I have decided to come out of retirement as a muckraker. The inspiration for resuming my career as a scandal-monger is the abundance of dirt being spread on the Internet, in the nation’s tabloids and spewed from the mouths of right-wing radio and TV lunatics.

This time around, its going to be easy for me to uncover scandals. I plan to rely on the journalistic standards of the goofy birthers and other conspiracy theorists. No more having to dig through courthouse records and/or documents produced by thousands of government bureaucies. No more midnight meetings with secret sources. No more playing the role of con man in extracting information from reluctant, low level criminals. And no need blackmailing people by threatening them with exposure if they fail to cooperate with my muckraking projects.

Henceforth, I am pursuing a new form of journalism, which I call “impressionistic investigative reporting,” or more simply “f–k facts.” So let us begin with an exposé of Rush Limbaugh—the former disc jockey, pill-popper and compulsive liar who has adopted “f–k facts” as his daily mantra.

My claim that Rush Limbaugh is gay is based on overwhelming evidence when compared to the threshhold established in this new era of Internet, tabloid and right-wing muckraking. For example, it is well known that many outspoken homophobes are hiding their own sexuality. Witness the number of homophobic politicians, preachers and high profile public figures who have either come out of the closet or been outed—often by gay publications. A Rush Limbaugh’s quote pretty well sums of up his views.

“…let’s say we discover the gene that says the kid’s gonna be gay. How many parents, if they knew before the kid was gonna be born, [that he] was gonna be gay, they would take the pregnancy to term? Well, you don’t know but let’s say half of them said, “Oh, no, I don’t wanna do that to a kid.” [Then the] gay community finds out about this. The gay community would do the fastest 180 and become pro-life faster than anybody you’ve ever seen. … They’d be so against abortion if it was discovered that you could abort what you knew were gonna be gay babies.”

In short Limbaugh is a homophobe. So moving along to “f–k facts” criteria number two. He arranged to have Elton John perform at his wedding. Music I presume. Granted, Limbaugh reportedly paid the entertainer a million bucks. Maybe everybody has a price. How much money would it take to get Barbra Streisand to sing at the wedding of notorious Nazi, David Duke? Beats the hell out of me. But the question is unimportant since this missive is not about Barbra Streisand. 

Rush Limbaugh “f–k facts” evidence number three. He maintained a home in the Congressional district of Republican Representative Mark Foley—the disgraced politician with a yearning for young pages working in the nation’s Capitol. Again, I quote homophobe Limbaugh who suggested that Foley was target of a plot by Democrats.   

“I’m just thinking out loud here. What if somebody got to the page and said, you know, we want you to set Foley up. We need to do a little titillating thing here. Keep it and save it and so forth. How would you get a kid to do that? Yeah, who knows? You threaten him or pay him. There’s any number of ways given the kind of people that we’re dealing with and talking about here.”

So there you have it folks, three pieces of weak evidence that Rush Limbaugh is gay—more than enough to meet my new standard of “impressionistic investigative reporting.” I’m not saying he is gay. But just think about it.

Meantime, how about Glenn Beck and his plural marriages? I’m still gathering information on this potential exposé. But I already know that he is Mormon. Although the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opposes polygamy, plural marriage is still practiced by a small number of Mormon crazies—meaning that Glenn Beck meets at least two of my ”f–k facts” standards. I will devote more time to ”Dr.” Beck’s multiple nuptials when I uncover a third piece of evidence.

I want to wrap up this shocking missive with a couple of comments about traditional forms of investigative reporting. My career as an “award-winning” digger of dirt was marked by a great deal of serendipity. By happy coincidence, I reported my first ever major exposé—a bribery scheme involving a bank and a state official—three days after burglars broke into the Watergate offices of the National Democratic Party. The ensuing scandal leading to President Richard Nixon’s resignation made muckraking an honorable profession. And for the next 30 years, I rode the an investigative reporting tsunami that took me from journalism anonymity to national semi-prominence as a network correspondent.

Unfortunately, in the late 1980’s and throughout the nineties, aggressive take names and kick ass investigative reporting began to disappear—especially on television. And so did I. Except for an occasional PBS documentary and some consulting work, I retired from digging dirt after CNN bought out my contract a decade ago.

