Is This Guy a Vacuum Cleaner? He Sucks...

I realize that I am perhaps the only dog out here who is upset at the impending confirmation of Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne as our new Secretary of the Interior. I have expressed my displeasure at his qualifications before,. but while some folks are a bit upset about this it appears unlikely that anything can be done. Apparently, there is little doubt that Kempthorne will be confirmed before the week is out. Here is a news item taken from a newspaper that truly deserves to line the litterboxes of incontintent cats, the Idaho Statesman.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has moved out of his Statehouse office, and he does not plan to come back for state business.

Workers on Thursday removed nails and covered the holes in the walls where Kempthorne's pictures and framed newspaper articles once hung. His Statehouse staffers are packing their desks, exploring job possibilities.

Kempthorne's busts of Washington and Jefferson, his Civil War uniform, his childhood baseball mitt, and his football helmets from Boise State, Idaho State and the University of Idaho, have been gradually removed from his office. The job was finished over the weekend.

I love the "Still Life with Kempthorne" paragraph lovingly detailing the carefully selected detritus of a politician's office. I'm especially fond of "his Civil War uniform." Did Kempthorne fight for the Union or the Confederacy? As for the busts of Washington of Jefferson, I imagine that Kempthorne probably spent a great deal of his days in the governor's office studying those busts, holding them next to his own face in the mirror (if any politician's office has a mirror, Kempthorne's has one), and trying to emulate their presidential expression. His childhood baseball mitt? His football helmets from Boise State, Idaho State, and the University of Idaho? No word yet on his Tinkertoy collection, pet hamsters and their specially designed Habitrail, or the big box of Legos he keeps in the closet for extra special visitors.