Hiller Instinct: Here’s who’s to blame for the Republican House speaker crisis

I’d like to tell you I’m shocked, saddened, and dismayed that no one wants to be Speaker of the House.

But I’m not, because it makes perfect sense: No one can speak for all the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, and everyone knows it.

There is no single voice, and can’t be, that can defend both compromising with a Democratic president, and trying to shut down the government.

Attention Americans: We have the government we deserve. It’s as divided as we are!

Look inside the U.S. House of Representatives:

There are 247 Republican representatives and 188 Democrats.

To get a majority, you need 218 votes.

So, the Republicans have enough votes to elect any speaker they’d like to. But there’s no one (yet) enough of of them like, to win the job.

Forty or so Tea Party Republicans want a speaker who’ll confront the president.

That’s not enough to elect a Tea Party Speaker, but it is enough to force any Republican who wants to be speaker to get some votes from Democrats.

But that would increase the influence of the Democrats, and the Republicans are ready to do that. Not yet, anyway.

So current speaker John Boehner, who wanted to leave at the end of October, can’t. And will now stay on until his replacement is picked.

And when will that be? Who knows?

My takeaway: Don’t blame the Republicans, don’t blame the Tea Party, and don’t blame John Boehner.

Because they’re not the ones who are keeping our government paralyzed. It’s us!