The current issue of American Journalism Review has a lengthy article on the mainstream media’s diminishing commitment to investigative reporting. Be forewarned that the article is long and boring unless you are a news junkie.     

http://www.ajr.org/article_printable.asp?id=4904

I can assure you that whatever is written in American Journalism Review is gospel, given the magazine’s remarkable superb judgment many years ago in displaying my picture on its cover and describing me in a profile as one of the best investigative reporters in the country. I did not ask for a retraction.

In fact, as I embark on a new career as an “impressionistic investigative reporter,” I invite the magazine to embrace my “f–k facts” initiative. In the role of pioneering new opportunities for unemployed investigative reporters fired by the mainstream media, I hope American Journalism Review will again considering putting my picture on the cover.

Although it has been two decades since the first cover article, I’m prettier now. That late career facelift really helps out.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

The revelation came to me in a dream. I was dozing in a recliner after consuming a delicious 14-inch pizza with all the toppings and drinking two liters of coke.  Three slices of pecan pie à la mode caused me to feel drowsy and I soon fell into a dream state. Then came my vision of an African doctor wearing a loin cloth and carrying a spear that he plunged into the ground causing a blinding cloud of dust and smoke. When it cleared, the doctor held a newborn in his hands. 

Using a machete, he deftly cut horns from the baby’s head while chanting, “Barack Hussein Obama, I anoint you in the name of Karl Marx to go forth and spread socialism in a faraway nation that worships a system called free enterprise.” But first, you must go to an island in the great ocean and learn to surf.  However, I warn you to avoid descendants of a tribe that invaded the islands many moons ago. They were called Christian missionaries. 

Before my vision began to fade, I saw horns being removed from another child. But I awoke after hearing only a portion of the ceremony. “Glenn Beck, I anoint you in the name of Bozo the Clown……”

Ordinarily, I would be reluctant to share my revelations. But while reading the New York Times today, I discovered I was not alone. Recent polls disclose that nearly 25% of Americans believe President Obama was born in Africa. This means 75% of our nation’s population are fools. Based on the thin evidence of an official birth certificate and contemporary newspaper accounts in Honolulu, these deluded people believe the rumor that Obama was born in Hawaii.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/us/politics/19memo.html?th&emc=th 

It is really sad to think that three/quarters of the people in this country accept official documents as fact. Hopefully, all these confused folks will pick up a copy of the Globe tabloid magazine in the check-out lines of local supermarkets. Although the Globe has never published story that was proven to be correct, there is a first time for everything. The tabloid claims to have evidence that the President’s Social Security card is phony and the publication hopes to produce the evidence one day. No doubt, Obama is alarmed. He is counting on receiving his social security checks in sixteen years. That is, if the system survives. GOP hysterics say it’s doomed.

For anyone who doubts my revelation about the birth of our President, let me point out that I’m an award-winning investigative and the proud recipient of four George Foster Peabody medallions and multiples of every other major broadcast journalism award. No telling how many more awards I would have won if I had eaten more giant pizzas.

Since my semi-retirement, my post-pizza eating visions have produced other revelations. For example, I learned that Neil Armstrong never reached the moon. The hoax took place in the Nevada desert where he actually said, “One small step for man, one giant leap for more casinos.”

I wish I could reveal details of another vision identifying the mysterious man on the grassy knoll. But out of respect for the Warren Commission, the shooter’s name must remain secret. I will disclose, though, that he was wearing a loin cloth and armed with a blow dart weapon.

Sadly, the time has arrived for me to leave. I promised my pyschiatrist I would check into the hospital for the weekend. It’s really fun because I always encounter lots of birthers and Tea Party members there. During recreation breaks, attendants unstrap straightjackets so we can toss around all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Meantime, if you are hoping for pizza revelations, skip the anchoves. They have a bad after-taste.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Get your life in order. I have horrible news for 99.9 percent of the nation’s population that failed to watch Mike Huckaby’s recent show on the Fox “News” network. The end is near! Not for Huckaby’s program or Fox, both of which would be good news in my opinion. But for the world. Old smiley face himself, Tim LaHaye, revealed that President Obama’s policies are bringing us closer to the Apocalypse. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/28/tim-lahaye-evangelical-ch_n_662621.html

Fundamentalist preacher Tim LaHaye and co-author Jerry Jenkins have published several books about the Apocalpse—the most popular being the fictional novel, Left Behind. LaHaye’s doomsday prediction was prodded by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckaby, a 2012 Presidential aspirant. 

