Today's drama will have little to do with the contemptible debt deal under discussion, as outlined by a cheerful Mitch McConnell moments ago on CNN's "State of the Union": about $3 trillion in discretionary cuts, a joint congressional committee to recommend future slashing, a bogeyman "trigger" device to frighten each side into earnestness, a "mechanism" that allows Congress to vote in delight against an inexorable second-stage ceiling lift, and, of course, "no tax increases" -- in other words, a wholly intoxicated attempt at deficit reduction.
No, the real hijinks of our disintegrating and already dysfunctional democracy will commence around high noon, as mild-mannered Marshal Will Kane, played by mild-mannered Nevadan Harry Reid, faces off, on behalf of 300 million quivering townfolk, with Frank Miller's Tea Party Gang, recently populated by such ideological thugs as the wily Rand Paul and revoltingly glib Mike Lee.
From The Hill:
Leaders will have to rely on the goodwill of every member of the upper chamber to agree to unanimous consent to speed legislation through the Senate in time to make the deadline.
[A] senior GOP aide said members of the Tea Party Caucus ... would not drag out the floor procedure to delay a deal sanctioned by Democratic and Republican leaders.
Yes, we've grown accustomed to associating "goodwill" with "Tea Party Caucus," so there's no reason to suspect any pending skulduggery from those fine fellows (but we can hope, see below).
The same goes for their degenerate compatriots in the House, where any extortion legislation passed today will then head, possibly to save us all (?) in the nick of time.
But I repeat, I would have preferred no deal at all; I would have preferred a week or two of unremitting Economic Hell -- in which outraged townfolk would torch these swinish goons out of their air-conditioned styes and back onto their respective floors for a clean vote -- to the purgatorial salvation of ideological miscreants. Who, if successful in today's legislative designs, will be back, bigger and badder than ever.