Bayh's Leaving, Who (Else) Is He Screwing?

Indiana senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) made a surprise announcement today, declaring that he will not seek reelection to the Senate, with no advance warning to anyone except President Obama , but not Majority Leader Harry Reid. This, after Obama set him up with softball questions in his Q&A with Senate Democrats a few weeks ago, after Bayh received a gift from Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), who decided not to run against him in the fall. The manner in which Bayh leaves us is a testament to the manner in which he used his seat in the Senate: for self-enrichment at the cost of everyone else's suffering, and by not giving a good goddamn about anyone other than himself.

As Glenn Greenwald said in Salon last fall:

It's impossible to find a more perfectly representative face for the rotted Washington establishment than Evan Bayh.  He is the pure expression of virtually every attribute that makes the Beltway so dysfunctional, deceitful and corrupt.

Bayh wants to send other people into every proposed war he can find and keep them there forever without ever bearing any of the costs himself -- not in military service for him or his family nor even in higher taxes to pay for his glorious wars.  Sacrifice is for everyone other than Evan Bayh and his friends.  He runs around praising himself as a "deficit hawk" while recklessly supporting wars and indefinite occupations that the country can't afford and which drive us further into debt.  He feigns concern over the "deficit" only when it comes time to deny ordinary Americans benefits which he and his family already possess in abundance.  He is a loyal servant to the insurance and health care industries over his own constituents -- as his wife sits on the Boards of numerous health care giants, who, right when Bayh became a Senator, began paying her millions of dollars in cash and stock.  And this Sermonizer of Personal Responsibility is the ultimate by-product of nepotism, following faithfully and effortlessly in the footsteps of his Daddy-Senator, whose seat he now occupies.  The fact that he's a Democrat -- and was Obama's close-second choice for Vice President -- just underscores how bipartisan these afflictions are.

When the sad and destructive history of the U.S. over the last decade is written, the coddled, nepotistic, self-serving face of Evan Bayh should be prominently included.  It embodies virtually every cause.

Thanks alot, schmuck! I mean, really--Bayh claims that he's leaving because Congress has become "too partisan":

After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in Congress has waned. For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is too much partisanship and not enough progress -- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peoples' business is not being done.

And the irony is that this colossal jackass can't see that he's been part of the reason why "the peoples' business" isn't getting done! Bayh and his damn Blue Dogs, kissing elephant ass when they should have been kicking it, what did he expect? He's been part of the problem for so long that he can't see it clearly. Digby, though, thinks it's a good thing that Bayh is leaving:

The good news is that we are separating the men from the boys. The Democrats have everything, but it's all so icky and hard that a whole bunch of them are just walking away. Good riddance. If they don't have the cojones to stick it out when their country needs them, then they shouldn't be in politics.

I concur: so long, asshole! And, in a final stabbing of his middle finger at the party, Bayh also managed to time his announcement so that the voters of Indiana won't have a chance to pick a Democrat of their choosing in the primary, so the Indiana Democratic party will be able to go into a smoke-filled room and pick one of their good ole boys to run for Bayh's seat; ergo, slim-to-no chance for a good progressive Dem to be selected to run. Obama carried Indiana, but it's a pretty red state. I don't know if we can carry the state's senatorial election in the fall with a no-name Democratic candidate. Damn, it just gets better and better.

Now, some think that Bayh is preparing for a run at the presidency; I disagree. Josh Marshall thinks that Bayh just became bored. However, I think Bayh is going to emulate one of his pain-in-the-ass buddies, Joe Lieberman, and go to work for the health insurance industry full-time, instead of just part-time from the floor of the Senate. He's just that kind of snake in the grass. 

Yglesias:

Simply put: He’s an immoral person who conducts his affairs in public life with a callous disregard for the impact of his decisions on human welfare. He’s sad he’s not going to be president? He doesn’t like liberal activists? He finds senate life annoying? Well, boo-hoo. We all shed a tear.

Really, boo-fucking-hoo. And now we're rid of Evan Bayh, for the foreseeable future. What we'll get in exchange for this traitor to his party, though, remains to be seen.