House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) was just interviewed by Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, and he told Mitchell that McCain killed the deal yesterday at the White House:

“I do think that John McCain was very helpful in what he did. I saw him this morning, we’ve been talking with his staff. Clearly, yesterday, his position in that discussion yesterday was one that stopped a deal from, uh, finalizing that no House Republican, in my view, would’ve been for. Which means it probably wouldn’t have passed the House. Now, Democrats are in the majority, they can pass anything they want to without a single Republican vote. But they don’t seem to be willing to do that. I’m pleased we can have negotiations now that get us back to things that we think can protect the taxpayers better, create more options, are, frankly, be better understood in the country than the plan, than the path that we were on just a couple of days ago.”

McCain was “helpful,” Blunt says, because McCain killed the deal – he didn’t help get a deal, he helped kill it. That isn’t a maverick bringing everyone together, it’s an erratic, confused bull in a China shop doing what his trigger-happy gut tells him (if I may mix my metaphors). When the choice is between making war brokering peace, John McCain always goes for war. It’s what hot-heads do. Especially when they’re no longer at their prime.