Eye Recommend --- Boehner Cancels Tax Vote in Face of G.O.P Revolt --- (Or as I like to call it: Mr. Boehner Suffers Another Embarrassing Takedown)

BOEHNER CANCELS TAX VOTE IN FACE OF G.O.P. REVOLT, by Jonathan Weisman -- http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/us/politics/house-moves-toward-vote-on-boehners-backup-plan.html?_r=0

"What he could not do was blame Democrats for failing to take up legislation he could not even get through his own membership in the House...

...The point of the Boehner effort was to secure passage of a Republican plan, then demand that the president and the Senate to take up that measure and pass it, putting off the major fights until early next year when Republicans would conceivably have more leverage because of the need to increase the federal debt limit. It would also allow Republicans to claim it was Democrats who had caused taxes to rise after the first of the year had no agreement been reached.

That strategy lay in tatters after the Republican implosion.

Opponents said they were not about to bend their uncompromising principles on taxes just because Mr. Boehner asked...

...'It has been deeply troubling that Speaker Boehner has spent day after day on the road to nowhere; making it clear Republicans are having trouble governing and only putting us closer to the fiscal cliff,' said Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee."

I find it hard to believe that John Boehner thought this obvious piece of political gamemanship would work.  But what really amazes me is that the Tea Party Repubicans' reason for refusing to support Mr. Boehner's Plan B appears to be the simple fact that it raised taxes on those making over $1M.  Really?  These uber-conservative Republicans will do anything to avoid standing up to Grover Norquist.  How gutless and how sad.