Joe Walsh, popping up on cue to make things worse

He's baaaaaaaaack!

    Thursday was unusual. I gingerly turned in a faux visit to Greenland, warning my editor that it strained against journalistic conventions. At the same time, another editor, who occasionally requests a dashed-off online missile strike, pointed out that the reptilian Joe Walsh is flirting with running for the presidency, and might I not consider sending a Sidewinder in his direction?
    Happily. But what started as a quick hit turned out, when I was done, to be longer than a usual column. So I trimmed it to standard size and said, "If you think Greenland is over the top, you can run Walsh."
     Both columns went online, and I somehow assumed Greenland, the first turned in, would therefore go into the paper first, and posted it here Friday. But I opened my Sun-Times at the kitchen table, there was Joe Walsh. So I figured, I should get him here as well. 

     A madman, raging in the town square, is finally subdued and carted off to an asylum. While he is locked away, the world itself goes mad. Breaking out, he finds himself, though unchanged, suddenly sane again.
     Could this be the Joe Walsh story? The one-term congressman, swept into office by Illinois’ 8th Congressional District on the Tea Party tide in 2010. Sucked back out into civilian life in 2012, though in that short time distinguishing himself as the kind of fact-free hater that would later do so well on a national scale.
     My colleague Lynn Sweet has reported that Walsh “is weighing” a challenge against President Trump.
     “Won’t rule it out,” Walsh told Lynn.
     Of course not. The Walsh I know wouldn’t rule out cutting off his pinkie and nailing it over his front door, if that would attract attention.
     In case you’ve forgotten Joe Walsh — and oh, how I envy you — a quick reminder. He’s a guy who never let a fact get in the way of a well-polling opinion.
     Gay marriage? That can’t be allowed because gays make worse partners and parents than straight people.
     “A man and woman!” he told me, in 2012, when I tried to give him a fair shake, hear what he had to say. “There are studies that show, when it comes to crime, education, drug use ...”
     He promised to share those studies with me. It’s been seven years, so I’m not holding my breath.

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