During the 70s, the dashing Congressman from Illinois made quite an impression on the ladies

Ex-Rep. Henry "Homewrecker" Hyde; humbug, hack, dead at 83

Former Republican Congressman Henry Hyde has died at 83, after a distinguished decades-long career of adultery and hypocrisy.

Best known for his unrelenting effort to reverse the results of the 1996 election by trumping up "high crimes and misdemeanors" against President Bill Clinton, basically for fooling around and lying about it, Hyde's persecution was not at all derailed by the disclosure that Hyde had done the same thing for years.

As previously described in the Spy, Homewrecker Hyde had carried on a long-term adulterous affair with a woman whom he unceremoniously dumped when the relationship became politically inconvenient.

When the tawdry details were revealed about the time that Hyde declared the House of Representatives should vote to seek the removal of a President without taking testimony on any factual issue, Hyde lied again, claiming that the long-term affair was the kind of cheesy short-term romp that he accused President Clinton of concealing.  The details of Hyde's caddish misbehavior have been chronicled in previous editions of the Spy.

After the Senate shot down his preposterous case for impeaching President Clinton, which had been cut into pieces by Clinton's attorneys at the trial, Hyde returned to his first love: inserting himself into the bodies not just of his mistresses but of every poor woman in America by ensuring that only the affluent would have access to safe and legal abortion.

Sensing political oblivion, Hyde retired from the House in 2006 to return to his pre-Congressional vocations of obscurity and mediocrity.

Hyde is survived by the tattered remnants of the U.S. Constitution, which never recovered from Hyde's assault on it and an unknown number of bastard love-children.

Roger "and me" Smith, destroyer of General Motors,   dead at 82

Former General Motors Chairman Roger Smith died last week at the age of 82.  He won infamy for annihilating the livelihoods of tens of thousands of auto workers, whose only crime was working for the most ill-managed industrial enterprise in late 20th century America, and coming close to doing the same to the firm he headed.

The hapless Smith, who ignored GM's inability to design, manufacture or sell cars that equaled the quality of its Japanese rivals, focused his efforts on squandering GM's assets on a series of ill-considered acquisitions, including a satellite broadcaster and a worthless data- processing company.  

As a result of his incompetent stewardship, GM was left unable to invest in the new plants and models that could have returned it to its rightful place as one of the leading industrial corporations of the world.

However, Smith was probably best known for serving as a clueless straight man to film-maker Michael Moore, whose documentary Roger and Me focused on Moore's effort to get Smith to explain why he had ruined the lives of tens of thousands of auto workers left jobless and eventually homeless in and around Flint, Michigan.

Smith, too grandiose and cowardly to respond to Moore or the auto workers, surrounded himself with goons, flunkies and hacks in an effort to insulate him from accountability, an effort that reached a climax when he ordered the lights and sound turned off at a GM shareholder meeting so that he could avoid having to answer Moore's questions.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Smith's career ended with his pillaging of General Motors.

Smith is survived by the smoking ruin of the once-great car company he ran into the ground and tens of thousands of immiserated former auto workers.  He is also survived, barely, by the State of Michigan, which has been on life support ever since Smith and his fellow incompetents destroyed the industry that made the state an economic, technological and educational giant.