When Dwight Eisenhower asked Gen. Georgy Zhukov how the Red Army cleared minefields, Zhukov replied that it marched through them. Being profligate with lives is a perquisite of command and a luxury of those with an abundance of lives at their command. Some U.S. congressional Republicans, who do not command their party but can implicate it in their marches through minefields, might resuscitate Barack Obama's presidency by restocking his pantry of excuses: The economy's continuing anemia will ever after be blamed on any government shutdown.
The face of this Republican faction is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, on whose boots glistens dew from the grass roots. Recently, he was making desultory passes at breakfast oatmeal after returning to Washington at 2 a.m. from a Manhattan television studio, where he exhorted conservatives nationwide to somehow force Obama to accept defunding of the Affordable Care Act. Cruz explained his thinking:
It is two minutes until midnight. On Jan. 1, 2014, the ACA's insurance subsidies begin, like a heroin drip, making Americans instant addicts. The Obama administration knows that no major entitlement, once tasted, has been repealed. The administration is uninterested in enforcing the subsidies' eligibility requirements. Hence Republicans must be prepared to shutter the government. Obama will be blamed for resulting inconveniences because he will have vetoed funding for everything rather than accepting denial of funding for one thing — the ACA.