John Boehner and Lane Kiffin

This whole debacle over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling has been an unmitigated disaster for Republicans. They started out with the primary objective of repealing the Affordable Care Act. When that didn't happen, they moved to defunding it. When that didn't happen, they moved to trying to delay it. When that didn't happen, they tried to go with the strategy of getting rid of Congressional staffer subsidies. Guess what. That didn't work either.

In short, nothing was achieved. The Republicans lost every single time on every single issue, and it was fairly predictable. Nothing was accomplished. So what's the way forward for the Republicans? I don't know. But I do know this:

Southern California fired their coach this year because they went 7-6 last year and were 3-2 this year. When football teams have a really bad few seasons, they fire the coach. That's not to say it's totally the coach's fault that the team is doing badly. It wasn't Lane Kiffin who threw three interceptions, but you can't fire the whole team when they're playing poorly. Accordingly, you make a change of leadership and start fresh with someone else running the team. That's all you can do. That's what Southern Cal did. And although they'll continue to struggle this season, they're taking steps to address the problems they have.

The former coach of Southern California's football team.

That's what needs to happen with the Republicans in the United States House of Representatives. It isn't necessarily John Boehner's fault that this strategy didn't work, but you can't get rid of the entire GOP House. They're going to be there. However, the Speaker is like the coach. He needs to be fired or resign. I don't have any idea who should lead the GOP in the House (and I don't really care) but I know that the current leadership isn't getting the job done on any level. The players don't trust the coach.

I would like to see Boehner, Cantor, and the rest of the House leadership simply resign their posts.

The current GOP leadership that needs to be fired.

Going forward may be tough, but a different strategy and different leadership needs to be put in place. Maybe the House GOP is too conservative for Boehner, but maybe that's the problem. When you have players on a team who aren't "buying in" to what the Coach is trying to do, you're not going to have a good team, and you're not going to win games. Right now, a large part of the team isn't buying in to the leadership. And the problem is, you can't fire the team. You have to change leadership.

This is one of those good for the party, good for the country type deals. Getting rid of the current House GOP leadership will also have the benefit of clearing the board of all the old animus that has built up between Boehner and all the Democratic leadership.