Fever breaking?

In meetings with donors and editorial boards during the 2012 campaign, Obama suggested that his reelection would "break the fever" of fanatic GOP opposition to everything he proposed. The fiscal cliff brinksmanship at the turn of the year did nothing to suggest any such "break"-through, as Obama acknowledged in a New Republic interview conducted in mid-January and published just yesterday:

Chris Hughes: You spoke last summer about your election potentially breaking the fever of the Republicans. The hope being that, once you were reelected, they would seek to do more than just block your presidency. Do you feel that you've made headway on that?

Not yet, obviously.

CH: How do you imagine it happening?

I never expected that it would happen overnight. I think it will be a process. And the Republican Party is undergoing a still-early effort at reexamining what their agenda is and what they care about. I think there is still shock on the part of some in the party that I won reelection. There's been a little bit of self-examination among some in the party, but that hasn't gone to the party as a whole yet.

Now, just a day after that interview appeared, the doctor may be looking up and offering some cautious optimism.  For a day at least, the stonewall seems to be cracking at three points: