John Ensign must REALLY hate The Gleaner.

Click the image to see it in full-screen glory. Swipe it if you like it.

The Gleaner is one huge reason why I needn't bother with local politics. There is someone else out there that actually likes politics and can write a slugline like this:

Senator Sunshine gets his panties in a bunch

After expressing his "extreme disappointment" with the SEIA for having the ill-advised temerity to support of a bill that he, the Magnificent Hairdo, opposed, Sen. McWedgeshot accused the organization of being partisan, and warned the solar energy bidnesses that "following a partisan playbook is not a proven or wise track."

Yes. A Republican wrote that.

Then Ensign showed that beneath that splendidly coiffed and cute-as-a-button exterior lies a bitchy little thin-skinned primadonna:

"It is rare to have such overwhelming bipartisan support in today's partisan climate" (yes, again, that'd be a Republican complaining about a partisan climate), but the solar industry had it and your association's leadership squandered it. Decisions by the staff at SEIA caused serious harm to the same industry they are charged with representing. Instead of capitalizing on this opportunity to achieve your goals, SEIA wasted it."

"As a result of this short-sighted and blatantly partisan advice, your association alienated many of the key supporters you rely on to meet your goals..."

In other words, if it comes down to a choice between promoting renewable energies to help stimulate Nevada's economy, wean the nation from fossil fuels and help save the planet, on the one hand, or show some smallish Washington interest group that John Ensign is far, far more important than they are, on the other, rest assured that in the future, Ensign will be doing the latter.

Any constituent - and I am unfortunately one of them - who has had occasion to write to Ensign expressing concerns about tiny little matters like, oh, civil liberties or the Patriot Act is probably already aware of what a self-important asshat he is.

Every single communication from his orifice - I mean office - starts with the pronouncement that it is an official pronouncement from on high. I keep meaning to scan one, but somehow they always end up crumpled and/or shredded.

Yep. An authoritarian who is clearly unsure that without having been told that he is An Authority In All Caps By God, we would not recognize the fact that he Knows Better Than We Do.

In that view he is pathetically correct. Ain't it a shame that the ploy works as well as it does?

On the other hand, one does shudder at the thought of him returning to his former trade as a Vet and inflicting his manifest Authority upon helpless puppies and kittens. You see, according to Republican theology, the Mantle of Authority magically transforms manifest idiocy into Revealed Word.

But that ain't any sort of new idea, alas. The current crop of Republicans have, however, stampeded across the subtle, yet well-marked line that separates a cynical and affectionately patriarchal appreciation of the ease with which The Rabble may be manipulated, past the no-man's land of The Divine Right of Kings and has has sprawled into terratory formerly reserved to those who were gently confined for their Napoleon Complexes

Who knew that when Regan emptied the asylums, it was to the end of populating the House and Senate with the feeble-minded?

Ensign is utterly useless to us even by the standards of corrupt Senators. You see, here's what had the Gleaner after The Hairball's ass along with probably everyone with a pulse and a stake in the Nevada energy sector.

Earlier this week, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) sent out apparently state-by-state-tailored press releases blasting senators, including the 'Do, for opposing legislation that would extend tax breaks for solar and other forms of renewable energy, and that would pay for the breaks by closing tax loopholes enjoyed by hedge funds and transnational conglomerates.

Hairdo "will have to choose between job-creating solar power for Nevada" or standing with the Bush administration policy "that protects the off-shore tax havens of billionaire hedge fund managers," said the SEIA in a release Monday.

In what will no doubt come as a shock to Nevadans, Ensign the next day sided against sense, sanity and his state and with Bush and the hedge funds, voting to filibuster, and effectively kill, the legislation (Grist).

I must find a way to state this so that even people who voted for Bush, Gibbons and Ensign can understand the ESSENTIAL point here.

The pork flows THIS way, dipshit!

Even Ted Stevens understands this, and he thinks the Internet is a hydraulic system.

Sir, when Sen. Ted Stevens makes one seem ineffective and incompetent by comparison, one should really consider a change of career. Perhaps something in The Green Zone, Sir. After all, you are one of the many who's efforts have earned such a reward.