“The West Virginia Supreme Court is committed to sound fiscal management and administration of the judicial branch of government and takes its commitment to state taxpayers seriously.”
Ha ha ha, ho ho ho, hee hee hee! Stop it, you're killing us!
You can't tell the politicians from the comedians anymore. The comedians have become mostly humorless political hacks and the politicians have everyone rolling in the aisles with their unintentionally hysterical defenses of the indefensible.
Should we thank the maybe-soon-to-be ex-Sen. Al Franken for this bizarre development? Probably not, since he was never very funny as a comedian and proved even less amusing as an elected public official.
Still, how about that quote up above? It's a doozy, isn't it? In fact, it's a double whammy. It's two – TWO – jokes in one.
First joke: “The West Virginia Supreme Court is committed to sound fiscal management and administration of the judicial branch of government. ...”
Okay, but since when? Clearly, this is not standing practice or a long-term phenomenon. If the Court is committed to a sound fiscal approach to anything, it's a recent development – one prompted by adverse and ongoing revelations about its habitual extravagance – and should be qualified accordingly, as in “The West Virginia Supreme Court is now committed, etc.”
Second joke: “The West Virginia Supreme Court ... takes its commitment to state taxpayers seriously.”
Really? If our state Supreme Court took us seriously, they wouldn't be in the position of having to try to convince us, despite evidence to the contrary, that they take us seriously.
Which is what West Virginia Chief Supreme Court Justice Allen Loughry had to do last week when he made the assertion quoted above in a budget presentation to members of our State House Finance Committee.
That's because the price tag for recent renovations – to Loughry's chambers alone – was $363,000, including $1,700 in throw pillows.
Somehow, we don't feel like they're taking us seriously.