I know you were worried. Could these two ex-Senators find work, one a rookie, the other a veteran? Leaving the Senate nest is always precarious, whether it’s voluntary (as Joe Lieberman can claim, not having sought re-election) or not (as Scott Brown must attest, having lost to Elizabeth Warren).

Well, worry not. Both these esteemed gentlemen have found paying gigs with organizations in Washington that will probably make very good use of their service to their country.

In any normal country, there would be no particular reason to expect 2013 to be an awful year. The right-wing Presidential candidate, who preached austerity, family values, and military adventurism, was soundly defeated by the center-left candidate, who favored, well, austerity-lite, personal freedom, and a fiscally convenient “peace dividend.” Overconfident and overfunded Republicans were similarly trounced in the House and Senate, losing seats in both despite stunning structural advantages.

It seemed that the Right’s perennial hobby horses, from favoring the wealthiest above all others and demonizing minorities of every type, to demanding that every non-military expenditure be slashed to the bone, had clearly been sent to the glue factory by the electorate. Alas, things are never what they seem in Washington.

During this year’s silly season aka the stretch drive to the November elections, I have been watching the self immolation of various Republican campaigns around the country with a bit of fascination. The topic of rape and incest as exceptions allowing a woman to have an abortion has caused great consternation amongst the chattering classes. From Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” to Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock’s “pregnancy from rape something God intended” (a variant on Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s rape is just another “method of conception“) to Washington US House candidate John Koster’s “the rape thing” to Wisconsin State Rep. Roger Rivard’s “some girls rape easy,” the topic of rape and abortion has been making headlines across the nation.

An official with the National Counterterrorism Center officially described the September 11 assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, which killed four Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, as a terrorist attack, though he hedged by saying it was an “unplanned” one.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has played an outsize role at national conventions for both parties for years. He was Al Gore’s VP pick for Democrats in 2000, and he spoke at the Republican convention in 2008 in support of John McCain over Barack Obama. This time around, though, neither party wants him to show up at their convention.

Late yesterday, Harry Reid nearly blindsided his Republican counterpart by passing President Obama’s one-year tax extension of the Bush tax rates on the first $250,000 of income. He called for a majority vote on both that plan and a full extension of all the Bush tax cuts, confident that he would win on both. Mitch McConnell declined.

Having read and heard a great deal about Romney’s Cranbrook hazing story today, at first I sort of agreed with Greg Sargent that it was an insignificant incident, happened when he was a teenager, etc. But I’d then have to ask Sargent and others: Did you really ever do anything like that?

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, appeared on CNN yesterday and refused to give in to the hot passions of the moment. On Iran, he not only demurred at the idea of the US going to war, but he shook his head at the notion of an Israeli strike, saying that it’s “not prudent” and “wouldn’t achieve [Israel's] long-term objectives.”

The world is better off because the contents of the cables are known, but the United States policy is not. Its recoil and refusal to confront and apologize for the majority of what became known has put it on a path of further disgrace and shame. It remains committed to prosecuting accused whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning, even though he may have played a role in exposing Tunisians, Egyptians and others to details on corruption in their countries.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), is holding a major hearing on whether the United States is safer ten years after the September 11th attacks. Homeland Security Department Janet Napolitano, FBI Director Robert Mueller and National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen will be testifying before the committee.