Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District has long been a hotbed of wingnut malakatude: from dim bulb Bob Livingston to David Vitter to Bobby Jindal to the current member, Steve Scalise.

Scalise is a genuinely nasty piece of work who publicly fumed when PBJ decided to run for the seat when Vitter moved his diaper bag to the Senate in 2004. Scalise thought he was next in line; plus he actually lived in the district whereas PBJ was a carpetbagger from Red Stick. But at that time, Jindal was the chosen one, so Scalise eventually shut his yap and stayed in the lege until PBJ was elected Governor in 2007. Since then, Scalise has been a rabid right winger and a worthy stylistic successor to Bitter Vitter as one of the nastiest members of the House. And nowadays, that’s saying a lot.

Scalise is obviously qualified to be a member of the malakatude hall of fame as I’ve disliked him since his days in the Louisiana Lege but here’s the reason he’s this week’s honoree:

“Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson Wednesday brought Dick Cheneyback to the Capitol, where the former vice president got a rousing response from members of Scalise’s conservative caucus.

“He was back in his old stomping grounds and it was great to see him,” said Scalise, the chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC).

<SNIP>

Cheney was a member of the RSC when he served in the House, though he observed to Scalise that the group was a lot smaller when he was there. Democrats were in the majority then, and the House GOP caucus included a sizeable number of moderates who are an endangered species in the current GOP congressional membership.

“He was very well received,” Scalise said. “He carries a lot of credibility having served in the House, as defense secretary and then as vice president for President George W. Bush.”

He “carries” a lot of credibility? Carries? Really? First of all, that’s an awkward way to put it, but how on God’s green earth does Cheney have any credibility whatsoever? Let’s see, he was one of the primary architects of the Bush administration’s lying its way into the Irag War. He keeps telling us that waterboarding and other forms of “enhanced interrogation” are swell and needed to fight the so called war on so called terror. (If it existed, it would be a war on terrorism, you cannot fight an emotion, which is what terror is.) In short, if Cheney ever “carried” any credibility, he dropped it a long time ago with his assurances that the Iraqis had WMD and that the war was not about oil. Yeah, right.

I know I’m preaching to choir but what Dick Cheney really is, is the sanest sounding lunatic in American political history. (Sorry for the double is, y’all.) I gotta give him credit for saying nutty things in a monotone so people won’t notice the tin foil hat and the way his nose grows with every lie. Ths is probably a mixed metaphor since Cheney was Gepetto to W’s Pinocchio but you know what I mean. Guess that makes Dick’s pal Rummy the boss of Donkey Island or whatever the hell it was called in the Disney flick.

Back to Steve Scalise. It’s not surprising that he’s sticking with the scare America shitless neo-con crowd. Paulist isolationism is a poor fit for a Congressman whose head is permanently wedged up the petro-chemical industry’s ass. Big oil likes war because it leads to big profits. I also get a kick out of the name of the group he chairs: the Republican Study Committee. When was the last time House Gopers studied anything? All they need to know is where President Obama stands and they’re automatically against it. I’m not sure if Scalise has come out against the White House Easter egg hunt but that may be something the RSC is studying.

Since Scalise is fond of the word carry, I’ll give CSNY the last word: