Does an 'open House' weaken the tea party?

Jon Bernstein wonders whether Speaker John Boehner's use of "open rules" -- which has allowed more than 400 amendments to the spending bill and led to a number of high-profile defeats for both Boehner and the House's more conservative bloc -- is part of a quiet effort to maneuver around his tea party faction.

[T]his logic would imply that Boehner's real goal in using an open rule could be twofold: to show hard-liners that they don't have the votes for many of their most aggressive spending cuts, and at the same time to show them how easily the GOP can lose control of the chamber if rogue Members insist on their personal preferences instead of sticking with the party. Surely, if Boehner believes that a shutdown would be very damaging to the GOP in general and to his ability to remain Speaker in particular (and indications are that he does believe those things -- as in my view he should!), then finding some way before the final crisis to defuse some of the intensity of budget-cutters who have a lot less leverage than bravado would be a smart move. If, of course, it works.

Is that an accurate explanation of Boehner's intentions? I don't know, and Bernstein doesn't, either. And on some level, it might not matter: The question is whether it has that effect, not whether Boehner wants it to have that effect. And I'd add one piece to this: The open rules are leading to a lot of ad hoc coalitions between congressional Democrats and more mainstream congressional Republicans. If these two groups get used to working with each other on small things, such as funding for police, that might help them work together on big things, such as avoiding a default or shutdown.