids and the Krazys, are going away anytime soon. And because they're stoopid and krazy, they have their own vision of reality, in which I'm thinking they believe that yes, they suffered a cruel beating at the hands of the demonic forces they see themselves struggling against, but to them this is only a temporary setback that causes them to redouble their anger and their determination.

From their shamans they learn how their ancient ancestors, who fought under the banner of Barry Goldwater, rallied from their squooshing and eventually entered the Promised Morning led by St. Ronald of Reagan, who freed them from the tiresome bonds of reality. Later, under the yoke of the murdering socialist Clintonz, they regrouped again, and this time they learned their most valuable lesson: how to hate with a purity of venom that, with any luck, can kill on contact. And they were rewarded with the golden years of Chimpy the Prez. Okay, they turned kind of un-golden there, but that could be dealt with simply, by means of a quick clean-wipe of history. George. W. who?

If you believe those polls of disapproval of Republicans and Teabaggers are any protection against these folks with their messianic vision of "freedom's last stand," you're a lot more optimistic than I am.

The one sign of hope I see -- and you'll see what a pathetic and hopeless sign of hope it is -- is that this particular burst of Stoopidity and Kraziness has likely thrown a scare into their crucial collaborators, or rather manipulators: the Economic Predators. To be accurate, the Teabaggers weren't entirely created by the EPs, but as a movement they would still be bands of isolated kooks with the cash poured in by their predatory overlords. But those overlords are beginning to discover for themselves what others have tried to warn them for some time: Their control is far from assured. And, alas, once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's not so easy to get it back in.

Yes, for the time being we can breathe a sigh of relief over what could have come out of the reinforcing crises of the budget patch and the debt-ceiling limit. But even as we discover that the losers don't come away with quite nothing, as I'm sure we will, we should remember that the Crisis Do-over is just over the hill ahead. And no appeal to reality is going to make the fight any easier, because the troops rooting for crisis are officially off the reality standard.

It looks to me like an even bumpier ride ahead.

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