DO REPUBLICANS LIE, CHEAT AND MAKE PSYCHOTIC STATEMENTS? IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER, YOU MAY HAVE WANDERED ONTO THE WRONG BLOG

Today's Roll Call has a cute little story about the Republican's most highly touted challenger to a Democratic incumbent (crackpot right wing state legislator Chris Walkim vs Congressman Alan Mollohan of West Virginia). Walkim, who has never exactly given anyone any reason to believe he ever looked up the word integrity in the dictionary, has an official campaign bio out that claims he is a "Gulf War veteran" and a Republican Party news release refers to him as a "disabled Gulf War veteran honorably discharged for injuries sustained in the line of duty." He's neither.

Now Walkim is different from most Republican leaders in that he didn't actually avoid military duty while braying about war. He's a West Point graduate and was stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts from 1988 to 1991. He never went to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or the Persian Gulf region during the war, not even for 10 minutes, which lasted from August 1990 to April 1991.

As you would expect from almost any Republican running for office and caught in a blatant lie, Walkim blames... Mollohan. No one is paying any attention to Walkim's bizarre accusations of twisted reasoning that makes him a wounded Gulf vet (although several people have remarked that he may have once been roughly expelled from a Mississippi Gulf whore house where he hurt his back... who knows? It's certainly more plausible than any of his nonsense.) Meanwhile, he has also been caught lying about having gotten a master's degree in public policy from Harvard. He never even qualified for the Kennedy School, the only way to get a master's degree in public policy-- but instead took night courses from the open enrollment Harvard's Extension School (not part of Harvard University) where he got some sort of a Liberal Arts degree.

The man is a compulsive liar with a severe inferiority complex-- not exactly what anyone needs representing them in Congress. But even worse, than the delusional Walkim is a certifiably insane Richard Pombo staffer, Daniel Kish. Upset that the Big Oil companies who finance Pombo's corrupt political career may have their efforts to drill in ANWAR thwarted, Pombo's boy Danny lashed out at the people of Connecticut (after a newspaper there editorialized against the proposal). I offer this today as an indication of the Republican mindset. This is how they think; this is who they are:

Connecticut should have its statehood taken away from it. The foolishness of its pampered residents should be demonstrated to others by a government program to bulldoze the entire state, salt the land and construct a windfarm to supply NYC with electricity. And its residents should be relocated to Guantanamo Bay where they can take a number behind the 3 who hung themselves this weekend, since they seem so intent on suicide.

I wonder what Joe Lieberman is saying about Pombo's office's comments on Connecticut, especially since Holy Joe and Dirty Dick are George Bush's two favorite members of Congress.

Oh, one more thing. Since the thought of Lieberman made me start thinking about faithless incumbents unworthy of re-election and since someone brought up, "psychotic," I got to thinking that we haven't looked into the whacked out craziness of the one congressperson who almost makes Katherine Harris appear sane: Ohio's loony bin escapee, Mean Jean Schmidt. She sent a letter out to her constituents this week. It's... bizarre. Though it could be a treasure trove for a psychoanalyst, the rant is too long and vapid to reproduce. Instead I'm just going to pull one very telling paragraph Mean Jean felt she needed to communicate to her constituents:

"The Iraqi's perception is that we are all powerful. We watch them from space with technology they cannot even imagine. Surely if we wanted to turn on his electricity we could do so. He has no idea how large the problem is but he knows we can do anything. He was angry. Eventually his air conditioning began running and his anger cooled."

This is from a United States congressperson explaining the tragic situation in Iraq to the people she wants to vote to send her back to Congress in November. I'm very happy to let you know that on Saturday, August 19th, Blue America will be hosting a live blog session with Dr. Victoria Wulsin, the Democratic woman who will finish the job Paul Hackett started last year.