Dumb-Dumb Bobby Menendez

Been out of commission here for a while. Sorry about that. But I'm back.

So let's roar into action. And let's start with Senator Menendez, he who is so clearly height-challenged but, more importantly, apparently literacy challenged if one has ever seen him speak off the cuff rather than from a printed statement. The man usually simply burbles haplessly when challenged. 

Whatever one makes of the charges against him, isn't anyone else a bit amazed that he so rapidly coughed up approximately $60k to reimburse his pal Melgen for two private jet trips to the Dominican Republic? $60k is hardly cat chow, after all. Particularly for a pol who claims but to be a modest man of the people from Hudson County.

(And does anyone recall his commercial which ran during his recent re-election campaign? It showed him standing in front of what seemed to be a housing project someplace and reassuring viewers that he still in fact lives but a few miles away. This, however, is one of those "yes, but..." sort of traps. Akin to someone who lives in a mansion on Upper Mountain Avenue in Montclair but grew up in a squalid part of Irvington (where there seems to be a good deal of squalor, if not quite on the level of Camden) assuring folks that he, too, still lives "nearby." An Uriah Heep-ish sort of remark, in other words. Especially for someone who in fact has $60k at the ready to repay Melgen when (yet only if) called to account about it.) And does anyone even half-believe that as a result of this sudden need for reimbursement the Senator will actually have to do withoutany of life's staples?

Some measure of Menendez's core unfamiliarity with the nuances of the English language, let alone his chilling apparent lack of interest in Senate rules re both finances and ethics, can be gotten from this statement he made yesterday to reporters, according to the Star-Ledger: "I was in a big travel schedule in 2010. I was the chair of the DSCC, plus my own campaign, getting ready for my re-election cycle. When it came to my attention payment had not taken place, I personally paid for them. If it had come to my attention before, I would have in fact done it before."

This is both waffling to a very high degree indeed and a refusal by Menendez to accept any real responsibility for his (admitted, sort of) errors. Really, the guy should have known way, WAY better. Such verbal evasiveness and probable stupidity does not bode well for a subsequent investigation into his actual sexual interest in young stuff. 

It's also quite amusing that Melgen's cousin, who's also a lawyer (akin perhaps to Algonquin Calhoun of the old "Amos 'n' Andy" shows of radio and early TV in his seeming knavishness, or Alton Maddox from the Tawana Brawley case if one needs a more modern counterpart), is currently blaming "drug cartels" for his dear cuz's many problems with the Feds. Yes, when in doubt blame the drug cartels.