Cheney

Where is St. Patrick now that we need him?

One of the legendary saint's big claims to fame -- other than eventually becoming the nominal excuse for what a friend of mine once called "Mardi Gras for red-haired people with freckles," of course -- is that he is said to have chased all the snakes out of Ireland way back when.

Too bad he's not around today, because we could sure use somebody to chase all the snakes out of Washington. Our own national Babylon-on-the-Potomac is heavily over-infested with them these days, too.

Snakes to the left of us, snakes to the right of us. You can't cross the Mall in D.C. anymore without stepping over (or, preferably, on) some scaly serpent. You can't hit a K Street lobbyist with a wad of hundreds without staring some spineless viper right in the eyes.

And if you happen to work for the VP's office or the DOJ, well, you'll have to look straight up just to watch one of those nasty aspies slither on by over your head. The place really is crawling with snakes, especially after the last six years or so. Those nine guys in the black robes couldn't figure out how to count votes, but they were still adders anyway.

Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes? We hate snakes.