a one-sided Democratic vote on the SEC to advance the probe. After all, the only politician whose ties to Goldman Sachs have been raised in the press so far is President Obama.

But in the end, Obama's remarks got Hatch's special underwear in a wad, and he couldn't resist returning to try to rebut Obama:

Hatch: And look -- when he blames us for the economy, that he, quote, inherited? Give me a break. Over the last 34 years I've been in the Senate, there have been very few times when you could say the fiscal conservatives were in the majority. And they certainly were not in the majority in the Bush years!

Hahahahahaha. Hoo boy. Now that's a good standup routine.

Is Hatch really trying to assert that his fellow Republican Senators, Trent Lott and Bill Frist -- who were the Republican Senate Majority Leaders during the Bush years -- were not "fiscal conservatives"? That his buddy, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee during the Bush years, was not a fiscal conservative?

Really?

Should we call Sens. Lott, Frist, and Grassley to get their input on whether they were "fiscal conservatives"? Because as I recall -- as they pushed out tax cuts for the wealthy and demolished regulatory oversight of the financial sector in those years -- those programs were all being pushed by the "fiscal conservatives" among both the Republican and Democratic parties.

You know, if I were in Hatch's shoes, and had to survey the economic wreckage that my policies had produced, I'd probably be in a state of denial too. But I'd also be in a straitjacket.