Las Vegas Gleaner

Budget veto/override drinking game

Every time someone defends Nevada Democrats and their failed 2009 legislative session by saying "at least it's better than what Jim Gibbons wanted," take a shot. (Warning: Democratic politicians assume that all they have to do is keep repeating "at least it's better than what Jim Gibbons wanted" and you will dutifully show up to vote for them next year -- because they're Democrats and you don't have a choice!  -- so participants in this game will likely be drunk for much of the next eighteen months.)

Pinky and the Brain

"Harry has consistently fought on those issues that matter, not just to Democrats but to middle-class families," Barack Obama said of Harry Reid at their combination variety show, fundraiser and schmoozefest at Caesars Tuesday.

For all his talents, and all the hope that his administration brings, it is probably for the best that from time to time Obama says something to remind everyone that he, too, at the end of the day, is a politician, and thus occasionally completely, totally and indisputably full of shit.

Reid "makes decisions and chooses battles based on the values he was raised with in Searchlight, Nev.," Obama added.

That part might be true -- youthful indoctrination would help explain Reid's obedient, revolting and unflagging service as the mining industry's bitch.

NV kookwits on parade

You might have thought that the stupidest thing to come out of the mouth of a Nevada Republican Tuesday would have been uttered by gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibbons, who continues to contend in campaign statements that it's all Barack Obama's fault that Nevada sucks.

Close.

But the winner would be Sen. Hairdo McWedgeshot, or John Ensign as he's known in his preferred beltway habitat, who wasted no time in congratulating the first Latina nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court (via Wonkette):

"Throughout the confirmation process, I will work with my colleagues and thoroughly review Judge Sotomayor’s record to make sure she has the right intellect and understands the proper role of a judge — to interpret and apply the written law, not to decide cases based on personal feelings, politics or preferences."

I don't know, I've never really thought about it in exactly these terms, but on reflection, this is a legitimate question: Is there somebody in the U.S. Senate less qualified to hazard an analysis of Sotomayor's intellect -- which is to say dumber -- than John Ensign? Craig Thomas is dead. Jim Bunning maybe? Jim Inhofe in a pinch?

In any case, even though Ensign is not on the Judiciary Committee (shocking, I know), he does think he is presidential material so he may emerge as a televised voice of Republican hostility to Sotomayor's nomination because she likes minorities or women or gays or abortions (but not torture!) or isn't churchy enough or whatever.

Good. Whether Ensign wades into it up to his Nivea styling product or not, nothing would remind the electorate of how out-of-touch the Republicans are with mainstream America than several weeks of full-on media saturation in right-wing social issues claptrap. But please, please, let Ensign be one of the right's poster boys. He's emerging as an increasingly amusing entertainment alternative to the now mostly tiresome Gibbons.