The only reason why I wish politicians lived forever

Whenever a politician dies, the media goes through this exhaustive, undignified, morbid, bend-over-backward exercise in canonizing the deceased.

Now it's Robert Byrd's turn.

I don't think I'll ever witness anything, though, as nauseating as the deification of Ronald Reagan when he finally passed away.

I rue the day that George Bush senior dies, or when Dick Cheney or Henry Kissinger dies -- not that there's much chance of those re-animated corpses ever konking out.

It's just that the "honors" and "remembrances" are, essentially, an asbestos blanket of bullshit.

Remember when Strom Thurmond died? You would have thought he cured cancer and somehow made racial segregation a beautiful thing. The fact that he was a rancid old racist was whispered here and there, and only became a focus when Trent Lott stood up to insert both Florsheim shoes in his mouth.

I can't even guess at the rancorous lies and rhapsodizing hypocrisy that will fill the Web and Cable news cycles when Bush senior, Cheney, Kissinger or any of those other old gargoyles disappear from this earth.

I'm not saying we should drag their corpses through the muck. Just bury them without the epic poems written in treacle and fecal matter.