When Mother Nature pounds on Washington's door

We've been talking about weather and politics this morning and if you're among the 100 million of us who found yourself in the middle of this storm, you had to love Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri's letter to Winter in yesterday's paper.

In what seemed to start out as a love note, she wrote, "It's been real, it's been lovely," but then she added, "I don't care what the groundhog said. You need to leave."

Well, she got that right! Even here in Washington where people usually put politics before food and shelter, it was the weather that had our attention.

And here's a news flash: Winter so far is not a crowd-pleaser.

Still, to be fair it's not all bad. Every time there's a bad flood or a hurricane, someone remarks it just shows that no matter our abilities, humans can never match the power generated by Mother Nature.

I never doubted that, but we got a new appreciation for Mother Nature's power last week. I'm not saying it's the only reason, but I am convinced that one reason the House and Senate acted so quickly to raise the debt ceiling was they wanted to get out of town before the big storm hit.

Think what you want of the debt ceiling, but anyone or anything with the power to get Congress off its rump gets my deep respect and admiration.