attribution: REUTERS
As the year went on, John Boehner would get progressively blurrier.
We're recapping the year in political dysfunction. We're on April now. April was miserable, rotten, dismal, and soul-crushingly horrible, so let's just get this over with and be done with it.
- Ken Cuccinelli was not always a failed gubernatorial candidate. He was once a prospective gubernatorial candidate, making a name for himself in conservative circles by demanding the federal courts reinstate Virginia's invalidated sodomy laws.
- Sen. James Inhofe, who has been popping up in a hell of a lot of places in these roundups, dismissed the families of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, saying that the debate over gun violence didn't have anything to do with them:
"I think it's so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn't."
Republican efforts to kill gun legislation were successful. Inhofe next lent his name and office to a militia-fueled conspiracy theory that the government was buying up all the ammo so that gun owners wouldn't have any.
- This year's first bid for a new conservative savior Ben Carson turned out to have a very short shelf life. Oh well, on to the next one?
- Or maybe not; the Republican Party had decided by April that no rebranding was needed. Stay the course! No problems here!
- The Boston marathon bombing happened. The suspects hadn't even been caught yet before certain conservative groups were blaming abortion and "sexual liberalism." Yeah, that one's so gross as to not even be funny. Here's a much funnier thought: let's just fire the staff of the Family Research Council into the sun.
- Rep. Louie Gohmert asserted that the Obama administration was chock full of Muslim Brotherhood members, because of course he did. There can be no question that Gohmert is truly deserving of the title of America's Dumbest Congressman.
- The House Republicans issued their "report" on Benghazi. It was, to put it mildly, not a serious effort.