One of the truly annoying thing about the conservative Blue Dog Democrats is how they insist–heroically–that they are saving us Democrats from ourselves. One of the classic practitioners of that dark art was former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, who having left politics over a decade ago, has now decided to run for the open Senate seat in Nebraska. The problem is, as Digby reminds us, Kerrey is a fool (boldface mine):

“It’s one of the cruelest things we do, when we say, Republicans or Democrats, `Oh, we can wait and reform Social Security later,’ ” the Nebraska Democrat said.

Mr. Kerrey says that without reform, entitlements will claim 100 percent of the Treasury in 2012.

“This is not caused by liberals, not caused by conservatives, but by a simple demographic fact,” Mr. Kerrey warned at a meeting of the Democratic Leadership Council.

“We [will have] converted the federal government into an ATM machine.”

This is not only ridiculously stupid in hindsight, but was idiotic at the time: Social Security was running large annual surpluses, and, unless one assumed historically disastrous economic growth for three straight decades, would remain ‘solvent’ (i.e., between the annual revenue through the payroll tax and the accumulated surplus, it would be able to meet all payments).

So Kerrey is a fatuous blowhard. The problem the Coalition of the Sane faces is that Nebraska Republicans will nominate some batshitloonitarian theocrat. So we are faced with a brainless conservative or someone who is completely out of his fucking mind.

That we lack a third option is yet another reason why we can’t have nice things.