Senate Republican: Maybe we will back up the House on shutdown, after all

Sen. John Thune: "Yeah, maybe we don't know what we're really doing here."
(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

The Senate Republican caucus is apparently as dysfunctional as the House. Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the House was on its own, and if House Republicans wanted to have a shutdown fight with the White House, the Senate wasn't going to play.

Now, out trots one of the members of the leadership team, Sen. John Thune (R-SD), to contradict McConnell.

A member of the Senate GOP leadership says he and his colleagues could end up backing House Republicans in their efforts to fund the government at levels below those agreed to in the bipartisan debt-limit deal last August, increasing the chances of a government shutdown fight just weeks before the 2012 election. [...]

'I think our appropriators decided for the most part to mark at the Budget Control Act levels,' Thune said. 'But I don't think that would preclude anybody here in the Senate, on the floor or somewhere else, from offering amendments to go below that. I'm guessing you're going to see a lot of amendments to go down to where the House numbers are as these bills work their way to the floor.'

So, now a Senate Republican leader threatens to go back on his word and shut down the government'they've got to get those seniors used to doing without Medicare'as a political ploy just ahead of the election. Sweet.