This Just In: Old, Wealthy, White Guys Retiring

No, it's not the Onion Radio News, it's just real news, filtered through the piercing, un-cataractical, weary-of-rolling eyes of My Masonic Apron.

In case you've been sitting under your refrigerator playing with yourself or watching the Tiger Woods News Network twenty-four hours a day, the news that a couple prominent Democrats are retiring has gotten everybody else's panties (crotchless or otherwise) in rather a twisty-poo.

A Democratic senator from North Dakota named Byron Dorgan, whom none of you has ever heard of, will not be seeking re-election. Neither will Democratic Connecticut senator Chris Dodd, whom some of you might have heard of, but only because he ran for President in 2008, which I was unaware of. I guess I was blinded by the glamour and manly beauty of "Law & Order" stalwart and necktie-wearing bassett hound Fred Thompson.

The news media is going crazygonuts about this. What does it fortell for the Democratic party? They're calling it "another bout of heartburn" for the Democrats. Now, I'm not as stupid as you drunk I am, I know that people staying is better, image-wise, than people leaving, but I'm a little confused about what the BFD is here.

Chris Dodd is 66 years old. He's a lawyer and a career politician, being elected to the senate in 1980, the year I was born, for any of you who are curious about such things (May 12, send pickles-of-the-month!). That means that he's been a senator for almost thirty goddamn years.

Thirty, bitches.

That's rather a long time to be doing anything, especially in an era when people stay in one job about the average length of a rodeo bull-riding session.

Byron Dorgan is old enough to have been born in an era when it was acceptable, apparently, to name your child "Byron." Okay, okay, he's actually only one year older than Chris Dodd, but apparently his parents were big Tennessee Williams fans. "Lord Byron's Love Letter?" Anyone? Oh, nevermind.

Anyway, Dorgan's been a senator for 17 years. So, he and Dodd together have a combined 47 years experience (I'm doing math, Mrs. Apron, aren't you proud of me?) Maybe the two of them high-tailing it out of there isn't such a bad thing.

I mean, it's not like either of them are strapped for cash and need to keep working to make sure their families are provided for.

I don't think.

Dorgan was a big-shit corporate executive at a Denver aerospace firm before becoming a senator, which doesn't pay too poorly either. He was also briefly entangled in the Jack Abramoff money-laundering scandal, so he's probably not doing too bad from that either. Chris Dodd lives comfortably in East Haddam, Connecticut, which isn't a shabby little town and he owns a "vacation home" in Connemara, Ireland, which just sucks for him, don't it?

Now, granted, both of these men probably wake up six times a night to pee, and they have sciatica and the mumps and gout of the head or whatever the hell old, rich, white people are getting these days, but I'd say they're doing okay, relatively speaking. Relative to the 10% of their fellow Americans who are unemployed right now.

So, why shouldn't they be retiring?

Should they be there, legislating, pretending they're reading 5,000 page bills and falling asleep at their little desks until they're in their seventies or eighties or nineties? Is that what we want on the Hill? A bunch of crinkly motherfuckers who constantly have to leave session to put in eyedrops or get an open cardiac massage in the senator's lounge?

My point is: two old sonsofbitches throwing in the towel is not news, and it's not a goddamn case of heartburn for the Democratic party. It's just two old sonsofbitches throwing in the towel. Can you blame them? Maybe Dodd wants to spend more time in Ireland. Or Connecticut. Maybe Byron wants to have his name surgically changed.

Who gives a shit?

Frankly, I wish more of these silver-haired, crumply old bastards would hit the road, on both sides of the aisle. How about getting in some young people who don't smoke so they're not as beholden to the tobacco lobby? Maybe some guys who can actually attain erections naturally so they're not totally in Big Pharma's pocket, accepting free samples of Viagra and hoarding Levitra click-pens in exchange for pushing drugs through the FDA process before they're deemed safe?

Instead of criticizing and critiquing the decision of these two Pamper-asses to step aside, we should be applauding them for leaving while they still have more than two marbles rolling around in their skulls. Americans are notorious for not knowing when to quit. Look at how many years "Roseanne" was on the air.

Goodbye, Christopher Dodd.

Goodbye.... *chortle*.... Byron.

Have a nice life, you two rich, old, white guys.

And now you know why you rarely read about politics on My Masonic Apron.