If they only had a president

[I]t’s not surprising that over the weekend the entire village began to kvell in unison at the news that McCarthy was lecturing Republicans about the need to “govern” lest they be locked out of the presidency again in 2016. If there is one thing the political establishment loves more than anything it’s a party leader scolding his own party, especially when they perceive it to be a call for a more genteel, centrist approach that doesn’t challenge the status quo in any measurable way.

Now in this case, there might be good reason to hope that Kevin McCarthy was putting some of his extremist colleagues on notice that their more outlandish shenanigans were not going to be tolerated any longer. No more government shutdowns, no more indiscriminate budget slashing, no more ludicrous investigations into Benghazi! or the IRS. Now is the time for the Republicans to show they are indeed the grown-ups in the room and start working across the aisle with Democrats to get things done for the good of the nation. Unfortunately, McCarthy doesn’t live in Republican Bizarro world and neither do we so the chances of that happening are about as good as the chance that Jerry Brown is going down to defeat next week. No, McCarthy is doing something a little bit different and if you parse his words carefully you’ll see what it is.