The Fox talk show host was a Southern Baptist minister prior to entering politics. I guess Huckaby decided to mix with sinners in the same manner as Jesus taking His meassage to prostitutes, thieves and other malefactors two millenniums ago. Although Huckaby says he believes parts of the Bible are allegorical, he still accepts the Good Book as inerrant.

So why is he planning for 2012? He seemed to sort of nod in agreement when LaHaye predicted that we were in the last days. And Revelations is pretty explicit about the coming Apocalypse. So by 2012, Obama will have inflicted whatever damage Lahaye claims is a forerunner to the end of times. After all, the President has been successful in passing legislation he promised to support during the 2008 campaign. Could it be that Huckaby expects to be “left behind” when the Rapture raises Christian believers to the great beyond.

I don’t know if Presbyterians will qualify. Just in case, though, I’m keeping my hair trimmed, fingernails clipped and using under-arm deordorant. According to LaHaye’s novel, we will be stripped of clothing during the Ascension. I wish my body was in better shape. If I die beforehand, I want to be cremated. That way I will get a new body. When restored in Heaven, perhaps God will make me taller, more muscular and better looking. I would like whiter teeth, too. No amount of flossing whitens my toothies.  

I joke, of course. Or am I simply blasphemous? Actually, it is not difficult to believe that the end is near. Driving on I-20 through Alabama this weekend, I passed a billboard asking a stupid question in big print. WHERE IS THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?  Barack Obama’s “Certificate of Live Birth” is displayed on the Internet at thousands of sites such as the Los Angeles Times, as well as copies of contemporaneous newspaper notices of his birth.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/06/obama-birth.html

At first, I was embarrassed to see the billboard in the state in which I grew up. Then it occured to me that the sign represents economic progress in Alabama—visible evidence that even morons in the state can afford to buy roadside billboards.

There is less encouraging news from Tennessee—the state where I was born. Republican U.S. Representative Zack Wamp has raised the issue of the nation’s states leaving the union in protest of President Obama’s policies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/23/AR2010072305420.html?wpisrc=nl_headline

Texas Governor Rick Perry previously talked about secession. But damn it, he has yet to follow through. Promises, promises. Anyway, with a name like “Zack Wamp,” the Tennessee congressman must mean business. This causes me worries since I don’t have my original birth certificate—only a certified copy. Does this mean I will have to acquire a Green Card? I know there are there are worse things than being deported to Tennessee. Just think of the people who migrated from Texas to other states and will have to go back. In Tennessee, I will at least be close to the Grand Ole Opry. Even so, my closest friends are here in Louisiana and I prefer to stay. Besides, BP oil gives my oyster poboys a unique flavor.

Finally, I can’t begin this week’s blog posts without warning readers of a national health hazard. It is called “Glenn Beck Disorder.” Seems that one of his nutso fans hoped to quicken the pace of the revolution that ”Dr.” Beck advocates. I pass along this info from Media Matters.

On July 18, an apparently deranged ex-convict named Byron Williams packed his truck with guns and allegedly set out to kill employees at both the ACLU and the Tides Foundation in the hopes that his actions would “start a revolution.” Williams’ mother indicated that her son was angry because of his unemployment and “what’s happening to our country.” According to her, Williams watched television news and was upset by “the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items.” Sound familiar?

While the ACLU has long been a bogeyman for conservatives, the Tides Foundation is far more obscure and hasn’t earned nearly as much attention from the right-wing media. There is, however, one media figure who has made the little-known Tides Foundation a focal point of his attacks: Fox News’ Glenn Beck.

As we detailed, Beck has repeatedly demonized the Tides Foundation on his Fox News program – referencing the organization at least thirty times by our count. Beck often includes Tides in his bizarre conspiracy theories, and has referred to them as a “shady organization” that is a “major source of revenue for some of the most extreme groups on the left” and wants to “warp your children’s brains.”

