An interesting day, but I’m a bit distracted by this aspect of it:

Here are some remainders of the day:

* Good news: Obama reminds Republicans again that they need to win elections to gain a mandate to overturn his policies. Bad news: Obama refers to Washington as “this town.”

* Obama also nominates former Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson to become next Secretary of Homeland Security.

* Oh boy: John McCain and Louis Gohmert get into personal fight over each other’s “intelligence,” with McCain suggesting the Texan is a few bricks shy of a load and Gohmert asserting the 2008 Republican presidential nominee is an Arab-lover.

* At Ten Miles Square, Seth Masket offers another analysis of the House GOP divisions on the Senate fiscal deal, arguing they were largely ideological.

* At College Guide, Daniel Luzer explains Randall Kennedy’s theory of college admissions affirmative action as “benign discrimination.”

That’s it for now. Let’s bid a final back-of-the-hand to the government shutdown and its engineers, and hope they will soon be singing this great Badfinger song:

Selah.

Ed Kilgore

Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.