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For most of the 20th century, speaker of the House wasn’t a particularly important job – powerful committee chairs ruled, and speakers could do little about it. A long process of reform, however, removed most of the clout of those barons and strengthened party leadership, making modern speakers far more powerful than their mid-century predecessors. Since the modern speakership emerged in the 1970s, there have been three basic models of how to handle the office:

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What? Even Grover Norquist blessed Boehner’s proposal, saying it wasn’t really a tax increase. Even Paul Ryan supported it.

What does Boehner’s failure tell us about the modern Republican Party?

That it has become a party of hypocrisy masquerading as principled ideology. The GOP talks endlessly about the importance of reducing the budget deficit. But it isn’t even willing to raise revenues from the richest three-tenths of 1 percent of Americans to help with the task. We’re talking about 400,000 people, for crying out loud.

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Matalin suggested Krugman was more of a polemicist than an economist. And Will charged him with being unwilling to accept competing arguments.

Krugman asserted that Republicans have put nothing on the table to back up their talk about revenue, tax reform and entitlement cuts, calling their negotiating posture nothing but "big talk."

"So how is the president supposed to negotiate with people who say, "Here's my demands. By the way, I can't give you any specifics. Just make me happy," Krugman asked.

Matalin called Krugman "completely mendacious" and insisted that "Republicans have offered in theory and in specificity, for instance, to raise revenues, capping various deductions, not eliminating, but capping them, which the CBO says would raise $1.7 trillion over 10 years. They've been very specific."

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We just managed to get through a campaign in which the Republican candidate’s idea of innovation was to hold a convention themed around an out-of-context quote from his opponent. But we knew Mitt Romney was at his heart a manager, not a policy innovator. So maybe it will be better next time, with new candidates such as Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan. Right?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Of course, there’s still plenty of time for innovative conservative ideas. Hey, don’t laugh. Ronald Reagan campaigned on a whole book full of policy options, and as recently as 2000, George W. Bush really did feature new ideas in his campaign.

But neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney had any interest in such things – and judging from the three proto-candidates who rolled out their “ideas” this week, it looks as if Republican politicians these days don’t even remember what actual policy ideas look like.

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The Atlantic's headline is, "Are Republicans Getting Serious About Income Inequality?" As always, one is correct to silently add a "no" to the question posed in the headline. The Atlantic's David Graham is at least investigating the question rather than simply accepting the supposed Republican rebranding as important and genuine, as Politico does. (The Politico piece is written by, you guessed it, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen.)

At a dinner benefiting a foundation named for regressive taxation policy pioneer Jack Kemp, Rubio and Ryan both repeatedly paraphrased the lyrics to "We Take Care of Our Own" by Bruce Springsteen in order to prove that Republicans do not explicitly support the feeding of the lumpenproletariat directly to wolves.

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"Well, I think it's important to regularly meet with the unemployed. Glad you could make it."

What did Mitt Romney and Barack Obama talk about in their lunch meeting earlier today? Send your ideas to readermail@salon.com.

From the White House press release on the meeting:

This afternoon, President Obama and Governor Romney visited for an hour over lunch in the Private Dining Room adjacent to the Oval Office.  Governor Romney congratulated the President for the success of his campaign and wished him well over the coming four years. The focus of their discussion was on America's leadership in the world and the importance of maintaining that leadership position in the future.  They pledged to stay in touch, particularly if opportunities to work together on shared interests arise in the future.  Their lunch menu included white turkey chili and Southwestern grilled chicken salad.

Irin Carmon: "Could Romney's body language be any more awkward?"

Alex Seitz-Wald: "I love Obama's hand in the pocket. It seems a big FU to me, and an assertion of confidence, nonchalance."

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Based on their conduct since last week’s election, though, it’s safe to say that the two most recent national losers won’t be joining this company any time soon.

Mitt Romney has been publicly quiet since his brief remarks on election night, but he told his top donors on a conference call yesterday that Barack Obama had won by giving “very generous” freebies to key constituencies, including blacks, Hispanics and young people.

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While this trend transcends any one folly, Romney was the ideal, fossilized Republican awash in a fantasy golden age when bountiful bosses generated jobs and pampered laborers. Likewise, what bizarre political deviance tabbed Paul Ryan as more than a shrill ideologue with zero national clout? For the first time, both misfits atop a national ticket lost their home states. Remarkably, even that matchless twosome, McCain-Palin, outpolled (and outwinked) the votes to Romney-Ryan.

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The "American Pie" star refused to apologize for the following tweets which he sent forth during the Republican Convention. WARNING, they are graphic and vulgar and may not be appropriate for some readers.

