“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you concentrate on.”
— George W. Bush

“It is the tragedy of the world that no one knows what he doesn’t know — and the less a man knows, the more sure he is that he knows everything.”
— Joyce Cary

Larry (not his real name) pretty much confirms what many of us already suspected about the “I hope he fails” crowd. After years of taking public surveys, Lar developed this scientific rule of thumb, which can be stated thusly: “Twenty percent of the American people are utter freaking morons.” To put it another way, about two out of ten knew such tidbits as all or most of the rights guaranteed in the First Amendment, the names of their two senators, in what century the Second World War was fought, who LBJ was and what his initials stood for, and how old the United States is; six of ten knew at least one senator, and managed to get more than half of the American history/political questions correct; two out of ten, meanwhile, barely knew what century they were living in and were hard put to name the kind of skin used to make a bear skin rug. Guess what political party and ideology was embraced by 90 percent of the bottom-feeding twenty percent, and who their favorite radio talk show host was?

Speaking of Rush Limbaugh, I heard the other day that the three most well-known Republicans in the nation were Maj. Anal Cyst, Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber’s Helper, a regular triumvirate of Jim Crow snark, Wasillabilly fark and dee-do-diddley dumb fronting for the wealthy old firm of Dewey, Cheatum and Howe. The GOP is in the process of desperately trying to shore up its dwindling ‘base’ of Jaywalk All-Stars, and the Democrats, borrowing their gumption from single-cell amoeba, continue to flinch at the shadow of the embalmed corpse of Ronald Reagan, the threatened filibusters of King Wanker Mitch McConnell, and the fading influence of the soon-to-be perp walked Karl Rove. I’ve given up seeking the goose juice to make the Dems act like winners for a change. We can only hope Sheriff Obama will be able to corral these shaky steers long enough to pass legislation to end Bush’s National Nightmare. Out of ideas, out of favor, out of power, and sinking ignominiously into the Hee Haw-rerun party, this is all the GOP has left.

Former Dan Quayle Chief of Staff and Original Neocon Bill Kristol, lately bounced from the NY Times op-ed page as even Andy Rosenthal could no longer cover for his nitwittery with a straight face, has laid out the reason for the strident and baffling GOP opposition to the badly-needed stimulus package: this is just the warm-up to the big fight coming over health care reform, of which the Republicans want none, contrary to the wishes of the vast majority of the public. Why does the right-wing hate America?

I’ve been in a few fancy bathrooms in my life, including a luxurious $30,000 banyo with a shower the size of a walk-in closet, a separate sunken marble tub large enough to accommodate three adults lying down side-by-side comfortably, a two-person sauna, and gold-plated everything, even the pipes running from the back of the toilet. That’s why I wonder how Bush’s Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, a ‘good, decent Christian man of the West,’ managed to spend $235,000 on his office bathroom. Did Republican contractors take him to the cleaners? Or did he think, since he was the head of Interior, he should have the best interior head? What did he do in that restroom that made it worth a quarter-million dollars — more than most of America pays for a home? Moreover, will Congress act to force him to pay it back? (I won’t hold my …uh, water.)

Finally, the disgusted workers at the US Department of Labor held a ‘Good Riddance’ party for outgoing Secretary Elaine Chao, AKA Mrs. Sen. Mitch McConnell. Rumor has it that demoralization had reached suicidal stages under Junior’s pick.