For the benefit of my American readers, and also you dozy, forgetful Brits, er, like me, actually, it was that rascal, the late Alan Clarke MP, who coined the phrase when he admitted at a trial that he had been "economical with the actualité" whilst answering parliamentary questions. In that he was by no means the first and certainly not the last! I was reminded of the expression by the plight of the Republican party 'over there' who are fighting like rats in a sack over the budget deal struck with the Democrats.
The main man responsible for what the 'Tea Party' activists have categorised as outright treachery is Congressman Paul Ryan. The problem highlights the deep divide between what I would call the ideologues and the pragmatists. Before my e-pal, JK, starts riffling back through my archives to find the very many times I have demanded that politicians show a basic grounding in an ideology, let me repeat my liking for, as I call it, 'authenticity'. That is, that the man or woman politician concerned has some well-worked out beliefs based on a coherent philosophy - be it of the Left or the Right. To know that is, as they say, to know where they are coming from!
However, idealism must connect and grapple with the real world even if its pristine condition is sullied. The howls of outrage aimed at Congressman Paul Ryan, a conservative, by the purists - I almost wrote 'Puritans'! - in the 'Tea Party' movement because he cut a deal with the Democrats over the budget simply serves to indicate their political naïveté. As Roger Simon emphasises at PJ Media, the first, last and forever aim of Republicans at this particular moment is not to bring the Federal government to a shut down by refusing to pass the budget but to do everything they can to win the Senate next year! It is when a party is in power that ideological purity can be argued over because at that time it is important. When in opposition you do the almost impossible, that is, grit your teeth and swallow at the same time! In other words, you pass the budget, or Obamacare, or whatever, after getting as many favours as you can but make it clear, over and over again, to the American electorate that these measures are Democrat measures, they own them and they should hang round their necks like one of those burning 'necklaces' so beloved of mobs everywhere.
American voters, like voters almost everywhere, will not vote for a visibly divided, warring party and if the Republicans do not take the Senate back next year they will be nowhere in the 2016 elections.
