Si, se puede! That means, “yes we can,” as in, “yes we can serve up a plate of Quick Hits! Today we talk about Nevada and The West Wing, Jon Porter and George Bush, and the best-looking senator in the Senate, John Ensign. Enjoy!

• Nevada puts the president over the top!

Well, at least on TV, where U.S. Rep. Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) won the presidency on Sunday’s episode of The West Wing. With the country almost evenly divided, Santos winning his home state of Texas and Republican nominee U.S. Sen. Arnold Vinick (the delightful Alan Alda) taking his home state of California, Oregon and Nevada were the deciding states. And they both went for Santos.

The episode was overshadowed by the death of Democratic vice presidential nominee Leo McGarry (longtime character actor John Spencer, who passed away in real life in December). As always, The West Wing raised important constitutional questions, like could the election be challenged due to the death of a vice president on Election Day? And what’s the best way to replace a dead vice presidential nominee, even as voters are still going to the polls — naming a new running mate, letting the party committee name one or waiting until Inauguration Day, and nominating a new one via Section 2 of the 25th Amendment?

Still, it was nice to see Nevada play a role in a national election, even a fictional one. One downside: Every single character mispronounced the state’s name. (Even Spencer, in a long-ago flashback episode that mentioned Yucca Mountain, said Nev-AHH-duh.) Double bad points for Janeane Garafolo, whose character mispronounced both Oregon (Ore-A-Gone) and Nevada. (Don’t worry, Janeane, we still love you in that special way.)

So what are the chances of Nevada deciding a real presidential contest? In the last election, both candidates visited the state several times, which shows Nevada’s importance, but also its indecision. (Santos, pondering the returns on Sunday’s episode, recalled visiting only once, as his campaign manager Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) said he wished Santos had moved to the Silver State two years before the election.

But given that this show purported to show the election of a savvy member of the House of Representatives directly to the presidency, over a sitting United States senator from the most populous state in the nation (to say nothing of beating the sitting vice president of the United States and the governor of Pennsylvania in the Democratic primary) we suppose anything is possible.

• So President George W. Bush will come to Nevada April 24 to campaign for U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, according to Molly Ball’s political roundup. Well, that makes sense, given that Porter has pretty much voted the way Bush wanted him to since he got to Congress.

So why not go all the way and have the fund-raiser at a hotel that’s become a symbol of antagonism toward the Culinary Union? That’s right: The luncheon will take place at The Venetian. It’s $2,100 to get your photo taken with Bush, and $500 for just lunch. (We’d go, but if we’re going to drop five bills at The Venetian and make the Culinary Union mad at us, we’ll go all out at Buchon, Delmonico Steakhouse or Valentino.)

Anyway, Porter gave the usual excuse when Nevada representatives are seen with the president, but he added a twist: “There are a lot of things I don’t agree with him on — Yucca Mountain is a prime example. But in terms of making America safe and spreading democracy in the Middle East, I think he’s doing a great job.”

What? “A great job”? Making America safe? Spreading democracy in the Middle East?

We’re sorry, but somebody who says something like that is either criminally uninformed, or possibly retarded. Neither stands out well on a resume for a congressman. We’re urging Porter to get tested for developmental disabilities now, or perhaps to start reading the newspaper.

Oh, wait. Porter just got back from a visit to the Middle East, didn’t he? And he still thinks Bush is doing a “great job”? Did the fact that he had to have lots of security tell him anything?

OK, folks, we’re officially going with retarded.

• Meanwhile, over in the U.S. Senate race, incumbent John Ensign, he of the oh-so-low golf handicap, is easily leading Democratic challenger Jack Carter. Good thing elections aren’t decided over 18 holes at Shadow Creek … because Ensign would still win.

We were attracted to this quote, from Republican consultant Sig Rogich, which appeared in the R-J: “There’s just no compelling reason why you’d want to vote against him. He’s a very popular senator in this state.”

Oh, Sig. No compelling reason at all? Really? A reflex vote for most every Bush administration proposal, whether good or bad for Nevada? His inability to sway even a single member of his own party to vote against Yucca Mountain, even though Ensign himself said that was the main selling point for his candidacy back in 2000? His long hours away from the Capitol, playing sports, running marathons and earning that enviable handicap? Nothing?

UNR political science professor Erik Herzik put it this way: “You have to give them [voters] a reason to vote for you, not just a negative. If you can’t come up with a reason why you’re better than the person you’re running against besides ‘he’s friends with George Bush’ that isn’t enough to win.”

Oh, Erik. Do you really? Like Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt had to do anything but say in 2002 “I’m not Erin Kenny, and the reason I’m better than her is that she is Erin Kenny? It seemed to work in that race, and Erin Kenny never started a war that’s killed more than 2,000 American soldiers. Bush did, among other sins.

We think Jack Carter can articulate why he’s better than Ensign, but Ensign’s fealty to Bush is a damn good start. Although, if we read the R-J’s poll correctly, Carter would not only have to keep his base and win over all the undecideds, he’s have to also take Ensign voters away from the incumbent. And that’s not an easy thing to do.

Remember, folks, there are still 37 percent of the people who tell pollsters they approve of the job the president is doing. There’s simply no way to reason with that.

ABSTRACT: After trying to contain the outrage, it bubbled over this weekend as we read the papers, and spilled out onto our laptop. We warn you: strong language follows.

And so finally, it comes to this.

