Out on the border, the to’s-and-fro’s of Presidential wannabes are viewed with about the same fear and interest one shows a rock under which a deadly rattlesnake might be lying in wait. You need to get by the rock, first of all. And your fear makes you want to kill the snake right off the bat, if it’s there. Yet you’re interested in it in a mammal-vs-reptile kind of way. If it’s there. So you go take a look, with a baseball bat in your hand.

Stay with me here. I’ve got a point to make that’s bigger than the one on my dog’s head. And I’ve got a sweet Louisville Slugger #3 handy. That rock perhaps hiding the lamest Presidential candidate since I penciled in Mickey Mouse in the primaries back in my laughably rebellious youth.

A few drinks days ago, March 7th to be exact, the Texas Republic was treated to a visit by John Edwards, a man who never met a profane anti-Catholic blogger he wouldn’t hire. Those hirings, and firings, err, forced, err voluntary resignations should have clued Americans as to how unglued unclued Edwards is when it comes to protocol, respect for the people he’s asking to serve, and Nation Management 101.

Be that what it may, Edwards showed the same political acumen as his Democrat colleagues when he spoke to a less-than-full former train station in San Antonio. But the train station didn’t seem to mind. He talked of Hillbilly Hillary and Osama Obama, of AIDS and genocide, and of global warming and snuggly puppies.

He didn’t talk much about Texas. Didn’t say “Fox News Debate” either. Guess he’s a big-picture kind of guy.

He also uttered a perfectly incomprehensible statement: “I don’t think anybody knows what’s going to happen in Iraq no matter what we do, and the American people understand that and they’re entitled to the truth, first of all.”

To rephrase: Americans understand that nobody knows what’s going to happen in Iraq and they’re entitled to know that truth. First of all.

That means I don’t know what’s going to happen in Iraq, Amanda Pandagon Marcotte doesn’t know, and John Edwards doesn’t know, though he knows he’d rather be the snake than the rock.

I guess it did take a few minutes for the Titanic to begin sinking after it struck that frozen rock.

Is there anything less interesting than a Presidential candidate who turns up in your town and says that, truth is, he’s dumber than a chimp in a physics class about the most pressing issue on American minds?

We already knew Edwards was an idiot. He didn’t have to contribute to global warming by flying here to confirm that. He could have just stayed home, hired another chimp for his blog, and let us know he did it, anti-Papist that he is.

Ambulance Chaser Breck Girl, the man who steps over GI’s bodies as casually as he stepped over his lawsuit victims on the way to furnishing his mansion, while on the way to deliberately seeking out idiots, tools and morons to populate his campaign staff, while pondering which idiots, tools and morons would populate his Cabinet, is about as useless as Gucci loafers on a lizard. You stop and gawk at the lizard for a minute, the lizard blinks at you under the burning sun, and then you both go about your business, both of you slightly embarrassed by the encounter.

Then the lizard gets snapped up by that snake you were worried about. And you like the snake better knowing that his belly is full and he doesn’t care so much about you anymore.

So we like Edwards better for having come out from under the rock and shown himself. Now we can all go about our business and forget this pathetic, deluded, self-absorbed, mediocre performer. And he can forget Texas, if we’re lucky, and stop polluting our skies.

Finally, it doesn’t help Edwards that Charlie Gonzalez (D-San Antonio) endorsed him for the Democrat nomination. Doesn’t help Gonzalez either, but Gonzalez has been helpless for so long that traffic light beggars stopped giving him change. They know a snake’s around when they see a rock, too.