Bayh's Graceful Exit (Act Surprised)

Evan Bayh: the second most conservative Senator in the Democratic Caucus (after woman-hating death-dealer Ben Nelson).

Evan Bayh: endless floater of conservative false talking points about Democrats being "weak on defense" because we don't all want to rain down our bombs of love incessantly and indiscriminately enough across the planet's surface (because we all know how well that works, and how much it makes Baby Jesus cry if Americans aren't on a dot-eyed murderous rampage).

Evan Bayh: on the tee vee almost as often as somehow-President (get off my lawn!) McCain to float Hooverite fiscal disciplinary recommendations for the precarious majority in the midst of an unprecedented recession (because Hoosiers, and all the rest of us, are just plain meant to suffer, I guess).

Evan Bayh: endless fetishist to phony "bipartisanship" between our pathetic weak-kneed moderates and their rancid war-mongering science-denialist white-racist lunatics (the Senate, last bastion of gentility and grace, that is to say, cesspool of endlessly bloviating fat old white guys pining for feudalism).

Evan Bayh: already pond-fat with a slurped up pond-full of campaign cash for his 2010 run (calling Bayh pond scum is now available, for those who are extending the metaphor at home).

Evan Bayh: has announced his retirement this afternoon, more or less citing the boredom of a Senator's life as his justification (and who can blame him, considering the travails of a dysfunctional Senate, especially when a seat there no longer looks like a stepping-stone toward the satisfaction of sociopathic White House ambitions, and as compared with the bags of money an amoral asshole like Bayh is sure to take in as a corporate lobbyist instead).

Of course, Bayh has announced his retirement just one day before the deadline for any other candidate to file for the primary (longshot Tamyra d’Ippolito, who runs a cafe in Indiana's best town, Bloomington, is scrambling to get the necessary signatures to meet the deadline, and it doesn't look as though anybody else is in the running via that route), and the primary is just three months away in any case.

Good thing a resurgent GOP spoiling for blood has already siphoned a dozen million bucks Dan Coats' way. You may remember Dan Coats from his efforts to help shepherd Killer Clown George W. Bush's eminently qualified Harriet Myers into the United States Supreme Court (which would surely have turned out perfectly fine, if they just let her write her decisions in crayon like she wanted), or if you have a longer memory you may recall Coats' loud insistence that President Clinton bombed would-be terrorists in Afghanistan to distract attention away from that impeachable blowjob he got (of course, I'm sure Coats is perfectly hunky-dory with bombing the daylights out of Afghan civilians now).

And so it looks like Evan Bayh has managed in retiring to do for his country and his party pretty much what he has always done.

Bye-Bye Bayh. You won't be much missed, you worthless smug son of a bitch.