Not to go all Panglossian on you, but let's do ponder, once again, the boundless entertainment value of a retaken GOP House, with the command-challenged John Boehner sort of in charge, and a fattened-GOP Senate, whether with Mitch McConnell as majority or minority leader.
In the former, the hijinks will of course commence immediately, probably beginning with right-winging, tea-partying vows to defund huge chunks of health-care reform. Then will come the sudden realization that extremist governance is much dicier than extremist politics. The tea-partying base -- all of, what, maybe 20 percent of the new incumbents' constituencies? -- will not be amused by their leaders' new-found love of survival.
There's also in play the new toy of subpoena power -- a double-barreled showgun aimed right at the GOP's feet. Will the revolutionaries be judicious enough to restrain themselves? -- perhaps consult the NRA on responsible gunplay? Most likely not. Michele Bachmann will not be denied.
The radical jewel in their crown, however, will be another government shutdown. Revenue bills to further comfort the unreasonably comfortable will fly furiously to the Senate (Mitch's?) and the White House, where presidential vetoes will rebound just as furiously. No doubt Mr. Boehner will be given a ride in Air Force One's second-class-citizen compartment.
Feelings will bruise, tempers will flare, Fox and MSNBC will rejoice in stratospheric ratings, the country's leading loudmouths will prosper. The revolution will then implode and the government reopen.
In the Senate it makes little difference whether Mr. McConnell reigns as actual majority leader, since Senate rules give equal if not greater power to whichever party has been thoroughly rebuffed in the democratic process. James Madison's celestial reservations about minority rights will renew.
At any rate, picture this: Sens. Joe Miller and Sharron Angle and Rand Paul "negotiating" with the likes of Sens. Mark Kirk and Scott Brown and Olympia Snowe. A clash of the Teutons, the Senate as bughouse Bastille, the raucous patients of Bedlam -- I am infinitely beguiled by these prospects.
And just think of the bevy of quotable quotes that lies in wait. Rand's mind-bending justifications of trillion-dollar budget busts, Sharron's happy twists on senior-citizen poverty as lemonade -- by God they've lost their pluck; reentering the workforce at age 87 should do them some good, and Joe's unhinged thunderings about Frederick Jackson Turner having had it all wrong.
As we all know, nothing, really, will get done for two years anyway. If the Dems preserve their majorities, they will have done so only by cautiously preening before the vast and nervous middle: a preview of 2011, with 2012 just around the electoral corner. So why not revel in the alternate, entertaining vision of a GOP Congress, which quite possibly could be the last.