Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) sang happily to himself as he strutted along in the D.C. sunshine. Everything was going so well: the nation’s first blackish president was in the White House, the first ever female Hispanic lesbian judge ( a three-fer!) was about to be installed on the Supreme Court, the banks and the auto industry and who knew what else were all part nationalized, the national debt was spiralling satisfactorily, our illegal wars of colonial occupation were more unpopular than ever and he, Pat Leahy, just a simple country lawyer from Montpellier, was a major player in all these wonderful events. “I am so great…”

“Hey Pat! Hey Pat!” An urgent cry interrupted the lanky progressive’s solitary reverie. “Hey Pat! Wait up!”

The backwoods statesman jumped back in alarm as a shining black Lincoln Continental mounted the pavement in front of him and slammed into a mail box. “HEY PAT!”

Oh no, thought Pat. Not him. “Hello Ted” he smiled through gritted teeth.

“Hey ole buddy, whazzup?” drooled the bloated Bay Stater (D-MA). “You wanna lift?”

Pat’s alarmed eyes (or eye, since he’s blind in one of them) took in Ted’s inflamed complexion, his swollen features, his little yellow eyes and his even yellower teeth.

“You look good, Ted” smiled the Cyclopean Vermonter. “Real good. How’s the health?”

“Ashk not! “laughed Ted. “Nevah bettuh. I fee-ul great”.

“And you look great” lied Pat. “Honest. Out for a spin?”

“Huh? Oh yeah –a shpin. Gotta catch the lasht ferry back …nevah saw the bridge…that’sh my shtory, right?”

“Sorry, Ted” said Pat. “You kinda lost me there”.

“Huh? Wha? Is that you…Jack?”

“No, it’s me – Pat. Look Ted, you haven’t been drinking have you?”

“Drinking? What’re you shuggesting? You think I’m drunk? Huh? You think I gotta problem? Huh? Huh? You wanna make shomething out of it? Why, if I could still walk I’d shlug you…” the massive car door swung open and Ted slowly rolled out and fell in a heap at Pat’s feet.

“Ted!” exclaimed Pat. “Are you okay?” He bent over his distressed colleague. “Shpeak – I mean speak, to me”.

“Pat…oh Pat…” whispered Ted and Leahy saw that his old friend was trembling and that his blazing jowls were streaked with tears. “You gotta lishen to me. I’m going to Hell, Pat…straight to Hell”.

“No you’re not!” lied Pat again. “Why, a man like you, with all you’ve done…”

“But that’s why!” exclaimed Ted, grabbing Pat’s arm and holding tight. “I make myshelf shick, Pat. Shick! If you only knew half the shit I’ve pulled…the things I’ve…anyway, I’m gonna burn Pat. I know that. I’m gonna burn forever!”

“Now look Ted” consoled Pat. “You’re a senior statesman, you’re the Lion of the Senate, you’re…”

“Gonna burn in Hell!” wailed Ted. “Don’t you end up like me, Pat! You were a good man once…a good man. It’s too late for me but you’ve still gotta chance to save yourshelf!”

“Well Ted; if broadening federal hate crimes law to include crimes based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability, if moving forward with a nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry to provide a thorough, independent and fair review of the Bush Administration’s many war crimes, if defending Judge Sotomayor from those who have sought to twist her words and her record and to engage in partisan political attacks, if apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African Americans, if making life easier for abortionists, flag burners, union bosses, atheists, terrorists and Fidel Castro will get me sent to Hell, well then, I guess I’ll just have to…”

“Burn! Burn in Hell!” sobbed Ted. “Oh the sulphur! The bubbling lava! Burn! BURN!”

Wow, thought Pat. When those lapsed Catholics lapse back they really lapse back.

To give you a sense of how bad things are, when I was teaching at a Jesuit college, we were hiring for a Shakespeare position. There were two finalists. Finalist #1 was a gutsy guy with Classics training who knew Latin. Finalist #2 was a feminist gender studies maven who did her dissertation on the history of female actors doing Shakespeare in drag in the 1990s. Finalist #1, it was discovered, had posted some pro-life and pro-traditional-marriage arguments on a website somewhere. The feminists went nuts, caballing furiously to make sure Finalist #2 got the job. Imagine — at a JESUIT COLLEGE — discriminating against someone for being a pro-life Catholic classicist!!! That’s how bad it is.

One of my colleagues mused to me, in a condescending bovine tone, that I ought not say much because after all, Shakespeare was in his own day resisting the Greek-reading snobs like myself….. There’s some bad logic for you. It’s bad out there, real bad.

But on a lighter note, I have taught the Satyricon a number of times and students always love it. Especially Trimalchio’s feast, of course.

Did anyone hear what exactly, the protestors were yelling out,? They were chewed out, then escorted out by security.?

It was during Soto hearings, when Al Franken was giving his full of himself speech, this is my 5th day, how he missed Teddy Kennedy not being there, how great Sotomayer was, and all the good past changes to the Constitution.

That is a real shame, Bronzeprof’r. Depressing news, it truly saddens me. What is the score with the Latin department? Is there still hope in Latin?

By the way, kuddos for fighting the good fight on both fronts––university and military. I’m not sure which is tougher. Audentes fortuna juvat.

Blammo says “I won” and he means that to plow his choices through since he sees that that’s how gummint works.

Like the OJ “trial”, actual evidence and proof matter not.

Bet they would have had a list of classics she could have read.

Petronius, I hate to be a stinker, but the truth is, Classics too has fallen! V Davis Hanson presaged as much in “Who Killed Homer” back in the mid 1990s, but since then the liberalization of classical studies has accelerated. Blame Foucault, blame the classicists themselves, blame the dumb “Gladiator” culture of the world at large, but nowadays Classics departments are hotbeds of Marxists, queer studies, gender theory, and fatuous parallels between Rome’s “imperial overreach” and the excesses of Bush America.

I did a joint Phd/MA in English/Classics but didn’t finish my MA in Classics until 2007, after I’d already been teaching full-time at university for 4 years. I watched the field slowly retire all its conservatives. Today’s classicists aren’t as totally looney leftist as people in Cultural Studies, mind you, but they are all blue-dog Democrats. They came to the conclusion that conservatives were anti-intellectual and only liberals would save them from being downsized academically ….. PSYCH! They got burned.