These are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others. — Groucho Marx

How low can Republicans go? Look no further than Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who just delighted Donald Trump by casting the vote that ensured confirmation of the manifestly unqualified Todd Blanche as U.S. attorney general.

Cassidy hinted at paybacks this year after Trump ruined his chances for reelection by backing a senatorial candidate more to his liking. Bringing down Blanche, a corrupt and shamelessly servile Trumper (“I love you, sir”), would have been the perfect way for Cassidy to get even with Trump and redeem himself for casting the deciding vote that got Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

It was not to be. In the end, Cassidy couldn’t summon enough self-respect to do the right thing, even on his way out the door.

My neighbor Swamp Rabbit zipped open a beer and said, “Lighten up, Odd Man. Groucho would be laughing his ass off at these slimeballs.”

Both of us watch Marx Brothers movies on TCM and enjoy their crazy sendups of crooks and phonies. Mentioning the Marx Brothers today was Swamp Rabbit’s way of reminding me that Groucho would never allow frauds like Cassidy and Trump, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis to get under his skin. We should vilify them but never forget to laugh at them. Laughter is preferable to blowing a gasket.

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “Most of the smart people in Germany laughed at Hitler but look who got the last laugh.”

Swamp Rabbit shook his head. “The good guys got the last laugh. Hitler ended up a charred piece of meat in a backyard ditch.”

But the Blanche thing is happening now, I told him. The Justice Department will be run by a guy who’s a slave to Trump’s whims and vendettas. A guy who tried to jail James Comey because of a message on a seashell. Who worked tirelessly to suppress details of Trump’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. Who has tried to permanently block the IRS from auditing Trump’s past tax returns. And so on.

“I still don’t get why that jellyfish Cassidy chose to disgrace himself,” I said. “He’ll be out of Congress soon and free to do what he wants.”

Swamp Rabbit chuckled. “If he’s like his scumbag colleagues, he’ll want to make big money as a lobbyist. Trump and his cronies will block him from that unless he kisses ass right up until he slinks out of the Senate.”

Footnote: Cassidy was a doctor — a physician — before he went into politics. And yet he would later vote to make the unhinged anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. the head of HHS. You can’t make this shit up.