In the wake of the attempted attack, Beck has stood by his attacks on Tides, going so far as to brag about “turning the light of day” on Tides while also pointing to their inclusion on his blackboard as “the first time that I really realized its success.”

Beck’s denial of any responsibility for this incident is complicated by his almost-daily use of overtly violent rhetoric. Among many, many other examples, Beck has:

• Suggested Obama is pushing America toward civil war and deliberately “trying to destroy the country.”
• Capped two weeks of violent fear mongering about progressives by warning that when their attempts at a “soft revolution” fail, eventually progressives “just start shooting people.”
• Said the “people around the president” support “armed insurrection” and “bombing.”
• Repeatedly insinuated that the Obama administration will kill him.
• Used a quote from Jefferson to launch into a warning about coming “rivers of blood.”
• Compared himself to “Israeli Nazi hunters” and announced that “to the day I die, I am going to be a progressive hunter.”
• Included in his advice to Liberty University grads that they should ”shoot to kill,” and that graduates “have a responsibility” tospeak out, or “blood…will be on our hands.”
• Informed viewers that the “world is on edge” and said that “those who survive” will “stand in the truth” and “listen.”
• Said that some progressive groups don’t have ”a problem with blood in the streets.”

And just recently, Beck claimed the present day will seem like good times “when we’re behind barbed wire and just eating rock soup.” Despite the fact that he routinely suggests progressives are going to kill or imprison his viewers and listeners, Beck tries to thread the needle by urging his followers not to resort to violence. As Media Matters’ Matt McLaughlin asked this week, what does it say about Beck’s rhetoric and his audience that he feels it necessary to tell his followers not to kill people?

The fact that Glenn Beck even has a sizeable number of people believing him strongly suggests to me that the Apocalypse must be close. It is certainly better evidence than the Obama agenda.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

After more than six months of posting four a week missives about a variety of people, places and issues, I will occasionally repeat a few of the Derelict Gunslinger’s greatest hits—at least in terms of google. The number of blog visitors has increased significantly. However, most viewers don’t have the time, nor inclination, to search through my archives.

This post first appeared February 19, 2010  

In 1986, notorious international drug smuggler/turned informant Barry Seal was assassinated in Baton Rouge by a Colombian hit team outside a Salvation Army halfway house. The Drug Enforcement Administration described Seal as the most important informant in the agency’s history. Yet, he had been stripped of armed bodyguards by an irate Louisiana federal judge, who was outraged that the smuggler avoided prison in a south Florida case because of his value as a witness against Colombia’s Medellin cocaine cartel. Seal had also plea bargained his way out of a prison sentence in an unrelated Baton Rouge case, prompting a revenge-tainted sentence by the angry judge—in effect, a death sentence. 

As part of Seal’s  probation, he was ordered to spend nights at the halfway house. Despite testimony by lawmen and prosecutors that Barry’s life was in danger, the judge put him on a predictable schedule. And three weeks later, Barry was dead.  

I was well-acquainted with the flamboyant smuggler—to close, according to many law enforcement officials. He contacted me in 1984, claiming to be caught in the midst of a turf battle between drug agents in Baton Rouge and and a DEA task force in Miami. Although skeptical at first, I soon established that he was, in fact, an informant whose undercover exploits in Central America were on the verge of disrupting the world’s biggest cocaine operation—the main source of 90% of the cocaine shipped into the United States.

While traveling with Seal to Miami and Mena, Arkansas, I secretly videotaped his meetings with drug agents. I also put together a paper trail that re-enforced his bona fides. Barry’s motives for working with the DEA were not altruistic. He had been caught smuggling drugs into south Florida and faced the prospect of a long prison term. So he cut a deal.

But rather than admit to me that he was a common drug smuggler, Seal tried to foist himself off to me as a spy working undercover for the CIA. However, I soon discovered that the extent of his spy activity was a single mission in which he secretly snapped pictures of cocaine being loaded onto his C-123 in Nicaragua during a DEA sting operation. The CIA’s only involving was the installationof a camera on the plane to gather evidence that Nicaragua had become a trans-shipment point for cocaine processed in Colombia.

