Circular Firing Squad

It's a rare day indeed when the Wall Street Journal in its lead Editorial (Wednesday, December 21, 2011, p. A18) calls the activity of the Republicans in US Congress a "Circular Firing Squad." Usually this is a term reserved for Democrats. It looks like the House Republicans, by voting down the Senate's two-month extension of the "tax cut" (as described by the Democrats) or "tax holiday" (as described by the WSJ), have positioned themselves in a corner. The WSJ editorial writers suggest the Republicans put up the truce flag and come back to fight another day. Since the tea party adherents in the US House have been using metaphors from the movie Braveheart to describe recent political activity, one could say that if they don't retreat they have a good chance of being drawn and quartered by the voters.