WashPost Political Bloggers Deeply Love Boehner Denouncing Tea Party Groups

December 16th, 2013 7:21 AM

In "The Fix" column in Monday's Washington Post, political bloggers Aaron Blake and Chris Cillizza loved Speaker John Boehner attacking Tea Party groups so much that it qualified for their weekly prize for "Best Thing That Happened to Republicans." Then you read further...and it's also "Best Thing That Happened to Democrats."

Clearly, the Post thinks the Tea Party is the only thing blocking Washington from functioning properly. They want Obama to have more "signature achievements" like Obamacare. Democrats apparently have no strongly ideological base that doesn't like compromise:

BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO REPUBLICANS

Boehner forcefully denounced tea party grousp that opposed the budget compromise. The speaker, quite simply, had had enough. And in comments Tuesday and Wednesday, he made little secret of how he felt, saying the groups had "lost all credibility," On some level, the GOP needs to hace it out and let its establishment wing and its tea party wing do battle. Until last week, the establishment was unwilling to pick that fight. That's changed now, and Republican may soon find their way forward.

BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO DEMOCRATS

The same thing. Democrats haven't been able to get much of anything done because of the tea party. And Boehner's willingness to take on the faction -- and pass a budget overwhelmingly in the process -- should give Democrats some hope on the legislative front. This is not to say that Boehner will suddenly cave and allow voted on things like immigration reform, but it does suggest that he's willing to cut deals moving forward.

That is right next to an article at the top of A-3 with the headline "In divided Senate, little hope for a productive 2014." All this journalist talk of a "productive" Congress that is apparently positive when it passes new laws doesn't take into account those "signature achievements" like Obamacare, or in their own liberal category, the "signature achievement" of authorizing war in Iraq.