¿Dónde Está Bob?

Since hardly a day seems to go by when Bob Stein doesn’t show up in either the Houston Chronicle or on Channel 11 pontificating on some subject or another, we at Slampo’s Place are launching yet another invaluable public service by inaugurating our Bob Stein Watch so that fans of the Rice University political scientist can keep up with his many and varied utterances with a minimum of exertion. Our first installment finds Dr. Bob dispensing the conventional wisdom down in the middle of a Christmas Eve story by the Chronicle’s Stewart M. Powell, which relayed the startling news that one of our two Republican senators, John Cornyn, is turning into slightly less of a hypocrite because of his chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. In this one, the regular-guy “Bob” is supplanted by the formal “Robert,” perhaps because the story was written out of Washington D.C. by a reporter who uses his middle initial in his byline or perhaps because a house style and uniform editing are two of the many fusty journalism traditions that have been jettisoned by the daily newspaper in this age of diminished resources and It Girl society columnists. Anyway, here’s Bob:

The senator is “caught in a terrible pickle,” says Rice University political scientist Robert Stein, co-author of Perpetuating the Pork Barrel. “Legislators’ support back home usually lies with their ability to take care of constituents. But Republicans’ anti-spending campaign puts that at risk.”

Ahh, that was so good we wanna play it again:

The senator is “caught in a terrible pickle,” says Rice University political scientist Robert Stein, co-author of Perpetuating the Pork Barrel. “Legislators’ support back home usually lies with their ability to take care of constituents. But Republicans’ anti-spending campaign puts that at risk.”

It is possible, even probable, that Doc Stein has made more recent appearances in the local media since Christmas Eve, but we have been in Louisiana for the past three days, well beyond the internationally recognized Bob Stein Zone.