WHICH RIGHT WING NUTCASE WERE YOU THE MOST HAPPY TO SEE DEFEATED?

I'm sure many DWT readers were extra overjoyed to see Opus Dei numbskull Rick Man-on-dog Santorum (still #1 on the google search page) get trounced. I doubt we'll be hearing about his presidential aspirations again. Nor the presidential aspirations of another blight on the Senate's good name, George Felix Macacawitz Allen, although I, for one, will sure miss laughing at him.

Pennsylvanians in the northeast corner of the state are entitled to a double celebration, having lost not just Santorum but also their own Congressman Choker, an embarrassment not unlike the embarrassment residents in the southeast part of the state can also celebrate seeing the last of, uber-corrupt and somewhat zany in a Moonie kind of way, Curt Weldon. Weldon was trounced 147,347 to 114,056, quite the send-off for a soon-to-be-jailed congressman of 20 years.

Conservationists and environmentalists were popping the champagne corks over the political demise of the hated Dirty Dick Pombo. And the extra bonus there is that, unlike Santorum's and Macacawitz's replacements, the man who beat Pombo is a genuine grassroots progressive. I'm sure the departure of reactionary Arizona bigot and anti-Semite, J.D. Hayworth is being much cheered in many quarters and none of the 3 Indiana wingnuts, Chocola, Sodrel and Hostettler, will be missed by anyone who doesn't happen to be an active member of a KKK Klavern. Similarly, Kansas' fanatic loon Jim Ryun, the congressman with the worst voting record of any defeated House member, is a general boon to humanity.

And remember, two of the most thoroughly disdained members of Congress are in the process of tight recounts that could still deny them re-election, Wyoming's KKK-endorsed Barbara Cubin and the even lamer congresswoman from southwest Ohio, Mean Jean Schmidt. If either of them loses, all bets are off.

Meanwhile Colbert King, in tomorrow's Washington Post, looks at from the point of view of the city of Washington's permament residents. King concludes Washingtonians are happiest to see Conrad Burns, John Hostettler and Charles Taylor move on-- and, more important from their perspective, out.

You may remember this quote from 1994:

"Conrad, how can you live back there [in Washington] with all those niggers?" When asked how he had responded, Sen. Burns is reported to have... said with a chuckle that he told the rancher that it was 'a hell of a challenge.' "

That never exactly endeared Burns to Washington's citizens who always took whatever opportunity that presented itself to give him a little something extra in his soup or salad dressing. Mr. King's assessment wasn't as harsh. "Thanks to the wisdom of the people of Montana, Conrad Burns no longer is forced to bear the burden of living among those of us of color. The 'hell of a challenge' that Burns faced for lo these many years has ended, and with it his career as a United States senator. To which I shout: 'Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.'"