WORST TEA PARTY EVER: GOP halts debt vote as internal fighting splits Republicans

WASHINGTON - Congress lurched closer to a meltdown last night as House Speaker John Boehner yanked his debt bill - unable to convince Tea Party hardliners to sign on.

In an embarrassing setback for the Speaker and the GOP leadership, Boehner ordered a delay - and later recessed the House to twist arms - minutes before the vote.

One by one, recalcitrant Republicans were marched into Boehner's woodshed for some tough-love counseling.

The spectacle of legislative gridlock reinforced the partisan divide that has brought the U.S. govement to the edge of a cataclysmic default where the Treasury won't be able to pay all its bills.

Hardline lawmakers apparently refused to heed President Obama's earlier blunt message: Grow up.

"Clock ticks towards August 2 \[debt deadline\], House is naming post offices, while leaders twist arms for a pointless vote. No wonder people hate Washington," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer Tweeted.

Boehner pressed ahead nonetheless.

"There are no gimmicks, there are no smokescreens," he said. "For the sake of jobs, for the sake of our country...let's pass this bill and end this crisis."

As Boehner dug in against the Tea Party faction within his own ranks, Democrats pushed back against the GOP.

"No Democrat will vote for a short-term Band-Aid that would put our economy at risk and put the nation back in this untenable situation a few short months from now," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) countered, echoing the White House stance.

With the House bill dead on arrival in the Senate, the stage is set for a potential compromise, merging portions of the House bill with a deal being brokered by Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

"It is time for Tea Party Republicans to stop resisting compromise," Reid said. "They must join Democrats and Republicans of good will in putting the good of our economy ahead of politics."

Strategists on both sides struggled off-camera to resolve the main sticking point to a deal ending the threat of a default on the country's debt obligations and weeks-long congressional gridlock.

President Obama remains adamantly opposed to Boehner's insistence on a second debt ceiling vote by year's end and is holding out for one vote raising the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit through 2013.

Republicans say Obama thinks another vote will damage his reelection prospects. His loyalists contend it's the economy, and average Americans, who will bear the brunt of the damage.

"We've been in total paralysis for weeks," a senior Democratic strategist moaned. "To do it all over again would be a disaster for the President and the country."

Like Reid, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) argued the GOP plan will bring the country "right back here on the precipice of imminent default (again) in just a few months."

As the pressure mounted last night, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), now the minority leader, ratcheted the red meat rhetoric to soaring heights.

"What we're trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget," Pelosi said. "We're trying to save life on this planet as we know it today."

Earlier in the day, the White House rolled out a new talking point, accusing Republicans of being Grinches by insisting on a second debt vote at the end of the year.

If they prevail, senior Obama adviser David Plouffe told MSNBC "the debt ceiling debate would ruin Christmas."

Obama press secretary Jay Caey told reporters the holiday period is "the most important economic season in the country" and that even more uncertainty is the last thing consumers need "as they're buying gifts for the holidays."