John Miller/Associated Press

Every time Republicans suffer a rejection of the most right-wing items on their agenda, a significant number decide they haven’t been sufficiently crazy. That was the conclusion that many Republicans drew from the defeat of Mitt Romney in 2012. And now that Republicans in Congress have been forced to surrender in their fight with President Obama over the budget, health care and the nation’s credit, some are drawing the same conclusion.

In this view, as Dylan Scott pointed out on Talking Points Memo today, it was not the far-right that caused Speaker John Boehner problems, it was those pesky moderates (whoever they may be). “I’m more upset with my Republican conference, to be honest with you,” said Rep. Raul Labrador, Republican of Idaho. “It’s been Republicans here who apparently always want to fight, but they want to fight the next fight, that have given Speaker Boehner the inability to be successful in this fight. So if anybody should be kicked out, it’s probably those Republicans.”



He said they “are unwilling to keep the promises they made to the American people. Those are the people who should be looking behind their back.”

I don’t really have any idea what Mr. Labrador thinks those promises were. Presumably they did not include withholding paychecks from federal workers and threatening to create a worldwide recession.

But in the view of this crowd, having the same fight again in an election year (which could happen since the debt ceiling was raised only until Feb. 15) could actually be a good thing. That’s not so shocking, I guess, coming from the bomb-throwing Tea Party wing, but the political blindness goes farther than that.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for example, said the fight over the debt ceiling was good for Democrats, but for a peculiar reason. “It has been the best two weeks for the Democratic Party in recent times because they were out of the spotlight and didn’t have to showcase their ideas,” Mr. Graham said.

What Mr. Graham perceived as hiding was actually an exercise in not interrupting your enemy while he’s making a mistake. It was a good period for Democrats because Republicans were in the spotlight and showcasing their ideas. Or their lack of ideas, in the words of Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who always seems on the verge of making a presidential run that never quite seems to materialize.

“We have to have an agenda, we just can’t be against what’s in front of Washington, D.C.,” Bush said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today. “Much of what goes on in Washington is completely irrelevant to the lives of everyday people. I mean it’s just amazing.”