Seal’s photographs were later be used by President Reagan in a nationally broadcast speech seeking funds for Nicaragun Contra rebels. By then, Barry was buried in Green Oaks Cemetery in Baton Rouge. But metaphorically, he was not dead. Instead, he became the star of the Mena myth—a conspiracy tale of a CIA guns-for-drugs plot centered at the Mena airport. I write about the origins of Seal fable in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger.

The Mena Intermountain Regional Airport in the west Arkansas foothills of the Ouachita Mountains seems an unlikely locale for spy stories and conspiracy tales. Before the arrival of Barry Seal, Mena was best known for its proximity to the Jot ‘em Down Store in nearby Pine Ridge. The rural relic was made famous by Lum and Abner, popular 1940’s radio characters. The Jot ‘em Down Store was a fictional backdrop for dispensing homespun mountain observations about Washington politics and national affairs. It’s too bad that Lum and Abner were not around when Mena gained mythical notoriety. The zany stories would have provided them months of material for comical commentary. 

The yarn began in June, 1984, when a camouflage-painted C-123K transport plane piloted by Barry Seal landed at the airport with a full cargo of rumors and conjecture. Dubbed “The Fat Lady” in its Vietnam days, the retired military aircraft sat on a tarmac outside the hangar of an airport fabrication shop for six months. Before being sold, it left the ground twice—each time to circle the airport. But the simple presence of the mysterious plane triggered years of speculation that has never gone away. The dimwitted stories continue even today. What made the Mena fable so astonishing was the willingness of supposedly intelligent people to believe the myth. 

I feel partly responsible for giving early momentum to conspiracy theories. A few months after my introduction to Barry, I reported a one-hour investigative documentary giving details of his Nicaraguan undercover mission. Titled, Uncle Sam Wants You, the report criticized lawmen and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Baton Rouge for jeopardizing a major south Florida investigation. In the wake of my exposé, I was accused of “taking up the banner of a drug smuggler.”

Actually, the main thrust of the documentary was not Seal’s innocence or guilt, but rather the ongoing turf battle between jurisdictions in Louisiana and Florida. Nonetheless, I have regrets about the documentary because I allowed Barry to strongly hint that he was spy. And for the benefit of cameras, he maximized his minor CIA role and minimized his activities as a drug smuggler. My skewed judgment in editing interviews was geared toward dramatic narrative. I should have stated explicitly that he was simply a spy wannabe. 

The previous paragraphs are the basic building blocks on which the Mena myth was built. A mysterious military transport plane  lands in Mena, Arkansas and remains there for several months. The pilot alludes to being a CIA operative on a television show, as well as in conversations with nearly everyone he comes in contact with. He is mowed down in a contract killing and the President of the United States soon after displays CIA photographs of the Nicaraguan sting operation. Lo and behold, Barry Seal’s C-123 is later shot down in Nicaragua during an honest-to-goodness CIA operation to assist Contra rebels.

Enter onto the scene the Christic Institute.  In the 1980’s, the  left-wing organization was obsessed with CIA operations in Central America. In fact, Christic propagated dozens of drugs-for-guns stories and other yarns about U.S. intelligence abuses. Some had a ring of truth. Most were vastly  exaggerated or downright wrong.

The Christic Institute was ultimately discredited in lawsuits and forced to declare bankruptcy. Even so, its version of the Barry Seal saga convinced an array of left-wing journalists to run the story. At the same time, the Iran-Contra scandal was unfolding  during the  Reagan  Admininistration. As a result of Seal’s undercover DEA work and one-time CIA activity, he was tied to the scandal—more by speculation than any hard facts.

In the beginning, Seal was linkedto President’s Reagan and George Herbert Bush. Following the election of Bill Clinton, right-wingers took possession of the saga. Without a shred of evidence, Clinton was accused of protecting Seal’s Mena drug operation as a favor for cocaine-snorting “Friends of Bill.” And so it went. No rumor was too ridiculous to be discounted. And it hasn’t stopped. I still receive calls from intrepid reporters, who have never bothered to review information contradicting the myth—including my book.

