The insane wing of the Republican Party is having its way, or it would appear, as the government inches toward a shutdown.

Will someone ever be able to slam some sense into those thick tea party skulls?

House Speaker John Boehner, one Republican who doesn’t want to shut the government down over objections to the Affordable Care Act, is now hamstrung by the conservative cabal that has hijacked the once-great political party. They’re insisting on defunding “Obamacare,” and are willing to risk shutting down the entire federal government to do so.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has adopted an apt term for the tea party wing. He calls them “anarchists.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/year-end-tax-cuts-have-nearly-doubled-projected-size-of-national-debt-cbo-says/2013/09/17/cda802d2-1f9c-11e3-94a2-6c66b668ea55_story.html

The Washington Post reports: “None of the Republicans are willing to stand up to these anarchists,” Reid told reporters. Of the law known as Obamacare, he added: “They’re obsessed with a bill that passed four years ago, a bill that was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. They can’t get over that.”

I keep waiting for some leading Republicans, the folks who’ve been around the nation’s capital for some time, to talk some sense into these yahoos. I’m thinking of, oh, people like Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, who’s been through a government shutdown and knows the political price his party will pay if they go through with this idiotic notion.

Thornberry, though, doesn’t raise a ruckus. I know it’s not his style to be drum-thumper. I’m kind of wishing he’d rethink his back-bench mentality and take the lead on this one.

If he doesn’t, or if someone in the leadership doesn’t wrest control back from the GOP’s insane wing, there will be hell to pay.

Guaranteed.