Hostage taking fail?

Boehner and Cantor seem to think they can keep playing the same trick over and over again. They failed to pass an earlier version of a bill to fund FEMA disaster aid and authorize money to keep the government running because Dems wouldn't vote for their destructive spending offsets and the Tea Party frosh wouldn't vote for it because it didn't renege far enough on the agreement already struck on spending cut limits. So the dithering duo caved to their tea party puppetmasters and rewrote the bill so it was even more odious, which they managed to squeak through, and then adjourned the House and skulked out of town. No doubt cackling about how cleverly they jammed the Senate with the problem.

But holding to the newly bold Democratic stance, Reid stood them down and rejected the stupid House bill, even managing to keep together a bi-partisan majority to do it. You'll recall the Senate already passed a much better stand alone bill last week.

Rumor has it, Obama encouraged Reid to take this route and is willing to use his exec power to call Congress back into session if necessary. Having been burned so many times, admit I'm afraid to read too much into any of it, but I could get used to Democrats who act like this -- always.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]