It’s how a guy like me makes a living, it’s my bread and butter

Smamy pseudo-intellectual and Highly Principled Republican who would to anything to stop Trump except cast a meaningful vote Ben “Let’s Talk About Tocqueville, Baby” Sasse is a true master of the academic graft. In a relatively short career, he ranks with the true masters — Gordon Gee should commission a gold-plated bow tie in his honor:

The University of Florida’s then-president, Ben Sasse, dished out over $1.3 million on private catering for lavish dinners, football tailgates and social functions — a figure roughly double the amount spent by his predecessor and one that included a holiday party featuring a $38,610 sushi bar.

At the Dec. 7 holiday party, Sasse hosted guests who dined on fresh sushi hand-rolled by two chefs alongside dishes of beef, chicken and desserts. The event, detailed in a newly released list of more than 500 itemized catering expenses obtained under Florida’s public records law, cost $176,816, or roughly $900 per person.

The guest list that night included UF’s top brass and officials with the university’s fundraising foundation, who solicit checks for education programs from donors. The bill for the liquor was listed as $7,061.

Sasse’s yuletide soirée was the largest single expenditure — nearly 15% of his total catering spending — until he abruptly resigned in July after 17 months in office. The new details about his catering costs add to disclosures about his office’s multimillion-dollar spending on consulting contracts and about remote jobs he awarded to Republican former staffers and allies.

Sasse did not immediately respond to questions emailed to him about his catering expenses.

Sasse — paid a base salary of $1 million plus a performance bonus of up to $150,000 each year — spent nearly double the amount on catering compared to his predecessor, Kent Fuchs, who agreed last month to return as interim president until next summer. Sasse spent $906,342 on catering during his first year in office, compared to Fuchs spending an average of $476,892 annually over his eight-year term — not including a pandemic-era drop.

Sasse must be sad that it will fall to his successor to take a meat axe to tenured faculty because doggonit the university just can’t afford them in this economy.

Seeing this pompous, narcissistic con artist — subject to countless fawning profiles for doing nothing but talk a semi-good game in the Senate before he quickly left to make some real money — in action can almost make one appreciate what the Republican base sees in Donald Trump. At least when Trump grabs all the money he can for himself and a few select cronies he doesn’t pretend to be doing it out of some kind of Noble Statesmanship. If they think the only reason many “anti-Trump ;)” Republicans aren’t as corrupt as Trump it’s because they’ve never gotten the opportunity, they’re probably not wrong!