Well, it appears that Tom Salmon has finally settled on what he wants to be when he grows up: a U.S. senator.

Ever since his reelection to serve as state auditor, the Boy Wonder has made it known that he didn’t really want to do that job, but would rather begin immediately positioning himself to run for something grander.

Tuesday night’s Letters to the Editor in The Messenger was graced with an incoherent Salmon screed against Bernie Sanders for… what exactly? Is it for representing the interests of the elderly, veterans and working men and women?  Ever the master of nuance,  Auditor Salmon somehow manages to offend nearly everyone who labors in this state:

Senator Sanders is a Senator of the United States.  He is not a lobbyist for the AARP, the Veterans of America or the many Unions that financially support him.  He has not spent a day teaching in the public schools, nor a day on the battlefield.  He is neither a nuclear scientist, a CPA or a healthcare professional…But yet, he has spent the last year raising $1.5 million for his re-election campaign and getting people whipped into a frenzy over “unfairness.”

Whoa!  Can we conclude from that diatribe that Mr. Salmon will not accept campaign donations from corporations and the independently wealthy who would most benefit from his anti-populist agenda?  

Should the heavens part in recognition of his birthright, and he make the unlikely ascent to the throne of “Senator Salmon,” I guess we can assume that the full spectrum of peoples whose interests Bernie consistently stands for can pretty well lump-it when it comes to any issues of “unfairness.”

And what’s this?  Bernie Sanders has been “silent” over the debt ceiling crisis?

“Nearly eight months after his famous filibuster, when leaders are truly needed, he is particularly quiet as solutions are being sought.”

Does this man not own a television?

While we’re at it, let’s hear Mr. Salmon’s brilliant and detailed plan.  He is a CPA, you know.

Oh, I get it.  All of those old people, veterans, teachers and children who have been ‘whipped into a frenzy over “unfairness?”‘  Scotch Social Security, Medicare, Veterans benefits and public education; then send those kids and the elderly out to get all the new jobs that will be created “soon” by the Bush tax cuts.

That’s not what you meant, Mr. Auditor?  Well, that certainly is how you came across to me.

You think social insurance is the “problem” with America’s debt?

He (Sen. Sanders) has earned a black belt in delivering half-truths (“Social insurance programs are not the problem”)

Social insurance, which American laborers have been paying for in good faith for decades now, and which honest analysis reveals will serve us well into the distant future with some very minor adjustments?  You think that’s the problem, Mr. Salmon?  

We do know that as much time as Mr. Salmon devotes to doing almost anything to avoid the tedium of his real job, he still has not taken our advice to enroll in a basic English composition refresher at CCV.

Let us urge Senator Sanders and the rest of his counterparts in dysfunctional Washington, DC to “Serve the United States of America which means all the people within the states, or to leave their post and become a lobbyist for their favorite organization.”  

(Quoted absolutely verbatim from pg. 4A of the July 26 Messenger.)

Mr. Salmon’s timing is flawless as ever.   He clumsily flings his line in the water and catches his own tail.