Meanwhile, when Superman-understudy Cory Booker licked his lips last year over now-deceased Frank Lautenberg’s seat, an aide called it disrespectful. “Really?” Maher asked. “The guy who runs into burning buildings shouldn’t take over for the other guy who can’t blow on a piece of paper and make it move across the table?”

“This is not about age,” Maher said, “this is about congressmen who suck at their jobs because their jobs are never at stake. We’ve created a system where it’s almost impossible to beat an incumbent. The districts are too gerrymandered, the ads are too expensive. So every few years we’re treated to the sight of some cryptkeeper who hasn’t shown up at work for years being wheeled out by a staff member so he can raise his skeletal hand to vote ‘aye.’”

The best example of this was 101-year-old congressman Strom Thurmond, “who raped the maid the year Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, but who was still voting in 2001 on issues like stem cell research even though he once referred to a microphone as the machine. When did we become this Weekend At Bernie’s government, where Senators are coaxed into key votes by someone whispering in their ear, ‘Who wants pudding?’”