The honor of it all aside, Rep. Paul Ryan would do well to decline the speakership of the House. For it is a poisoned chalice that is being offered to him.

The Republican Party is not, as some commentators wail, in "chaos" today. It is in rebellion, in revolt, as it was in the early 1960s when Barry Goldwater's true believers rejected Eisenhower Republicanism and Nelson Rockefeller to nominate the Arizona senator for president.

A similar and bristling hostility to today's establishment has arisen, in the GOP Congress, the country and the presidential race.

The acrimony attendant to this militants revolt explains why Speaker John Boehner packed it in, singing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," and why Donald Trump remains far out in front for the nomination.