Tea Party's unpatriotic ransom failure will have consequences

Here's my new "meme." 

Hey, Tea Party. Exactly what did you get for your ransom demand that cost the US economy $24 billion?  And that did lasting damage to the credit and prestige of our nation? Was it worth it? 

Of course, people in general have an amazing ability to rationalize failure. But failure is the only truly rational description of what they did, and the damage they did to our (and their) country is entirely on them. The president and Congressional democrats were absolutely right to refuse to negotiate with hostage takers. Especially hostage takers who had just come off of months and months of refusing repeated entreaties to engage in legitimate budget negotiations. 

And I really believe that the fact that they did this damage to our country for nothing will not be entirely forgotten in 2014.