POST NUMBER 800, IF YOU CAN BELIEVE IT: I don’t, as a rule, watch political speeches; if I must pay attention to such things, I prefer to read them in the paper, where the arguments the bloviating pol is making must stand or fall on their merits without the assistance of all the tricks of the rhetorical trade. But I did see the former junior Senator for Illinois’ speech about health care the other day. It was not a terribly interesting speech—just the usual lame rubbish that would insult the intelligence of a dyslexic duck if dyslexic ducks cared about human health care one way or the other—but what I found truly fascinating was Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to conduct an aerobics class while the ex-Senator was trying to give his speech and how no one in the mainstream media bothered to report her obstreperous behavior.

No, everyone concentrated on that congressman who yelled, “You lie,” when the former distinguished gentleman from Illinois did, in fact, lay a whopper on the listening public, but mum’s the word about Nancy’s gymnastics class, even though at one point our leader unsuccessfully tried to talk right through one particularly vigorous set of squat thrusts. While I think that it is a good thing that Ms. Pelosi wants to keep the legislative branch slim, trim, and in good health for the legislative battles ahead, and as much as I think some of the people’s tribunes could stand a good workout every now and again, there is a time and a place for everything and I think it behooves Ms. Pelosi to restrict her congressional exercise regimen to the odd morning in the Congressional gym. She is not Jack LaLanne, after all, and I think that such floor exercises are unseemly on national television and only aggravate 1.) the viewing public, who know that the guest of honor is pissing on their legs and telling them it’s raining, and think that solonic aerobics is a damn poor way of distracting their attention, however entertaining watching John Murtha exercise something other than his pork barrel may be, 2.) television executives, who, no matter how much they may love the current Administration, hate losing advertising revenue even more, and 3.) the Vice President of the United States, who looked like he wanted to bludgeon Ms. Pelosi to within an inch of her life with a gavel if she insisted on performing her impression of Jack-in-the-Congress one more time.

It’s just my opinion, of course, but I think the Veep may be on to something there. I’m pretty sure he could get some excellent ratings on Fox or CNN or even MSNBC if he bopped the Speaker over the head with the Speaker’s gavel (the Speaker, for those of you who don’t already know this, gets an actual gavel to do her job with, whereas the Vice President gets the end off an old shaving brush to call his house to order, on the purely specious grounds that the Senate is a more rarified crew of nitwits than the House of Representatives is and therefore it doesn’t take as much noise to get their attention). If he proved reasonably proficient at it, the E Network or MTV might even offer him a reality show in which the Vice President traveled from one end of this our Great Republic whacking deserving political figures over the head. There is no end to the stream of political cockroaches he could stamp on here in the Vampire State, something that would keep the show on the air and flush with ratings for years to come.