Own Goal

Here's the irony of the Homeland Security funding fiasco. The Republicans have found their groove.

I've never liked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Its hasty and ill-conceived creation in the fear-laden aftermath of 9/11 had too much the aura of Republican anti-civil liberties opportunism.

As is often the case with such fiddling, some necessary functions were rolled into the Republican's perverted police-state fantasies (with Democrat complicity).

So, we are to be the beneficiaries of a rather messy inverse hat-trick to which, in lemming-like fashion, the Republicans seem committed:

1. President Obama's action on immigration in the face of Republican intransigence stands.
2. Republicans' wholesale abandonment of DHS renews hope (and, therewith, possibility) that badly needed changes to that benighted agency are possible.
3. Republicans' claimed ability to govern or do anything constructive will manifestly dissolve in their public, internecine skirmishes and demonstrated incompetence.

And, if the shutdown goes forward however briefly, the remotest hint of any act labeled "domestic terrorism," however implausibly, will be the responsibility of the Republican circus.

Now, if the Republicans will just hold their breath until they get everything they want ... .