Let’s try to come up with some positive thoughts about the recent political fortunes of the Obama White House:

 Economy’s getting a little better. Deficit’s dropping.

 Bill Clinton had a really terrible second term and look how well things turned out for him.

 Nobody in the administration has been caught driving to Canada with Bo the dog strapped to the car roof.

It’s been quite a week, what with the I.R.S. scandal, the Benghazi controversy and revelations about the Justice Department’s sweep of The Associated Press’s phone records. Plus, the Russians came up with an alleged American spy in a bad wig who they said was caught carrying a compass, an atlas of Moscow and a ridiculous traitor-recruitment letter. That one could be a set-up, but if it’s real, then we are just going to have to cancel the summer.

Republicans were leaping joyfully through the capital like overcaffeinated gazelles. There is not a committee chairman in the House of Representatives who isn’t planning hearings of outrage about something — except maybe the poor woman John Boehner appointed to run the committee in charge of housekeeping.