The GOPe will not hammer him. They are the loyal [but not too vocal] opposition. If they made asses of themselves undercutting Obama, they would lose that second-tier status in the DC Country Club the Administration and Democrats deign to give them.
Second-tier power? What is that? The ones really in control KNOW they need willing and incentivized ‘capos’, you know the trustees, the prisoner-Vichies, the gang-bosses. Giving them money through appropriations, kickbacks and some semblance of power keeps them in line and willing to appease. It is Graham, it is McCain, it is McConnell and all the rest of the appeasers.