West Virginia’s Democratic Governor, Joe Manchin, currently running for the open U.S. Senate seat, has now caused me to regret my selections on the Ethics Alarms “Untrustworthy Twenty” within hours of posting it.  Manchin belongs on it; oh brother, does he ever. I had missed his nausaeating performance this Sunday on Fox, in which he attempted to retract his endorsement of the Obamacare legislation last March, explaining that he didn’t understand key details of the law when he publicly supported it.

“Reaching as far as they did in the — in the weeds of the bill that we didn’t know about, no one else knew about until it came out — knowing that, I would not have supported that or voted for that at that time,” Manchin said on “Fox News Sunday.” “The health care reform is far overreaching in areas that I don’t agree with — the 1099 part of that, the mandates. Also, the firewall’s not strong enough for abortions. I’m pro-life. And we’re just a different type of Democrat here in West Virginia,” Manchin said. He continued, “Knowing the existence as far as how reaching it had been, as far as — and onerous — I would have [voted against it.] And I think many people didn’t know about the bill. It ends up, what, 2,000 pages or more.”

Excuse me, Governor? Do you listen to yourself? What you are saying is that you endorsed a 2000+ page bill you hadn’t read and didn’t understand, knowing, as you must have known, that it would have far-reaching effects on citizens of your state and the nation. What do you call that? Responsible? Excusable? Reasonable? Oopsie?

I call it irresponsible, lazy, reckless, incompetent and stupid. Don’t tell us how big the bill was and that there was stuff you didn’t know about in the “weeds.” You endorsed a huge piece of legislation without knowing what was in it!  What did you think was in 2000 pages (actually, closer to 3000), anyway? No, not Jane Austen quotes or baseball statistics or pretty pictures: legal regulations, requirements, mandates and provisions—all of which you endorsed in March without having bothered to determine what exactly you were saying you were in favor of.

That is a lie, you know. You represented to the public that you  were making an informed decision which you say now was really a completely negligent and uninformed one.  If you want to retract the endorsement, fine; but understand that with the retraction comes an implicit ethics verdict that you are a lazy, incompetent, reckless, untrustworthy fool, because that is what a public official is who endorses legislation he hasn’t bothered to make sure he understands.