The lying, self-serving, election-stealing, loveless bastards who have run their feckless junta from Washington, D.C. these past six years have, once more, been outed.

President George W. Bush, who insisted he would fire the person who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, and then revised that to say anyone who broke the law, is himself the leaker.

Or should we say the enabler. Like in any real war, the chickenhawks send somebody else to do their fighting for them.

Bush, stung by the essential truth of the 2003 op-ed piece that former Ambassador Joe Wilson penned in the New York Times undercutting one of his (many and false) rationalizations for the war in Iraq, gave his express permission for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to tell reporters that Plame, Wilson’s wife, was a CIA officer. The order was conveyed by Libby’s boss, Vice President Dick Cheney. When a federal grand jury started investigating, however, Bush feigned concern, and said he wanted to know where the leak in his administration was occurring.

The liar.

We’re told that Bush “declassified” certain “portions” of a National Intelligence Estimate prepared in advance of the war, and thus legalized the dissemination of that material to journalists.

(It was, of course, for nothing; whatever else Wilson has said, and some of it is untrue, his report from Niger was accurate, and unchallenged: Iraq did not seek uranium, because it had no nuclear weapons program in 2003. This fact was known by everybody whose head resides outside their own ass.)

But Bush, who heads an administration so consumed with secrecy it is now going back and reclassifying previously unclassified material, thought it no problem to declassify just enough information to out a loyal servant of the country working in one of the most critical areas of modern intelligence: weapons of mass destruction.

And why? To save himself from personal embarrassment with the Clinton-era tactic of attacking your critics motives, in the hopes that when the finger points at the moon, the idiots would ask to whom the finger was married.

What a complete fucking prick.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, this weasely administration’s oily face, now argues that there’s a compelling difference between leaking things that are liable to harm national security, versus things like Plame’s true identity. What else could he say, anyway? His own record of lies from the White House podium is so great, the entire building now groans under its weight.

But there’s no difference, at least if you consider that every intelligence professional now knows — without question — that if they or their spouse say anything that contradicts the version of reality that Bush and his evil crew prefer, they will be outed, and thus rendered totally ineffective in their jobs.

Or worse; Plame’s outing retroactively uncovered precious CIA sources and methods, including a Boston front company used by other officers. Every person who ever dealt with Plame here or overseas is now a suspect. It’s something that in the days of the Cold War could get CIA officers expelled from foreign lands, and send their agents in hostile countries to fates worse than execution.

But that doesn’t matter to Bush, easily the worst president the country has seen in modern memory. He’d reveal a spy in order to save a couple points from his ever-rising disapproval ratings. What else might he do?

• He violated his oath of office by ordering warantless spying on American citizens overseas calls and e-mails, a practice that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a congressional panel could be extended to purely domestic communications, as well.

* He used a national tragedy, Sept. 11, to start a needless war, based on false information with a disastrous result that could have been, and were, easily foreseen.

• He’s turned patriotism into a tool to silence his accusers. And his administration has engaged in all-out skullduggery on a global scale to practice, and then hide the practice, of torture.

• He’s made secrecy an art form, unless it benefits him to reveal truths that ought not be revealed.

• He and his party have trashed legitimate war heroes, while hiding behind a military-tough facade that they never earned themselves, since they had other priorities. (And we’re talking about former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland here, although we suppose U.S. Sen. John Kerry qualifies, too.)

His conduct is so appalling, it almost makes the Congress look innocent for its failure to take the one, the only, course available: Impeachment. Yet Congress is controlled by the self-same Republicans who lust only for power and are thus willing to overlook anything, even crimes against the Constitution, to stay atop the government.

The Democrats, for their part, cannot even bring themselves to find their voice to censure, much less impeach, Bush. When U.S. Sen. Russell Feingold introduced his censure resolution, fellow Democrats couldn’t run fast enough. And thus the notion of an opposition party dies a quiet death, out of the Democrats own lust for power.

While recent polls show Bush’s approval confined to a small, willingly self-deluded portion of the electorate, last time he was on the ballot (and thank God for small mercies, it will be the very last time he’s on a ballot) half of America thought nothing of the ample evidence against the president. Their endorsement has put lives in danger.

And now, Bush’s war planners are casting their gaze to Iran, where a “military option” is being studied to prevent fascist religious leaders from getting the bomb, a project they’ve been pursuing with all deliberate speed since Bush and his neocons have been testing their classroom theories with the lives of our fellow citizen soldiers in Iraq. (Surely, keeping Iran from getting the bomb is critical. But any goodwill or diplomatic advantages that America may have had were ruined by the invasion of Iraq, which means Bush has made it that much harder to confront a legitimate threat because he went after an illegitimate one.)

It was truly amazing in a recent town hall, where a lone voice of reproval was raised above the boos of the president’s fans. Shouldn’t you make time to feel ashamed of yourself, the man asked.

The president replied that he wouldn’t apologize for what he’d done. (Even Pontius Pilate felt enough guilt to wash his hands of the whole crucifixion business.) And why should he? Bush believes he’ll be judged by history, which is the best kind of judgment there is, the defendant having slipped this mortal coil, with justice left no ability to punish.

Rome burns, the public dines on bread and circuses, a few lonely souls inveigh against the wind and the ebbing and flowing of the tides, powerless to do a damn thing about it.

Democracy has seemingly failed us. And if vox populi is really vox Dei, then the voice is saying, in true slacker fashion, “whatever.” A whimper indeed.