You’re probably asking yourself, what took so long? Beats the hell outta me. There’s no time like the present. And that is why Joe Manchin is malaka of the week.

Because I live in the Gret Stet of Louisiana where blue dogs used to be plentiful, I’m more sympathetic to their plight than most liberals. It’s not easy being blue in a red state. But none of our former blue dog senators was a mouthy mook like Joe Manchin. They didn’t demonize those they disagreed with for sport. That’s Joe Manchin’s forte. Even if I agreed with him, I’d find him a crude creep and an egregious schmuck. That’s the essence of malakatude, Manchin-style.

Joe Manchin is back in the news and not in a good way. He misses the attention he received during the 117th Congress when his vote could make or break the fortunes of the Biden administration. As a result, he was treated with kindness and respect by everyone from President Biden on down. That’s what makes his latest outburst of selfish assholery so intolerable.

Manchin’s number finally seems to be up in West Virginia. If he runs for reelection, his opponent will be Governor Jim Justice who looks like a winner at this point. As a result, Manchin lashed out in an op-ed some staffer ghosted for him in USA Today:

“Let’s be brutally honest about the political reality we live in today. The extremes on the left and right now control the Democratic and Republican Parties, defining our politics and policy debates. These partisan extremes are in the business of feeding political division and dysfunction everyday – and their business is booming.

They want America divided – because they benefit greatly from it. They want us to see each other as enemies because they feed off of it. They attack our institutions, whether it is our Capitol, our elected leaders or our justice system, without caring about the lasting damage it does.”

Manchin has left the reality based community and joined hands with the both siders and fantasists. Does he really think that MTG and AOC have anything in common other than being referred to by their initials?

Greene wants to burn down the country whereas Ocasio-Cortez wants to change it with a positive progressive program. AOC has grown in office and has learned to work with colleagues she doesn’t 100% agree with. In contrast, MTG  has learned how to manipulate KMac to further her nutty agenda.

The Boy Wonder speaks for me:

The NYT’s Jamelle Bouie responded to this damn fool op-ed with a column entitled Joe Manchin Is Dreaming.

“There is something deeply strange, if not outright bizarre, about a narrative that puts the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol in the same category of political action as Black Lives Matter protests, the liberal criticism of the Supreme Court or whatever it is that Manchin has in mind. Stranger still is that he does this while calling, with all apparent sincerity, for more dialogue: “I believe there is a better way to govern and lead this nation forward that embraces respectful discourse, debate and discussion.”

Strange is the right word. Manchin is a strange guy. He’s facing defeat at home, so what does he do? He’s flirting with running for president on a possible No Labels ticket. I agree with my colleague Cassandra’s characterization of that fakakta group: No Labels = All Lies.

In his dream state, Joe Manchin doesn’t understand that there’s NO DEMAND for a Manchin presidential candidacy. The only way the Indicted Impeached Insult Comedian can win in 2024 is if the sane vote is split. He owns the crazy vote. As a United States senator, Manchin was a victim of the Dipshit Insurrection. Does he want to help the guy who incited that riot return to power? The malakatude, it burns.

I don’t recognize the Democratic party as seen through Manchin’s eyes. Joe Biden is a center-left president who works with all factions in our occasionally fractious party. He listens to AOC, but he also listens to Joe Manchin. It’s called democracy and dialogue, which Manchin claims to want but doesn’t recognize when he sees it.

The choice in the next election is between a party that believes in democracy and a party that is a cult of personality with a criminal as its leader. It’s not a rerun of Truman-Dewey, Eisenhower-Stevenson, or Carter-Ford where the choice was between two good candidates who believed in the American experiment. Joe Manchin doesn’t get it. And that is why Joe Manchin is malaka of the week.

The last word goes to Steve Earle with a song from his 2020 album, Ghosts Of West Virginia: