John Boehner loses the Wall Street Journal (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)



John Boehner loses the Wall Street Journal (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)



GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest. The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play.

With the looming reality of taxes going up for 160 million Americans next month, places the blame squarely in the laps of the Republican leadership:

Naturally the editorial is a mish-mash of revisionist history, cognitive dissonance and right-wing whining—after all, it is The Wall Street Journal's editorial page—but it is still rather stunning to see a major megaphone for the Republican Party calling for the GOP leadership to "cut their losses" and make the deal.

Of course there already was a deal made when the Senate voted 89-10 in favor of a compromise payroll tax cut bill, but that was before John Boehner apparently ceded all power to the tea party wing in the House. And the only way for Boehner to make sure that 95% of Americans don't see a smaller paycheck next month is for him to actually lead his caucus rather than bowing to its extremists.