There’s no doubt that many Republican senators, and plenty of conservative commentators, were angry at GOP Sen. Ted Cruz for raising a time-consuming objection to passage of the “Cromnibus” spending bill in an effort to oppose President Obama’s unilateral executive action on immigration. It’s not that fellow Republicans don’t oppose the president’s move; they do. It’s just that 1) Cruz’s gambit had no hope of succeeding, and 2) the maneuver set off a series of parliamentary events that allowed Majority Leader Harry Reid to get a head start on his other remaining business, which was the confirmation of a number of President Obama’s nominees.

What followed Cruz’s action was a series of sometimes bitter complaints that the renegade senator had, through his own ill-considered tactics, not only failed to make a dent in Obama’s immigration edict but also made it easier for the president to confirm his nominees in the last days of a Democratic majority in the Senate.