In all the intense focus on the Obamacare fight now playing out in the halls of Congress, very few are pointing out a rather depressing fact: this is only "Round 1." Out of three of these bouts on the schedule before 2014 dawns. It's important to keep the big picture in perspective, in other words. We're going to have this week's big showdown before the first of October, then we're going to fight all during October over the debt ceiling, and then we're going to have the very same fight we're having right now all over again in December, just in time for holiday shopping.

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It's all becoming clear now. House Republicans are just really big fans of Douglas Adams -- that's been their plan all along. Adams, in his brilliantly funny Hitchhiker's Guide series, told the story of the megacomputer "Deep Thought" who spent seven-and-a-half million years working on "the answer to the ultimate question of life, the Universe, and everything." Deep Thought famously came up with the answer to this weighty query: 42.

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Ted Cruz is finding out what it's like being on the receiving end of Tea Party anger. This is unusual, since he's normally dishing Tea Party abuse out, not taking it. The reason for all this anger? Cruz committed what is known as a "Washington gaffe," defined as "accidentally speaking the truth when politics dictate you espouse a lie." That's what Cruz just did, and that's why the Tea Partiers in the House are coming down on him like a ton of bricks.

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The politico-media empire which writes the rules of the Washington "What Serious People Are Saying" game have apparently decided that the government shutdown is now melodramatically going to happen. Cue ominous organ music blast (dum Dum DUM!). The key word in that opening sentence is "melodramatically," because our government can now be seen as nothing more than a continuing soap opera. Call it "As The Boehner Turns," or perhaps more appropriately "The Boehner And The Restless."

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This entire article is going to deal with nothing but spin. In fact, it's going to get so downright spinny that you may wish to haul that old turntable out of your closet, place it on your chair, and then sit right down on it -- so you'll be able to spin right along with the twisted logic I'm about to espouse. Just a friendly warning.

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Reading Putin's piece took me back to the halcyon days of the Cold War, but it seems most other people commenting on it either have shorter memories or are just too young to remember what I'm talking about.

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Speaker of the House John Boehner today had to postpone a vote on the budget. He had thought he had a bill which could appease both sides of his own party's caucus but it seems his diplomatic solution to the crisis was not acceptable enough to pass with just Republican votes. Boehner has proven, once again, that herding the cats of the GOP is currently nearly impossible, given the gaping split between the Tea Party hardliners and the saner Republicans who still care about the possibility of winning future elections. Boehner's diplomatic compromise was insufficiently catastrophic for the Tea Party, and rather than watching it go down in flames on the House floor, Boehner decided to suffer the lesser embarrassment of "delaying" the vote.

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Due to the fact that Congress is still on vacation and also due to the fact that it has largely been a one-subject week in the political world, we are going to pre-empt our regular talking points for a discussion of where the country seems to be on the question of attacking Syria. But first, let's wrap up the week and hand out our awards, as usual.

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For President Obama, August is the cruelest month. Every year, without fail, Obama slumps in the polls in the dog days of summer. This year was no different. That's the bad news, for Obama fans. The worse news is that there isn't a whole lot on the immediate horizon which could give Obama any sort of bump upwards in his polling numbers. But before we get to the future, let's take a look at the past month.

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Congress -- even in a good year -- barely works. That can be taken (equally correctly) either as "barely functions" or "barely ever shows up for work." In a pathetically-unproductive year (this Congress is on track to be the least productive Congress since records were kept), this should already have become painfully obvious to all.

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