Wednesday Night Open Thread: You Dirty Coyote Killing Son of a Gun Edition

Biden had another of his beloved bipartisanship moments the other day when he issued a Presidential Medal of Freedom to that awful troll of a Wyoming senator, Alan Simpson. This is classic Biden. Now I am not going to go so far as to say that it really matters who gets these awards so long as they aren’t Rush Limbaugh, but this was very silly and is once again indicative of how much Biden is a man of a time long past. I am sure he and Simpson had a very friendly relationship all those years they were together in the Senate. Simpson is one of the last of that generation still around. But….Alan Simpson was an unmitigated asshole and he always was. He was never serious about governing and was someone largely despised at the time by even moderate Democrats. I guess it makes Biden feel good about himself and his nation to have this relationship with Simpson but Simpson was awful.

I was reminded of all this today when I ran across this amazing letter from Idaho governor Cecil Andrus to Simpson about the latter’s trolling on nuclear waste siting.

This is about as close to a “fuck you” as you are going to get in politics, at least in 1989 between politicians from bordering states with lots of issues they share. Andrus was a genuine moderate and a very reasonable man (it’s literally amazing that Andrus and Frank Church could be elected in Idaho a mere few decades ago, which is part of the subject of this book I am researching). But he had a very sharp tongue and did not put up with shit from anyone, especially assholes like Simpson who were unserious about policy.

But what did Biden care about that. He and Simpson and Jennings Randolph got to hang out together naked in the Senate locker room back in the day when America was Great (TM).

If I keep finding this level of documents, I’m going to have to keep putting up open threads to share them with you.