I understand the debt ceiling deal is probably going to pass. I’m not even comfortable unequivocally urging members to vote against it, given all the real loyalties and future relationships and competing responsibilities actual members have to deal with. And I’m not sure I’d urge anyone to vote against it if he were the 51st or 218th vote, because I don’t know that one could adequately manage, either in the real world or the political one, the consequences of “default.”

Still, having said all that, it would be good if Republican leaders stopped making bad arguments for the bill. For example, Majority Leader Eric Cantor said this afternoon,