Three Stereotypes from Two Neighboring Islands

An Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman walk into a bar. (Sorry, no Welshmen.)

Each orders a beer. Each soon finds that there's a fly in it.

The Englishman turns his nose up, pushes the beer back across the bar and wants his money back.

The Irishman fishes the fly out of the beer, tosses it away, and drinks happily.

The Scot fishes the fly out of his beer, and holds it above the mug with one hand while prodding it with the thumb of the other hand. He shouts, "Spit it back out, ya thieving insect! Spit it back out!"

Cymbal clash.

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So ... Tommy Tuberville may have ended Jeff Sessions' political career. If he does nothing else right in his life, that will still serve as a check in the bank of karma.

Also, Tuberville, as the nominee of the Republican Party to be the next US Senator from Alabama, will probably win that seat. After all, Doug Jones, the incumbent and Tuberville's remaining adversary, got the job chiefly because he was not a pedophile. The Republicans last time around nominated Roy Moore, leading to a constant barrage of reports that Moore had 'dated' girls as young as 14 when he was in his 30s, and had been persistent enough in this pursuit to get on the radar of mall cops.

The reality is the Democratic caucus in the Senate was happy to have Doug Jones around, but they're not counting on his return. Alabama is still Alabama, the state that gave Jeff Sessions (and Roy Moore) long political careers. It won't give one of those, at that level, to Sen. Jones.

So unless we discover in tomorrow's headlines that Tuberville has been doing awful things with his neighbor's sheep, he'll probably be Senator Tuberville soon. This is not good news, aside from the fact that it means an end to Sessions.

The three stereotypical characters in our little story above will have their own attitudes about this spectacle. We can consider either Sessions or Moore a fly in the beer of our national politics. The Englishman would want nothing to do with them or with Alabama's show in general; the Irishman would find a way to enjoy the show anyway. The Scotsman will probably want to get Moore back into the mix, so his mug o' beer'll be full again.

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