Holy smoke, the new Holy Joe wear's women's clothes! (No, not Lindsey G, silly!) Oh wait, it's a woman!

Why, it's a dead ringer for "His Holiness"!

"[Sen. John "Young Johnny McCranky"] McCain called her 'very serious' and 'a very quick study.' He said he has come to believe Ayotte could be a leader in the mold of Margaret Chase Smith, the trailblazing Maine Republican who served four terms in the Senate. 'I see her kind of in that tradition -- working hard and being involved in national security issues,' he said."

-- from "Sen. Ayotte offers GOP an influential new voice,"
by the Washington Post's Rosalind S. Helderman

by Ken

Oho, so there's a new Holy Joe in town! Or rather in the Village. A replacement stooge for the trio broken up by the way-overdue retirement from the Senate of that master crook and megacorporate stooge Holy Joe "The Jomentum Man" Lieberman. The Washington Post's Rosalind S. Helderman reports ("Sen. Ayotte offers GOP an influential new voice") that the Holy Joe slot in the foreign-policy troglodyte troika has been filled by NH Sen. Kelly Ayotte.

Ayotte's partnership with [AZ Sen. John] McCain and [SC Sen. Lindsey] Graham on Benghazi began shortly after the attack, which is now understood to have been an al-Qaeda effort to kill Americans. Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens and three others died in the attack.

Ayotte's role in the trio has been filled in the past by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), the former Democrat who is retiring from the Senate in January. The three of them were cheekily dubbed the "three amigos" on the Hill, and over the years, they repeatedly joined together to push for a strong U.S. interventionist role in the world.

"I don't even purport to try to replace him," Ayotte said of Lieberman. But she said she shares with Graham and McCain a view of the U.S. role in the world that makes for a natural partnership. On Thursday, the Senate adopted an amendment sponsored by Ayotte to ban the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States on a bipartisan vote, 54 to 41.

"I believe we should be a leader in standing up for human rights around the world," she said. "I also believe it's important for our military to remain strong and to be the strongest in the world, so that we can remain safe and so that the world can remain a safer place.

"That's my overall view. And I believe that they [Graham and McCain] believe in a strong role for America in the world."

Yessir, what this country needs is more "leaders" like this -- lying thugs and imbeciles preaching hot-botton demagoguery to a public that has trained to think with its fat butt.

As if Kelly Ayotte has any better idea than arch-doodyheads Young Johnny McCranky and "Sweet Lindsey" Graham what would make either America or its role in the world "strong." These are, after all, the people whose idea of "strength" is gorillalike bullying that makes us objects of contempt and hatred everywhere . . . well, everywhere where there are people. All the while throwing billions of dollars down sinkholes like Iraq and Afghanistan with the effect, if not in fact the intention, of making them even more hellish places to live than they were before our pathological mental, physical, and moral weakness led us to try to throw our weight around like the most despised playground bully.

It's hard to know whether the wreckage of the U.S. economy was an intended result or merely a happy byproduct for the pols who give their lives in service to the war-profiteering oligarchy that arranges things so that it always gorges on other people's financial misfortunes. My guess is that some of those stooges are willingly paid-off hired help of the 1% while others are simply too stupid to understand how they're being used. I'm not sure it matters a whole lot which of them are which.

Apparently the GOP has suddenly found itself short of Senate voices that can credibly argue for further ruination of the U.S. economy in favor of adventurism designed to widen and harden animosity to the U.S. around the globe. Is it possible that party "thinkers" realize how ridiculous and hateful its standard spokescreeps have become even to the docile public it has so strenuously miseducated into gibbering idiots?

This week, Ayotte was everywhere expressing concern at the possibility that Rice could be nominated to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state. Those concerns were not being taken lightly as Ayotte has emerged as a newly influential voice in a party that does not have many like hers and desperately needs them.

"She has the potential to be an important voice in the Republican Party," said Tom Rath, a top adviser to Mitt Romney who has deep roots in New Hampshire and has known Ayotte her entire professional life.

One sign of Ayotte's new stature is that when the embattled Rice decided to try to mend fences with critical lawmakers, Ayotte was included in the first and most important meeting.

At 44, Ayotte is a fresh face in a party that has lagged behind in advancing women into its most powerful positions and in making a convincing case to many female voters. Ayotte (pronounced AY-aht) infuses new blood into the GOP national security brain trust in the Senate led by Graham and McCain.

Oh, swell! (That's presumably a typo in the last sentence, which surely must have meant to refer to "the GOP national security brainless trust in the Senate led by Graham and McCain.")

What's important, though, apart from making sure the gravy train for our 1% war profiteers, is making sure that any sane foreign-policy initiatives are immediately drowned out by the brainless trust's patented imbecility.

Senator Kelly may in fact be a holier Holy Joe than His Holiness himself. As reporter Helderman notes: "Lieberman has parted ways with his longtime friends on Rice, indicating last week that he does not think the Benghazi incident should disqualify her from serving as secretary of state." But the Right still hasn't come up with any better ideas, it seems, that to obstruct and obfuscate. If the president's "fer it," they're "agin."

His Holiness himself seems impressed, but not unreservedly so.

"If she's going to replace me, they've found somebody obviously more brilliant and more beautiful," Lieberman said. He praised Ayotte and another GOP first-term senator, Florida's Marco Rubio, for sharing his "pro-democracy, pro-freedom, keep America strong in the world" principles.

But he counseled that McCain, Graham and Ayotte will need to pull in a Democrat to join their group if their work is to continue to carry weight in the next Congress.

I don't know. The McCranky-Jomentum-Graham troika did OK without a Democrat. Or maybe our Joe means that they need a pretend Democrat. Well, there's no shortage of those, and I'm confident that McCranky and Lindsey know where to find them. Unless the current GOP thinking following the November elections is that excessive bipartisanship caused those unfortunate results.

Speaking of which, one question for Young Johnny McCranky, referencing the quote at the top of this post, in which he suggests that he sees her as "kind of" in the tradition of onetime Maine Republican Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, "working hard and being involved in national security issues." Young Johnny doesn't really think his party would tolerate Senator Smith today, does he? Look how the party beat down her fellow Mainer retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe, who had about a thousandth of Smith's courage. So far what her putative new Margaret Chase Smith has demonstrated is her willingness, nay eagerness, to pander for the party, the Party of No.

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