Six years ago, as the House of Representatives barreled into a government shutdown, California Rep. Devin Nunes called the quixotic band of insurgent Republicans who sparked the impasse “lemmings.” Out loud.

Nunes wasn’t any more supportive of Barack Obama’s healthcare law than other Republicans in Congress. He thought the Affordable Care Act was a disaster. But Nunes believed attempting to use the federal budget process to defund Obamacare, in a bid to kill it before implementation, was folly. The U.S. Senate was controlled by the Democratic Party, and Obama wasn’t about to help the GOP erase his signature achievement after working so hard, and investing so much, to win passage of the historic legislation. By the numbers, most Republicans understood this. But many, fearful of angering the Tea Party base or being scorned by conservative media, were unwilling to say so to the Capitol Hill press corps, on the record, as unequivocally as Nunes.