So the kidnapping is actually a stroke of luck for DeVito, who not only refuses to pay, he calls Reinhold’s bluff and tries to goad him into killing his wife.

Replace DeVito with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Reinhold with Tea Party leader Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and you pretty much have today’s government shutdown fight.

For all of Reid and other Democrats’ protestations about the shutdown, they are secretly happy that it happened because they are certain it will hurt the Republicans and boost them.

That is the flaw in Cruz’s defund strategy: He is trying to threaten the Democrats with something that they are not only unafraid of, but with something that they really, really want.

Ever since the shutdown drama of 1995-96, Democrats have assumed that any government closure will be both a) wildly unpopular and b) blamed on the GOP. Many on the Right — I include myself in this number — share this basic underlying assumption.