As weeks go, I think this has been a fascinating look at the Republican obstruction machine – and how willing they are to play politics with our future.

First, the Republicans fumed and fumed about the omnibus appropriations bill, as President Obama explained, last year’s undone business that had to be taken care of to move on to the urgent problems facing us. They held it up over the weekend, forced votes on a whole bunch of amendments this week that they knew wouldn’t pass just so they could try to play “gotcha” with the Democrats and then passed the bill on a voice vote. So much for principled opposition!

Then they fumed and fumed about how horrid David Ogden was – this is President Obama’s and Attorney General Holder’s eminently qualified choice to be the second in line at the Justice Department.  They wrung their hands about “hard left radicals” who have endorsed Ogden, such as the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Fraternal Order of Police, and the National District Attorneys Association.  The Republicans slow-walked the nomination through Committee and then threatened a filibuster in the full Senate, but couldn’t muster the votes.  The right-wing Family Research Council said they’d “score” the vote in an effort to hold senators accountable for the dastardly act of voting for Ogden and then today he was voted on by the full Senate and received a resounding 65-28 vote! Clearly the final result was not in doubt.

So what were these histrionics about?  And how long can they justify playing politics with America’s future?