So I come back from eating out tonight and there’s a press release from the Rob Maness campaign in my e-mail box…

Politico is reporting that the campaign of Bill Cassidy has tweeted a photo altered to show Mary Landrieu’s face on Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s body, comparing the Senate’s decision to alter filibuster rules yesterday to mid-20th century fascism in Europe, and Col. Rob Maness (R-LA) says the image is offensive for a variety of reasons.

“As a 32-year veteran of the United States Air Force and the descendant of brave Americans who fought in World War II, I think this is not just inappropriate but offensive,” Maness said.  “While I disagree with the Senate’s decision yesterday and believe Democrats will come to rue the day they restricted the speech of all senators, comparing a political maneuver to the atrocities of fascism so many of our fellow Americans fought valiantly against is out of line.

“Although my belief that liberals in Washington are eroding our rights is well documented, it isn’t just disrespectful to invoke such atrocities.  It’s callous towards the Greatest Generation of Americans and should be beneath anyone running for office.  Americans are tired of divisiveness and name-calling, and Bill Cassidy should apologize to Mary Landrieu, to those in uniform who protect us from tyranny, and to all the people of Louisiana.”

Now THAT’S entertainment!

If Rob Maness is really “offended” by this…

…then he’s far too big a joke to ever support for the Senate.

I’ve had people approach me for weeks and months asking whether this guy is actually a Mary Landrieu plant injected into the race to split the Republican vote. I’ve told them I didn’t think that was the case.

But something like this comes along, and it makes you wonder.

It’s not the first time that Maness’ campaign has parroted somebody else’s (as in, Landrieu’s) shots at Cassidy. He’s done that often. But this is certainly the silliest example of his campaign parroting Landrieu’s statements.

Emotionally, you have to be made of glass to find satire of a Democrat politician who just voted to stifle dissent as fascist, offensive. This guy is a retired Air Force colonel. The idea that he can’t handle that kind of satire is comical.

So the other explanation is that he’s desperate for attention, so much so that he’ll beclown himself trying to find an issue – any issue – on which he can find traction.

And the fact that he says Bill Cassidy should apologize to Mary Landrieu for something we posted at the Hayride and one of his campaign workers happened to tweet a link to – mind you, Joel DiGrado didn’t tweet a link to the fark above, he tweeted a link to our post about how Landrieu voted to blow up 240 years of Senate tradition, which was perfectly legitimate and blameless for him to do – shouldn’t that tell you something?

One would imagine that if Maness was the “real” conservative in the race, and he couldn’t help himself but to march into this controversy, he would have attacked Landrieu’s camp as ridiculous for demanding an apology – and decried the lunacy of political correctness that exists on the Left; after all, if a three-term Senator can’t take a little lampooning once in a while after a particularly atrocious vote, she doesn’t belong there and it’s time to put a real American like a Rob Maness into that seat.

Right?

Instead, we get more scolding from the Thought Police directed at Cassidy, who has zero to do with this laughable “controversy.” Maness, the Republican, took the side of Landrieu, the Democrat, over Cassidy, his fellow Republican, for something Cassidy didn’t even do.

And by doing so, to the extent anybody actually cares what the Maness campaign says he’s now aiding Landrieu’s attempt to deflect attention away from that vote killing the filibuster. By participating in that distraction and whining about a satirical image on a blog post, he’s taking attention away from something substantive that should damage her chances at re-election. Which, one would expect, he’d find to his benefit.

It’s so stupid it’s suspicious. Maness might be a first-time candidate and this could be a rookie mistake – but if that’s all this is, are you really capable of beating a three-term incumbent with  press releases about blog posts?

From this corner, we’re grateful for the attention. This is one of the better Fridays for blog traffic we’ve had all year. And we’re ecstatic about the hyperventilating Democrat reaction the Mussolandrieu fark got; it’s just what we wanted. It points out how fundamentally unserious those people, who will call conservatives like Rob Maness fascists and Nazis at the drop of a hat but can’t handle the slightest bit of blowback, truly are.

Cassidy can apologize if he wants, though he has nothing to apologize for. Don’t bother asking for one here. We’ll apologize for the fark when Landrieu apologizes for killing the filibuster and for Obamacare, and for a few other things we might think of over the weekend.

As for Maness, he’s no longer a consequential figure, if he ever was. He showed that tonight. Nobody should take him seriously, other than to question why he seems to offer “me-too” statements to follow Mary’s gang so often.