Our friends in the Republican Party really seem to believe that President Obama will get the blame if the vaunted sequester actually occurs. No one not on their side seems to think that’s true, but as we’ve seen the Republicans care only about their own political fortunes and listen only to their own analyses. A while back, in justifying the Party’s seeming willingness to let the government shut down as part of the debt ceiling “talks” one of their “leadership” advisers told Politico

House Speaker John Boehner “may need a shutdown just to get it out of their system,” said a top GOP leadership adviser. “We might need to do that for member-management purposes — so they have an endgame and can show their constituents they’re fighting.”

If that sounds completely irresponsible to you, you are not alone. It even sounds crazy to two of the Party’s stalwart defenders in the media, Byron York of The Washington Examiner and Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard. Here’s York:

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner describes the upcoming sequester as a policy “that threatens U.S. national security, thousands of jobs and more.”

Which leads to the question: Why would Republicans support a measure that threatens national security and thousands of jobs? Boehner and the GOP are determined to allow the $1.2 trillion sequester go into effect unless President Obama and Democrats agree to replacement cuts, of an equal amount, that target entitlement spending. If that doesn’t happen — and it seems entirely unlikely — the sequester goes into effect, with the GOP’s blessing.

York goes on to say the Party is sending exactly the wrong message by embracing the sequester — it’s making Obama look reasonable because he wants to avoid the thing.

Similarly, Kristol said today

It’s understandable that Republicans are tempted by the prospect of allowing the “sequester”—the automatic cut to defense and domestic discretionary spending agreed to as an enforcement mechanism for the 2011 debt ceiling deal—to go into effect on March 1. It’s understandable because Republicans are in favor of cutting domestic spending. It’s understandable because Republicans are desperate to secure what they think could be a political victory over Barack Obama and Harry Reid. It’s understandable because going to the trouble of fixing the sequester would be difficult, and the effort to do so will create strains within the Republican conference.

But what’s understandable isn’t always responsible. Allowing the sequester to go into effect would be deeply irresponsible.

Never mind, say the Republican leaders. “We’ll get leverage against the President.” Kristol says

leverage for what?

[snip]

The sequester gives Republicans no leverage here. And the House will have no more ability to insist on needed entitlement reforms or on the shape of next year’s overall budget with the sequester in effect than if it’s not.

It appears that the Party is insistent on jumping off the sequestration cliff, having missed the fiscal one a few weeks ago. I say, let ’em do it.