If you do a search on Politico for “Boehner to Reid go fuck yourself,” nothing happens. And yet a Politico story about the Republican Speaker of the House having twice told the Democratic Majority Leader to do this inside the White House last Friday broke last night about 10:20 pm Pacific.

If I was writing for Late Night for David Letterman, tonight’s joke would go something like this: “So those really intense fiscal cliff negotiations…you’re all up to speed on that, right? Nobody is. Anyway, turns out that last Friday, and just outside of the Oval Office yet, John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, lost his cool and walked up to the Senate’s Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and said, according to one well-placed source, “You worthless secretion of brown-green slime sliding down my leg under my suit pants…go fuck yourself!” To which Reid replied, “Whoa, what…whaddaya mean?” To which Boehner replied, “You heard me, you wretched contemptible piece of dogshit! Go fuck yourself!” But the quote was trimmed down for publication.”

It was the story of the night because it’s comforting to know that older men in high positions of authority, men expected to keep up appearances and maintain decorum and civility at all times, lose it just like we all do now and then, or specifically like I do when I’m having issues with one of my Macbook Pros.