GOOD GRIEF

So, Republican California Representative Kevin McCarthy has been outgoing Speaker John Boehner's presumed successor since he was ousted for not being conservative enough. But today, he abruptly took himself out of the race, citing criticism over comments he made during "an interview on Fox News last week that the House committee investigating Benghazi had the political aim of damaging Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign." Whooooooops!

But that's only part of the reason, and probably not even the main one. McCarthy just isn't conservative enough for lots of House Republicans, either: "A group of about 40 hard-line House conservatives announced Wednesday night that they would support Representative Daniel Webster of Florida, making it unclear whether Mr. McCarthy, who is from California, could assemble the 218 votes on the floor that he would need to be elected later this month."

Webster, as you may recall, is the guy who is affiliated with the Institute in Basic Life Principles.

Now the Republican caucus is scrambling to figure out who is that perfect balance of barely palatable to reasonable human beings and sufficiently nightmarish to satisfy rightwing extremists to unite their party.

Along with Webster, Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz is also in the running. He's the jackass who made an embarrassing spectacle of himself grilling Cecile Richards last week.

So they've got some real hot candidates to consider!

Meanwhile: "Mr. McCarthy's decision put the House of Representatives into a state of disarray just days from the first and most serious of a series of fiscal deadlines." Which, if nothing else, will keep them for the foreseeable future too busy actually playing politics to the detriment of the country to mendaciously accuse any Democrats of playing politics for trying to help the country.