I cannot stop this nagging feeling in the pit of my gut that there may be some political good coming from the Sandy Hook school massacre.

The nation continues its grief over the unconscionable terror that visited the Newtown, Conn., school this past Friday. Twenty children died, along with six teachers in the slaughter perpetrated by a lone gunman, who then killed himself.

It will be a long time before we stop talking about those precious babies and those who sought to protect them from the madman. May their memories live forever in our hearts.

But is it interesting that in the wake of that horror, everything else seems insignificant? Even the so-called “fiscal cliff” talks in Washington now seem to be the stuff of petty petulance.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/17/politics/fiscal-cliff/index.html?hpt=hp_bn3

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are negotiating over tax rates for rich folks. Boehner is ready to consider boosting rates for those who earn a million bucks a year; Obama is sticking to his $250,000 annual income demand. They’re moving closer on a number of fronts … suddenly, as the nation turns its attention to matters of the heart and soul.

It strikes me today that differences between Democrats and Republicans no longer seem to matter as much as it did, say, the beginning of this past week. The gunman hadn’t yet done his evil deed and everyone in D.C. was focused on how to put one over on the other side.

Now it seems that everyone on both sides of the political debate seems small. And who among them – given what the nation is enduring in the wake of such profound tragedy – wants the public to blame either side for a failure to prevent fiscal catastrophe because of something called “political principle”?