Paul Ryan watches, head-in-hands, as the Farm Bill catches fire

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the speaker of the House, de facto ideological leader of the Republican Party, and third-most powerful man in all of America, held his head in his hands at the back of the House chamber and waited helplessly for members of his own conference to sabotage their own legislation.

No Democrats voted yes. Thirty Republicans voted no. And the Farm Bill just failed 198-213. An informative disaster, it lays bare many of the divisions that have been flaring up behind the closed GOP conference doors.