More than any reporter, I know the truth about Seal and his Mena activities. We remained in contact until a few days before his murder. Our last encounter occured when he came to my office to meet a Miami private investigator. I setr up the meeting for Wayne Black, a longtime friend.  The detective was hired by an attorney representing drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. He wanted Seal to identify Escobar photographs taken during the Nicaraguan sting operation. DEA agents in Miami gave Barry the green light to meet with Black. Nevertheless, U.S. prosecutors in Louisiana questioned me to determine if there was a connection between the meeting and Seal’s murder less than two weeks later. There wasn’t.

By then, the assassins had been arrested. They were subsequently  convicted and remain in prison. For me, there was disturbing trial testimony that my 1984 documentary had ended up in the hands of Pablo Escobar. He only knew Seal by an alias he used in dealing with the cartel. After watching my program, Escobar reportedly put out the contract on the Barry’s life.

I don’t know if I could have dissauded Seal to conceal his identity, even if I tried. He was a self-promoter from the get-go and wanted his face shown. He got the publicity he wanted—then and and ever since. I have a hunch that if I walk close enough to Barry’s Baton Rouge gravesite, the ground will quake from his laughter at the conspiracy legacy he left behind. I know I laugh loudly when reading crazy stories about his adventures.

In recent months, I’m reminded of Seal when reading and hearing the conspiracy tales propagated by “birthers” and other wing-nuts. At least I can feel secure that these people are keeping an eye out for black helicopters, flying saucers and and all the phantom enemies who are coming to take us away.

Ha, Ha! Ho, Ho! Hee, Hee!

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Is U.S. Senator David Vitter brain dead or what? The Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar is making a career out of breathtaking stupid  stunts. As I reported yesterday, the Sarah Palin brain epidemic has infected Louisiana Governor Bobby (Smarty Pants) Jindal—another Ivy League educated Rhodes Scholar. However, I expect him to partially recover after television cameras leave the Gulf Coast and he quits saying stupid things that contradict experts.

Senator Vitter is a more challenging case. He has been haunted by hookers throughout much of his political career—first in his hometown of New Orleans and later in the nation’s Capitol where he was identified as a prostitution client of notorious D.C. madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey. The irony of the disclosure is remarkable. Vitter’s voice was among the loudest in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. 

Despite world class hypocrisy—a level of which challenges a title long held by TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart—Vitter’s voting record causes far-right conservatives to wet their britches in glee, an appropriate reaction to a politician whose paid paramours claimed he had a diaper-wearing fetish.   

If any doubts remain about Vitter’s quirks and misogyny, he erased the questions by allowing an aide with a criminal record of domestic abuse to act as the “women’s issues” representative in his Washington Senate office. 

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/06/23/vitter_aide_abuse 

At a photo op last week when Vitter officially registered as a candidate for re-election, he refused to discuss the aide’s misconduct and position on his staff. The Senator abruptly ended an impromptu news conference and fled from the courthouse. In an editorial today, the Baton Rouge Advocate took him to task over the issue and his unwillingness to offer an explanation.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/opinion/98293574.html

I figured Vitter would lay low for a couple of days. But I learned long ago that desperate politicians are apt to embrace any issue they believe consituencies support. The Republican Senator obviously believed he was standing before a rally of morons Sunday evening when he voiced his support for lawsuits by so-called birthers, who continue to question whether President Obama was born in Hawaii.  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100713/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_republican_senator_birthers

And the now the video.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/13/david-vitter-birther-gop_n_644031.html

Because the nation’s mental institutions are already overcrowded, birthers have been deemed harmless to our health and safety, and are allowed to run free in society. In fact, a good number of these folks were cured of the birther delusion by learning to read something besides viral e-mail. Vitter and former CNN commentater Lou Dobbs—another Harvard graduate, believe it or not—may be last “educated” people in the country to exploit the birther issue.

Anyway, I wait with bated breath for Senator Vitter’s next stupid stunt. He is far more entertaining that Governor Smarty Pants. Even though he has a comfortable lead in the most recent polls, I am naive enough to believe voters will recognize his shortcomings and allow him to become a lobbyist—an advocate perhaps on behalf of ladies of the evening.

I will certainly miss him when he is gone. But if  re-elected by some strange set of circumstances, I can then ask the same question I posed at the beginning of this post. But with a slight variation.

“Are Louisiana voters brain dead, or what?”

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.