Rachel Maddow Brings You Louie Gohmert's Asparagus, John McCain's Peener Joke, And Anarchy in the Ukraine

So this was kind of surreal: Rachel Maddow tossed together three mostly-unrelated clips with the excuse of illustrating "three stages of political conflict that fall short of an actual war." As analysis, it's a bit superficial, at best, but as a framing device for three disparate instances of weirdass political conflict, it gets the job done, aight. Oh, but those clips -- there's some prime assholery on display here, starting with Louie Gohmert's huffing last year about how Eric Holder had "cast aspersions on my asparagus" -- yes, that is what the man said, and god only knows why. Then today, Holder brought up the asparagus all over again, so to speak. And it was beautiful.

And then there's John McCain using a hearing on foreign policy as an excuse to lecture John Kerry on the size of his stick:

"My hero Teddy Roosevelt used to say talk softly and carry a big stick. What you’re doing is talking strongly and carrying a very small sick. In fact, a twig."

Kerry responded with a T.R. quote of his own, but since it didn't include a dick joke, we sort of tuned it out.

 READ MORE