POLITICS: Which Politicians Had the Best—and Worst—Year?

Who had the best year in Washington? Probably Mr. John Boehner, the Washington Post decides. Nobody else believed in Boehner’s vision of a GOP House takeover, but the speaker-elect made it happen. But that’s not the fun question. The fun question is: Who had the worst year? Barack Obama is the tempting answer, but he had some big legislative victories. No, the Post hands the copper ring to the infamous Michael Steele.

Oh sure, Steele nominally presided over a Republican resurgence. But “to describe Steele as a distraction … would do a disservice to distractions,” Chris Cillizza writes. Steele kept churning out the gaffes, like calling Afghanistan “a war of Obama’s choosing,” or inadvertently bashing Thurgood Marshall. And who could forget the RNC’s bondage night out, among other spending snafus? At a time when Republicans badly needed reinvention, “he was so focused on being Michael Steele that he forgot he was the leader of the Republican Party.”