In taking in the news of the 112th Congress' first new steps (especially those taken by the Republican House of Representatives), I had to wonder -- how will the Tea Party and the Tea Partiers be treated by the mainstream media, going forward? Will they still have a voice in the media's political coverage of the next two years, and what will that voice say? To put the point I'm trying to make more succinctly: will the Tea Partiers become "old news" to the media?

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The newly-Republican House of Representatives is going to start off their tenure with a gimmick. Or, to be slightly more charitable, a bit of political theater. They're going to read the entire United States Constitution on the floor of the House, as a sop to the Tea Party Republicans. Their aim is twofold -- to appease the Tea Party Republican faction, right from the get-go; and to provide stirring video clips of Republicans faithfully reading our country's founding document. There's one problem with this second goal, though: who gets to read the uncomfortable bits?

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President Barack Obama had a mildly good month in the polls during December. Not a fantastic month, mind you; maybe not even a great month... but a mildly good month, nonetheless.

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Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!

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President Barack Obama gave an afternoon press conference today, and he sounded a lot more confident than he has sounded for quite a while. The reason for this is that the 111th Congress is ending with a bang, and not the expected whimper. After the Democrats' "shellacking" (to use Obama's preferred term) in the midterm elections, few inside-the-Beltway prognosticators figured much of anything would get done in the lame duck session of Congress before the newly-elected Congress is seated in January. As it turned out, this conventional wisdom was wrong. The lame duck Congress produced more weighty legislation than most lame ducks manage -- a fitting end to two years with more significant legislative victories than any Congress since Lyndon B. Johnson (or even Franklin D. Roosevelt, depending on how you score these things). Which is why President Obama had good reason to sound as confident as he did today.

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Both houses of Congress have now passed the bill which repeals the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (DADT), which did not allow gay Americans to openly serve their country in military uniform. President Obama has scheduled a signing ceremony for the repeal bill this Wednesday. While this is a significant achievement on the civil rights/gay rights front, it is also a significant political achievement. And one man stands out as the driving political force behind the successful effort to repeal this discriminatory federal policy. Which is why, today, I'd like to publicly thank Senator Joe Lieberman.

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My apologies to anyone tuning in who was expecting to see the 150th "Friday Talking Points" column, since it will be pre-empted for two weeks here. But the good news is we're doing so to bring you our annual "McLaughlin Awards," which are even more fun!

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The House of Representatives has just voted overwhelmingly to repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (DADT), which forbids gays from openly serving their country. The vote was an impressive 250 to 175 -- which is sixteen more votes for repeal than the previous tally in the House (when they voted on the issue as part of the Pentagon's yearly budget). What this vote means is that we are now only one Senate floor vote and a presidential signing ceremony away from a historic end to such blatant discrimination being enshrined in federal law. Whether the Senate will pass the measure before the end of the year or not is still uncertain, but even with the down-to-the-wire nature of the lame duck session, this still represents the best chance for DADT's repeal yet -- and also the last chance for what could be a very long time to repeal the policy by legislative means.

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But, as Howard Dean points out, healthcare reform can succeed without it. Which means there shouldn't be anything standing in the way of throwing the whole idea of the mandate under the political bus, so to speak. Or, since the Tea Partiers hate it too, perhaps "throw it overboard" would be a better metaphor.

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A theme has emerged, in recent years, of America as a nation almost hopelessly divided, politically. This theme is most often reinforced by such superlative declarations (by "journalists" who really should know better) as "America is more politically divided than ever," or "this is the most politically polarized Washington has ever been," or similar such alarmist rhetoric. It has even gotten to the point where many see such statements as truisms -- statements so obviously true that they are seen as irrefutable. This is a gross error, born of the fact that most "journalists" simply have no concept of their own country's history. Because while we are indeed currently politically divided and somewhat polarized, this is actually our normal state as a nation -- and on the polarization scale, we're nowhere near the "most divided" we've ever been. Far from it.

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