Despite GOP term limits, Republicans allow Paul Ryan to continue as head of Budget Committee

Here, have some nightmare fuel. Even though vice presidential Mini-Mitt Paul Ryan was reelected to congress, this was to have been the last year of his highly prized House Budget Committee chairmanship. That's because the Republicans have an ostensible rule that term limits committee chairmen and/or ranking members to six years in those plum positions, partly because Republicans really like term limits and partly to give other members a chance to rake in some of the sweet, sweet campaign money that comes from being in those positions of maximal power. Whatever is the case, I can't think of a better way to welcome official "GOP intellectual" Paul Ryan back into the congressional fold than for the GOP to ignore simple rules of math for his benefit:

Speaker John Boehner is declaring that nobody but Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., fresh off his unsuccessful vice presidential bid, will be granted a waiver from internal GOP term-limit rules requiring several members to give up their chairmanships next year.

'He told me he wants to limit it to Ryan,' said Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., of such a waiver, on Thursday.

Well, there's some good news: Republican Math Guy will be the only recipient of the magical "rules are for everyone else" waiver, and Peter King specifically won't be getting one. (I have to believe that King isn't especially well-liked even in the GOP, because, well, c'mon. Have you heard him?)

It does, however, fit very well. As the last fragments of the Romney/Ryan campaign flutter to the ground, one last confirmation: Paul Ryan is above your petty party rules, and when Paul Ryan is involved with something, the math is whatever Paul Ryan wants it to be.