Sen. Blutarski

The Pentagon has released its base-closing list, the BRAC Commission has begun its debates, and the House is voting down another effort every day to slow or kill the base-closing process. It's time to start accepting reality, right? Not if you're Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who unseated former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle last fall partly by saying his White House connections would help him save Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. That didn't work out, but Thune's nowhere near giving up. "Momentum Builds for Delaying BRAC," he trumpeted in a press release yesterday, touting his bill to halt the process, which has garnered a whopping 17 cosponsors. I'm hearing echoes of a historically challenged "Bluto" Blutarski in Animal House: "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!" (Warning: That last link includes some, er, colorful language.) And remember what job Bluto ended up with: United States senator.