Jason Biggs@JasonBiggs

I’d totes dip a pinky or two in Paul Ryan’s wife’s bleached asshole (she obvs bleaches her asshole). #RNC

29 Aug 12

Jason Biggs@JasonBiggs

I bet there’s footage somewhere of Paul Ryan jerking off to a close-up photo of his widow’s peak. #RNC

29 Aug 12

Jason Biggs@JasonBiggs

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The "American Pie" star took heat for off-color comments posted to his Twitter feed at the time of the Republican National Convention in August. The outpouring of criticism from parents groups, pundits and others led Nickelodeon to issue an apology for the actor's comments on the social media website. Biggs is providing one of the voices in the cable TV station's new animated series "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

"I made a political tweet, so I got a little bit of heat from the right," he said.

With elections over, Biggs says he's moving on.

He appeared Monday night in New York at the annual 24 Hour Plays event, which was sponsored by luxury pen-maker Montblanc to benefit the Urban Arts Partnership. The benefit draws more than two dozen actors who write, rehearse, and perform one of six plays that they began working on the night before.

Biggs' tweets have also poked fun at the Kardashians, Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan and the ABC show "The Bachelorette."

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At least, that's the case for Mitt Romney, who has lost an average of 847 Facebook friends per hour, Mashable reports.

Three days after he conceded, Romney had already lost 50,000 "likes" on Facebook, though he was still gaining fans up until Tuesday.

From Mashable:

"Soon after Romney conceded the election, though, his social media followers began dropping quickly. Since 11:30 on Tuesday, more than 55,025 users have unliked the Massachusetts Governor, at a rate of about 847 an hour.

Romney’s actually gained 17,601 Twitter followers since he lost the election. That’s odd, and might be more evidence of bot activity more than human interest, considering he hasn’t tweeted since 5:55 on Election Day—a final relic of a message reads 'With your help, we will turn our country around and get America back on the path to prosperity. Please vote today.'"

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It helps, of course, especially for those of us here in the godless left-wing media in the Gotham full of sodomites, that Biden makes his appearance as a man heading into his second term. For Amy Poehler's city councilwoman Leslie Knope to have a brush with a guy who'd just lost to Mr. Backwards Baseball Cap would have been a downer moment for the sitcom, a little hiss of air going out of the bit's tires. The scene, which was gently adjusted for two possible election outcomes, had to be kept top secret until after Nov. 6, lest "some provision might have to be made to give the Republican vice-presidential nominee, Representative Paul Ryan, a similar cameo."

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What happened to the Mittmentum? It’s Mitt-diculous! Did Hurricane Sandy blow Benghazi out of the water? Was it the economy? Was it a case of Bin Laden-is-dead-and-Chevy-is-alive? Was it Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Who Doesn’t Want the Government in her Vagina?

Here are just a few of the excuses why, according to the GOP, Lord Mittens will not be the next president of the United States:

1.  Someone forgot to block off the wheelchair ramps in Ohio.

2.  It’s not Mitt Romney’s fault that racism just isn’t as fashionable as it used to be. What’s next? Petticoats? Butter churns? Blood-letting?

3.  No one could have anticipated that single mothers (the ones whose children Mitt blames for all the gun violence in this country) owned shoes with such good arch support they could wait in line for nine hours to vote.

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But Romney had some rather glaring weaknesses as a candidate that weren't successfully exploited. For an unprincipled flip-flopping weirdo plutocrat with no ability to connect with normal humans, he's polling quite decently! Here are some of the Romney attacks that for whatever reason, never quite connected.

(You know how conservatives still bitterly/crazily claim that Obama wasn't properly vetted? This is sort of like that, except my "things that weren't vetted" are based in reality and not insane conspiracy theories.)

His Tax Returns

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The New Yorker endorsed him by noting "a run of ambitious legislative, social, and foreign-policy successes that relieved a large measure of the human suffering and national shame inflicted by the Bush Administration. Obama has renewed the honor of the office he holds."

Jonathan Chait of New York magazine, in a piece titled "Why He Is a Great President. Yes, Great," noted that "what can be said without equivocation is that Obama has proven himself morally, intellectually, temperamentally, and strategically. In my lifetime, or my parents’, he is easily the best president."

And yet. It's possible to agree with them and still wince when the New Yorker ascribes disappointment in Obama, in part, to "a reflection of the fantastical expectations that are attached to him."

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Ryan is still running for the seat he's held for seven terms, but the national race has consumed him. Aside from a stream of generic television ads, Ryan hasn't campaigned for his seat since Romney tapped him.

Zerban has accused Ryan of abandoning his district. Last week the Kenosha Democrat launched a "Focus on the First" mini-campaign of volunteer work to play up that he cares about the locals. But Ryan's absence doesn't appear to have hurt him. Even Democrats aren't optimistic about Zerban's chances of winning.

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