He could even handle the media, and the lowbrow ways they attacked him. He could live with the way they mocked his country club upbringing, and how he was a limousine liberal, supposedly lacking the common touch. The problem wasnt the media.

The problem was the House of Representatives. They were immature. They were moronic. They were sadistic. They were a mob of vandals, intent on dismantling him and taking him away, one piece at a time. It was as if the House was a student congress at a junior high school, but one where the children had elected the schools worst juvenile delinquents to office.

The mainstream Republicans were a rampaging horde of medieval barbarians, and the Tea Partiers were bomb-throwing anarchists. Meanwhile, closer to home, the House Minority Leader was eyeing his own future run for the Oval Office, and made it no secret that he was willing to throw the current President under the bus. The Blue Dog Democrats were two-faced traitorsglad-handing country cousins one minute, angry white men railing about Arabs and immigrants and inner-city crime the next. Every morning, Thomas Hayes woke secure in the knowledge that his pool of friends and allies was growing smaller by the hour.

You with me, Thomas?

Hayes looked up.

David Halstram, his chief of staff, stood across from him, fully dressed, looking like he always didawake, energetic, fully alive, in the battle and eager for more. David was 34 years old, and he had only been in the job nine months. Give him time.

When did the story come out? Hayes said.

About twenty minutes ago, David said. Its already trending on social media, and the TV stations are scrambling to line up guests to debate it on the 8a.m. shows. It has legs. Between Speaker Ryan and the Iran debacle and terrorists in New York, we are in a bad place right now.

Hayes made a fist with his right hand. He had punched exactly two people in his entire life. Both had happened long ago, when he was a kid in school. At this moment, he would like to make Representative Bill Ryan number three.

We were scheduled to have lunch tomorrow, he said. I thought that might be a step forward. Not that we would iron out everything in one meeting, but…