Maybe it's Wyoming

Two of the crankiest, foulest-tempered, meanest-minded men in current day politics are Dick Cheney and Alan Simpson.

Dick Cheney has done and said so many nasty, intemperate things over the years that he's pretty much retired the trophy for cranky old politicians, but now here comes Alan Simpson to challenge him.

Simpson has been in the news lately because of his emails about Social Security, the social safety net that we all depend upon and which he serves on a commission for investigating and shoring up for the future. His comments leave little doubt that instead of shoring it up, he, like most right-wingers, would prefer to see it done away with altogether. (So, why, again, did the president appoint him to this commission???)

One of Simpson's most offensive and reported remarks, of course, compared Social Security to a cow with "310 million tits." Coming from a man who has been sucking from the American taxpayer's teat for most of his adult life, that is rich.

His latest offensive remark, which has earned him the enmity of veterans everywhere, concerns veterans who require treatment or receive benefits as a result of their military service. To Simpson's way of thinking, they are part of the problem. They should not expect to receive any help from their country for having risked their lives in its service. No, they should just suck it up (there's that teat/tit imagery again) and get on with life.

Men such as these two deserve nothing but contempt from the rest of us and they certainly do not deserve to hold positions of power that might have deleterious effects upon the lives of the citizens of this country. But how in the world did they ever get to be such bad-tempered jerks? And with personalities like that, how did they ever get elected to public office in the first place?

The one thing that I see that they have in common, other than being jerks, is that they are both from Wyoming. So what is it about Wyoming that produces such people? And if they are going to produce them, could they please, please just keep them at home?

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