Christmas came early for Paul Ryan this year. John Boehner just handed him a big present, in the form of a budget and debt ceiling agreement which will last until the next president is in office. This, if it passes, means the days of Republicans threatening Barack Obama with shutdowns and defaults are finally over. Which is why it's such a large gift to Ryan, because it assures him that he won't be forced into letting the Tea Partiers play their hostage-taking games until at least after the next election. All the Tea Party loathing for the deal can be laid at the outgoing speaker's feet, leaving Ryan unscathed as he enters the job of leading the House of Representatives.

He didn't exactly sound thankful, but that's all part of the Kabuki theater of Republican politics. Here's what Ryan had to say about the deal:

About the process, I can say this. I think this process stinks. This is not the way to do the people's business and under new management we are not going to do the people's business this way. We are up against a deadline, that's unfortunate. But going forward we can't be doing the people's business -- as a conference, we should have been meeting months ago to discuss these things to have a unified strategy going forward.

Most of the inside-the-Beltway punditocracy focused on the "this process stinks" quote, and many didn't even bother to provide the rest of what Ryan had to say. This is because the punditocracy loves the shiny, shiny object of "conflict" (which they report on to the exclusion of all else at times). Ryan disses Boehner! Ryan says plan "stinks"! Will Ryan vote against Boehner deal? The headlines scream at the perceived badmouthing of the outgoing speaker of the House by the heir-apparent speaker -- even when the pundits know full well this is nothing more than bad acting worthy of a second-rate soap opera. Ryan isn't angry at Boehner -- far from it, in fact. Ryan's not going to come out and publicly admit it, but he knows that the deal Boehner just struck could mean the difference between a short and disastrous term as speaker and a longer and more successful term for Speaker Ryan. So, in private at least, we can all rest assured that Ryan is profoundly thankful to Boehner for (as Boehner keeps putting it) "cleaning out the dirty barn" before his exit.

What struck me (and, to be fair, a handful of other pundits) about Ryan's quote was the second half -- the part that most news stories didn't even bother to provide. Ryan swears that "under new management" things are going to be different. Then at the end, he reveals what he thinks should have been going on: "as a conference, we should have been meeting months ago to discuss these things to have a unified strategy going forward." Ryan may not realize it, but he is condemning his own lack of leadership by saying this. When you first read the quote, it sounds like a continuation of badmouthing Boehner. But when you think about what he's saying, the finger points right back at Ryan.

Paul Ryan's current job -- the one he's been in for a while -- is chairman of the primary budget-writing committee in the House. He's always been known as a budget wonk, and he now has what he considers his dream job -- being responsible for drafting the Republican budget bills. Who else among Republican leadership should have been driving the discussion or presenting a "unified strategy going forward"? If Paul Ryan were a true leader, then he already would have been doing so for months. He hasn't. He even helpfully pointed out the lack of such leadership in his own statement.

The only thing which was stopping Paul Ryan from hammering together a deal on a par with the one Boehner just created was nothing more than politics -- the politics within his own party. Boehner's deal is a compromise, as all successful budget deals are. It's not even really "Boehner's deal," it was put together by not only Boehner but also Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and Harry Reid. Democrats are going to provide a hefty share of the votes, if it passes. Because of this, it is a fairly balanced deal. It is not 100 percent of what the Tea Party wants and zero percent of what President Obama wants. Once again -- there was nothing stopping Paul Ryan from putting together this (or a similar) deal months ago, and then rallying his party behind it. Nothing.

The speed at which this deal came together reveals an ugly Washington secret as well. This horse-trading is not actually as difficult as it has seemed these past few years. Democrats present a list of "deal-breakers" and a list of what they want. Republicans present their own list of deal-killers and their own agenda items. Anything on the deal-killing list from both sides is set aside for later. The remaining goodies are divided up proportionally between the two parties. Both sides get some face-saving items, so they can sell the deal as a whole to most of their caucus. It ain't (not to get repetitive from yesterday's column or anything) exactly rocket science. Which is why such deals can usually be hammered out in a few days.

Deals of this nature always are a bridge too far for a certain segment of both parties. There will be "no" votes from both sides of the aisle on this deal, in all likelihood. That's the nature of our constitutional government -- not everybody gets everything they want. Party unity is rare in budget deals, to put this another way. But Ryan seems to think that it is possible. Again, that key line: "as a conference, we should have been meeting months ago to discuss these things to have a unified strategy going forward." But what do you do when "a unified strategy" is simply not possible given the intransigence of the Tea Party faction? What Paul Ryan did, as chair of the budget committee, was to fail to hold meetings for months on end, fail to drive the discussion within his own party, and fail to create any sort of unified strategy at all. He laid low, and let John Boehner pay the price for a lack of party unity on their budget strategy.

That's not going to be an option for him the next time around. John Boehner will draw all the rage from the Tea Partiers for this bargain, as he heads out the door. But the very fact that Boehner had to put together a deal of this magnitude only highlights Ryan's lack of progress. Ryan has hammered out budget agreements with Democrats previously -- he knows how to do it. He could have done so this time around, but he chose not to. He chose not to lead, even though he's the budget committee chairman.

Ryan is attempting to play "good cop" to Boehner's "bad cop," to gain credibility with the Tea Partiers. He may even vote against the budget deal to further this goal. But when he delivered his line about how the process "stinks," he inadvertently pointed out his own stunning lack of leadership on the issue. Under his "new management" of the House, though, he won't have anyone else to pass the buck on to. John Boehner saved Ryan from having to exercise such leadership until the spring of 2017, but sooner or later Ryan is going to have to do pretty much exactly what John Boehner just did. Ryan can have party unity -- "a unified strategy going forward" -- or he can get an actual budget bill passed. But he likely can't have both at the same time. Deep down, he knows this, which is quite likely the reason why he didn't hold meetings on the subject for the past few months. If he had done so, he would have shouldered some of the blame Boehner is now getting from the radicals. He can avoid such blame this time, but it'll be impossible to dodge next time, when he's sitting in the speaker's chair.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant