Obama, Cruz and Christie Walk Into a Bar  The shutdown was no
joke, but what these three have in common is a real punchline.
(Continued from Page 1)  Wall Street. Wall Street was losing its
damn mind during the shutdown, and it went absolutely berserk as
we got closer to an unprecedented national default. Suddenly it
had no control over the faux populist Frankenstein it created.
Business hacks and corporate political action committees went
into action, appearing to become close friends with an Obama
White House they once put everything into destroying. Stock
indices plummeted, then soared at every rollercoaster rise and
fall of the crisis.     China, Russia and anyone else who has a
beef with us or wants to be No. 1. The irony: Normally,
Republicans are chest-thumping, pro-defense hawks who'll jump at
any chance to force American world supremacy -- yet, they allow
a small band of party hard-heads to turn us into weakened
geopolitical punks. Why blast the Obama administration for being
soft on Syria or incomp