Bottom of the Barrel

by John Turner| RSN
Thursday, 23 December 2010

There is widespread agreement that the Senate of the United States is a pathetic institution. If that’s true -- and I guess it is -- then the inhabitants of the Senate must also be less than sterling examples of humanity. If they were as bright as the members of a national legislature ought to be they wouldn’t have allowed their body to descend to its degenerate condition.

Thinking about the Senate raises the question of just how bad senators can get. Obviously, there are many candidates for the nadir, so many you wonder what was in the minds of voters who sent them to the capitol. You can even wonder if such voters have minds. But which state has voters so benighted they would choose the worst members of the U.S. Senate? That’s a question for the Christmas season.

Clearly -- really beyond doubt -- three states are in the running. They are -- in alphabetical order -- Arizona, Oklahoma and South Carolina. They have selected six men for the senate who are virtually unbelievable. But which pair is the worst? This is not a walkaway contest. There’s genuine competition here.

From Arizona, we have John McCain and Jon Kyl. As soon as you list their names you say, “My God!” and put your hand to your forehead. But you need to remember they both have been in the headlines recently for saying astoundingly dopey things about legislation that has just been passed. Yet this is a contest for behavior over a longer period than just the last month. Both Kyl and McCain have said insane things throughout their careers. So I’m not ruling them out. But we should insist that recent headlines alone not be allowed determine the winner of this contest.

Oklahoma has sent us Tom Coburn and James Inhofe. These are men who are not aware that the 20th Century occurred. In the case of Inhofe it seems almost insensitive to accuse him of being a bad senator. It’s as if the citizens of Oklahoma had sent a mule to the senate. Would you say that a mule was a bad senator, or would you just sit back and be regaled by the spectacle? Coburn is so obsessed by gay people he says they constitute the greatest threat to American freedom that exists. What can be made of a man who, in a world with fairly serious threats from disease, atomic weapons, and rampant climate changes, thinks that gay people out-threat them all? It’s hard to know what sort of mind that is.

The Palmetto state presents us with Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint. The latter falls almost into the same category as Jim Inhofe. You just can’t say what’s going on there. Should it be called mental illness? Like Coburn, DeMint is obsessed with sex and he seems almost to take his curious attitudes farther than the Oklahoma senator does. He doesn’t want single people who are schoolteachers to be able to have sexual relations. I don’t recall that he has announced a plan for sniffing them out but he must have a scheme of some sort or other. Thinking about it gives me the willies.

Then we come to Lindsey. You’ll recall that when he was in the House, and Republicans were in a state of mania about Bill Clinton, Lindsey led the charge for impeachment. Since then, there have been times when he hasn’t seemed quite as loony as his five companions. But when he does go nuts he does it in a bigger way. He wants, for example, to bomb Iran, evidently right now. He doesn’t think people born in the United States should automatically receive citizenship; he wants the Constitution changed to repeal that provision. And though he once seemed concerned about global warming, he has decided recently it’s not all that big a deal. He’s also incredibly smarmy.

I told you it wasn’t an easy choice. I couldn’t say, for sure, you were wrong if you chose any one of the three states. But after jumping back and forth, back and forth, Lindsey Graham’s face floats before my mind’s eye and I feel compelled to go with South Carolina. It’s the smarminess, I think, that does it for me. Lindsey may be not only the smarmiest person in the United States but the smarmiest person in the world. I say that but then of course, I think of Joe Lieberman.

I trust you understand all this is opinion. There’s no factual way to say who are the worst senators because there’s no factual way to say what’s bad. In your opinion, gay people may be the biggest threat, in which case, there you are.