I miss Michelle Obama's early years, when she was beautiful, a little awkward, maybe a little ambivalent about her new role, as a sane person would be. Now she is glamorous, a star, and like all stars assumes our fascination.

Mr. Obama "doesn't hide his disdain for Congress," for the "folkways of traditional Washington" or for Congress and the media. The president in the next few months should avoid "cheap theatrics," Mr. Fineman added: "Somebody has to be an adult in this situation, and it falls to the president."

The president doesn't hide his disdain for Congress, for the folkways of traditional Washington, for the petty egos in Congress and the media. He has unified the Democrats under his banner, but he doesn't think they need to be tended to personally.

As for the GOP, this isn't a level playing field; it's hardly a playing field at all. The Obamas are cool, appealing, connected (literally) and, as such, liked and trusted by most Americans. The GOP is none of those things, at least to most Americans, only 22 percent of whom identify themselves as Republicans today.

More important, Obama's policies are generally liked by the public as a whole. Voters claim to distrust government and surely dislike Washington, but they also agree with the president's we're-all-in-this-together domestic policies, his nonjudgmental social views and his natural (and seemingly growing) distrust of heavy military commitments abroad.

Culturally isolated, politically cornered, lacking direction and confidence as they struggle to assemble a new vision, Republican conservatives (a redundancy these days) are ready to fight back the only way they think they can: by shutting down government. House Republicans and their Senate allies, such as the commie-hunting Texan Ted Cruz, are eager to play the role of '60s students occupying the admin building, while House Speaker John Boehner plays the role of the clueless Dean Wormer.

It's a potentially farcical and juvenile replay of a profound moment almost 60 years ago, when the late William F. Buckley launched his conservative National Review by writing that it " stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it."

Buckley wasn't into cheap theatrics and government shutdowns. Neither should Obama be. Somebody has to be an adult in this situation, and it falls to the president

The air of establishment Washington is filled with talk that Obama must “lead.” But Obama cannot force the House Republican majority to act if it doesn’t want to. He is (fortunately) not a dictator.

What Obama can do is expose the cause of this madness, which is the dysfunction of the Republican Party.

Journalists don’t like saying this because it sounds partisan. But the truth is the truth, whether it sounds partisan or not.

And a staunch conservative has succinctly explained why this problem really is a Republican problem. In an admirably candid interview Monday with Ezra Klein on MSNBC, Ben Domenech, a conservative blogger, said the new tea party Republicans in the House don’t want their leadership to sit down with Obama to talk because “they have their doubts about the ability of Republicans to negotiate any better situation.”

Read that carefully: We are in this mess because Republicans don’t trust their leaders to bargain. Domenech added that many conservatives “don’t buy this distinction between smart cuts and dumb cuts,” a distinction that is not “all that critical.” This is astonishing: Government is bad, so all cuts are more or less the same. And you wonder why we have a crisis?

The House started its day Monday at 2 p.m. Before leading the Pledge of Allegiance, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) requested a roll-call vote on approving the journal of proceedings from the last day in session — a time-wasting technique.

Next, Rep. Joe “You Lie” Wilson (R-S.C.) requested a minute of time to speak his mind, closing with his standard sign-off: “In conclusion, God bless our troops, and we’ll never forget September 11 and the global war on terror.” After Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) spoke about climate change, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Tex.) had something to say about “the president’s takeover of health care.”

Next, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) pleaded for the House to “abandon this reckless policy” of sequestration. Foxx, citing an op-ed by Bob Woodward in Sunday’s Washington Post, replied that the sequester “was the brainchild of the Obama administration” and that it is up to Democrats to replace it.
It was 2:10 p.m. — 10 minutes into the day’s proceedings — and the speaker called a three-hour recess. Finally, it was time for the NASA renaming. The task before the House: to put Armstrong’s name on the facility, relegating that of Hugh L. Dryden, a NASA engineer who died almost 50 years ago, to the facility’s test range.

The bill passed the House in the last Congress by a vote of 404 to 0 (the Senate didn’t take it up), so it could have cleared the chamber with a simple voice vote. But that would not have eaten up much time. And so McCarthy and five other lawmakers chewed up almost half an hour on the floor praising Armstrong and Dryden.

The lone Democrat to speak, Rep. Donna Edwards (Md.), noted the irony in the vote. “We will do our renaming today,” she said, and then “we will take an ax hammer to NASA’s budget on March 1, at the end of this week, taking out $894 million from an already strapped budget. I dare say future generations will not be inspired by what this Congress will do.”

The speaker declared another recess.