Big things going on, troubling policy decisions, leading to corpses, and everyone wants to be recognized for the brave way they dig through piles of email, in a gigantic game of Words With Frenemies.

Today, Chris Wallace will Benghargle with Representatives Mike Rogers (R-Mich) and Adam Smith (D-Wash) and then he'll let Mark Sanford get handsy, and then there will be a panel, probably.

Good morning to one and all and welcome again to your quickly-typed liveblog of the facepalms and sighs that result from watching the flickering images of the Sunday morning political prattle programs.

Naturally, John McCain was available this morning for Meet the Press, because life is just one crap sandwich that you have to swallow over and over again.

So, how was your week? Bit rollercoastery, emotionally speaking? Yes, I would imagine so. And now it all gets to culminate here, on Sunday morning, on these terrible political chat shows.

Today, it looks like most of the action is centered on the various things that Congress might actually try to pull off -- like, passing laws and stuff. It's been a tricky hang of late, what with all the terrible incompetence.

Good morning and welcome once again to your Sunday morning liveblog, which transforms approximately three hours of political talk-show blather into concentrated form and then there are quickly typed judgments and observations and then everyone goes on about their lives a little less worried or jaded.

Today, Chris Wallace is going to be talking to Mark Kelly about gun control, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl about the new Pope. I forget sometimes that instead of having the decency to take Easter Sunday off, these dumb shows instead try to inject themselves into the holiday. Will these shows take Christmas off? We won't find out until December 2016.

We have wrapped up the annual CPAC conference, we have a new Pope, we have no Grand Bargain, and apparently the clouds are going to belch one more layer of slush on Washington before winter is finally dragged off into the woods to be put down, once and for all.

Watching George Stephanopoulos' revenge of the nerd-style interview with Dennis Rodman on This Week, I was struck by the devastating common sense wisdom the five-time NBA Champion brought to his role as an accidental international diplomat.

I like how Mitt and Ann Romney are described as "speaking out." Remember when we used to reserve the term "speaking out" for people bravely blowing the whistle on someone powerful or raising their voice in pursuit of some sort of justice, and not "rich dude who got booked on a blather show?"

There are apparently going to be multiple roundtable blather-cons today, beginning with the opening act: Representative Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), Representative Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) (also possessor of Congress' fiercest mustache), George Will, and Christiane Amanpour.

Maybe there will be a lot of clear-eyed thinking today on these Sunday shows -- and I see that Meet The Press has booked John McCain so never mind, sorry, business as usual.

Chris Wallace is going to be talking about the Pentagon dropping the ban on women in combat (as a formal distinction) with retired Air Force colonel Martha McSally and retired Army Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin. Then Senators Dick Durbin and Bob Corker will yell at each other. Then there will be a panel. Then the earth keeps turning.

If you are planning to come to Inauguration tomorrow, I'll warn you in advance that it definitely falls under the category of a supposedly fun thing that you'll never do again, like going to Times Square on New Year's Eve (never, ever, EVER do this) or visiting your old high school math teacher (ugh, so disappointing).

Today's offerings feel more like a grab-bag of topics, which I guess is nice, because next Sunday will probably be some super ponderous morning of thumbsucking over Inauguration Weekend and What It All Means. (What it means, for me, mainly, is that getting around Washington is going to be a Sartrean ordeal.)

Welcome to the Sunday where I try to get through the Sunday morning political chat shows with enough of my sanity and dignity left over to make it to a bar to watch the football game this evening.

The elephant in the room today is this terrible tragedy that occurred in Newtown, Connecticut, which may be the saddest thing I've seen in the news since I started writing here in 2007.

So, what's brewing up on Fox News Sunday? Fiscal cliff bullroar and Syrian chemical weapons, a classic combination. Here today to jabber about this stuff until they are blue in the face are Chuck Schumer and Bob Corker, plus Ambassador Michael Oren, and also a panel.

It looks very much like now until the end of the year we will be spending our Sundays watching various people act all panicky over the Fiscal Glyph that is dominating the news.