Sunday Roundup

This week, as Joe Biden inched closer to jumping into the presidential race, Ben Carson inched closer to forcing us to retire the use of "brain surgeon" as a linguistic stand-in for "brilliant genius," with thunderingly dumb comments about guns, the Umpqua Community College shooting, and the Holocaust. Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans took on the trappings of a badly written soap opera, with Kevin McCarthy abruptly withdrawing from contention as the next Speaker due to opposition from Tea Partiers who didn't find him conservative enough -- or was it really because of those rumors of a steamy extramarital affair with a colleague? Tune in next time for "As the GOP Turns"... Is it any surprise that neither John Boehner nor Paul Ryan wants a position that has gone from someone who can get things done to someone who promises to stop all things from getting done? Welcome to today's Washington.