Guru Mitt is back. We knew him when...

I know it's not on your short list of things to know, but I will say it anyway:  Want to know what chutzpah is? I think I've figured it out beyond dispute.  It's Mitt Romney, the fellow who just lost an election by 5 million votes, piggybacking on Fox News as the emerging guru of choice to advise President Obama on how to run the Ship of State.

He hasn't learned that the political class doesn't really care what losers think, particularly those losers who were expected to win.  Is it rehab time for Mitt?  Republicans should hope not.

Speaking of Republicans, they did display a hint of intelligence by not inviting Chris Christie to the CPAC conference. Can anyone imagine a governor with a near-perfect approval rating in his home state appearing on the same program with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who  has a 27 pct. approval rating in Virginia (apart from his very conservative congressional district just  outside Richmond.)

And speaking more of Cantor, the March 4 issue of  the New Yorker examines the turmoil within the GOP in great depth to reveal how Speaker Boehner and Cantor serve at the pleasure of the Tea Party - the "unrulies" who have taken over the  Republican majority in the House, writes Ryan Lizza.   It's a long piece, but well worth a reader's time.

The Theater of Absurd on Capitol Hill

As we slogged through another day of the Theater of the Absurd on Capitol Hill,  it became clear that there were several levels of interpreting the monstrous action on and off the fiscal cliff stage.

(1) You could try to understand it as John Boehner's desperate attempt to save his speakership as well as his congressional seat, the country be damned.

(2) You could try to understand it as Eric Cantor's wily scheme to succeed Boehner -- Cantor, the modern Cassius whom Shakespeare described as a fellow with a "lean and hungry look" , adding: "he thinks too much; such men are dangerous.".

(3)You could try to understand it as  a new year's toast to Grover Norquist, the unelected anti-tax lobbyist who has a death grip on an army of  Republicans in the House of Representatives.

(4) You could try to understand it as a malignant hatred of President Obama, more so now that he won the election by nearly 5 million votes.

(5)You could try to understand it as unsurpassed,  if foolhardy,  grandstanding  driven by an absolute disregard of how history will remember the participants.

(6)Or you could try to understand it  as  the mob scene of a bunch  of overfed lunatics.

If you weave all of these into the narrative, you can see that we are in deep trouble, folks.