So moving even more rapidly than expected (with an assist from Winter Storm Pax), the House passed a “clean” debt limit bill by a margin of 221-201. Democrats favored it by a 193-2 margin. Republicans opposed it 28-199.

John Boehner is and will continue to get bouquets for defying the Hastert Rule yet again and convincing more than the absolutely necessary 18 Republicans to vote for the measure. Conservative activists are already calling for his head (or at least his gavel). We’ll see how this plays out, but you know I’m not in the “John Boehner legislative genius” camp.

The really good news is that we won’t see any more debt default threats until March 2015 at the earlier, or maybe ever.

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Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.