WASHINGTON—Never say you can't learn anything in the Capitol building, even when you weren't planning on learning anything, which is pretty much the way to start every day. On Wednesday, as the Republican majority in the Senate continued to fumble, bumble, and stumble around trying to get its big tax-cut bill passed—the one that keeps getting gummed up by the health insurance provisions therein—we learned a new phrase.

All week, it's been plain that the Wild Kingdom in the House of Representatives has been getting restive at the way things have bogged down on the other side of the dome. So, on Wednesday afternoon, not long before Rand Paul's amendment that would have cleanly repealed the Affordable Care Act went down in ignominious fashion, Congressman Buddy Carter (R-Georgia) unlimbered himself on MSNBC of his opinion regarding Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska, who has been a reliable "no" vote on every bottle of snake oil that has come before her. Congressman Buddy had been on the committee that drafted the bill that the House passed, the one that was immediately put into a bio-threat containment facility when it arrived in the Senate. Congressman Buddy is fed up.

"Somebody needs to go over there to that Senate," said Congressman Buddy, "and snatch a knot in their ass."

The Senate library's copy of Idioms For Idiots was loaned out, but the Urban Dictionary defines the phrase "snatch a knot" as:

"To hit someone, usually used in a threat of punishment or retribution. A knot is generally snatched in one's ass, though variants include the neck and the head."

So you stay classy, Congressman Buddy.

(Back in February, Congressman Buddy held a town hall meeting at which he told the folks down in Savannah that he would never support the ACA no matter how many of his constituents supported it.)

"Somebody needs to go over there to that Senate," said Congressman Buddy, "and snatch a knot in their ass."

From the beginning on Wednesday, it was clear that the Republican strategy on this bill was to pass something—anything!—so that they could go into conference with members from the House and produce something—anything!—that will make them feel that they have "fulfilled the promise" they made to free the American people from the shackles of an increasingly popular healthcare law by means of legislation of some kind that has yet to crack 20 percent approval in any poll. The best shot they have is to pass what has been called the "skinny repeal" and then hope for the best. The men of Tennessee, for example, were quite clear about this.

In the morning, before everything started, Senator Bob Corker laid things out quite neatly. "I don't think anyone's looking at the 'skinny' solution as the solution that the House and Senate together would come to," Corker said. "I don't think anyone's thinking that the House would pass that and that would be the end of it.

"I don't know what the product is yet but, yeah, it's disappointing that we find ourselves where we are. I still think the best solution is to do the repeal and give the two-and-a-half years and force the two sides, Republicans and Democrats, to sit down together and pass something that will stand the test of time."

Corker was referring here to the proposal by Rand Paul of Kentucky to repeal the ACA without replacing it, a repeal that would not go into effect for 30 months, during which time, supposedly, cooler and more rational heads would prevail. The Senate voted on that measure Wednesday afternoon, and it lost, 55-45, with seven Republicans joining the Democrats to snatch a knot in Aqua Buddha's brainstorm. One of them was Corker's colleague, Lamar Alexander, who was quite clear about why he though the 30-month plan was unworkable. He doesn't think the American people would trust the Congress to do right even if you gave it two and a half years to do it. He's not entirely sure he'd trust it, either.

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"I think we need to go ahead and act now," Alexander said. "I don't think most Tennesseans would like the idea of saying to them that we're going to cancel the insurance for 22 million Americans and then trust Congress to replace it in two years. I think most pilots, when they take off, like to know where they're going to land."

Things are supposed to come to a head on Thursday, when the Republicans are supposed to come up with the "skinny" repeal, on which the Democrats may pile on amendment after amendment that will take the Senate deep into the whiskey hours of the poker game, delaying a vote all the way into Friday, if the Capitol touts are to be believed. Passage of that measure is still far from a sure thing. The whole thing is now completely a charade, an exercise in flubdubbery that will end up with the likes of Buddy Carter handling one-sixth of the national economy again. It's enough to make a fella snatch a knot in his own damn head.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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