Complicated Gifts

Reflecting back on the year that was, I think it's apt the the post-election season seems to have provided the liberal blogger so many gifts. Things like this New York Magazine story about the National Review cruise, rich with detail that keeps the shaden right on freuding.  It's a stocking stuffed with images of the clueless, the bitter, the regretful, and ruminations on the unbearable whiteness of being Mitt Romney.  For that matter, this tasty tidbit served up by Romney Number One son, Tagg, is fascinating as a psychological study despite its brevity for the depths it possibly reveals--

Is it possible Mitt Romney did not really want to be president? How does one run for about seven years without actually wanting to be president? He faced a contentious field in not one, but two primaries. He fund raised, he fibbed, he glad-handed, he glibbed, in short, he gave every indication to the outside world that, why yes, he might very much like to live in the White House (not that this is necessarily synonymous with being president). And yet he did not win, and his campaign was not run very well. Who knows what this explains?

But there's more--I've discussed the recent embarrassment of Speaker of the House John Boehner in the face of his unruly coalition, but this vignette from his negotiation with the President:

Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault. 

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?” 

“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”

reads just a bit like wish-fulfillment (although my post had to do with a Mitch McConnell viewpoint-correction--which may well be coming, yet).

Could there possibly be more? A shake-up at Freedomworks that hasn't entirely shaken out yet?  A tiff between Breitbrats? The NRA revealed to be spittle-flecked wackaloons?

None of these things are necessarily cheery, and yet in a small way, they toast the chestnuts of my heart, as I hope they do yours.

And on this seasonal note, have a happy thing you do, folks, and love and light and cool things to you all.

(X-posted at Rumproast.)