Ah, yes, the quadrennial miracle of the American political system: the incumbent ousted, the wilderness wandered, and the sudden, blinding flash of insight conveniently timed for a comeback bid. This time, the spotlight illuminates Cori Bush, formerly of the illustrious 'Squad,' now apparently reborn as a champion of…wait for it…public transit. One can only assume that her Damascus Road experience involved a particularly harrowing MetroLink ride in St. Louis. Or, more likely, a desperate pollster informing her that she's losing ground with the very demographic she once claimed to represent.

Bush, having spent her previous term perfecting the art of the performative tweet and virtue signal, is now 'blasting' Congress for its utter failure to prioritize the transportation needs of the…let’s call them the ‘infrastructure-dependent.’ It's an inspiring display of political chutzpah, rivaled only by the breathtaking disconnect from her own legislative history. During her fleeting moment wielding power, her commitment to transit initiatives was roughly equivalent to the average American’s understanding of quantum physics. Nonexistent.

The truly galling part is the utter predictability of it all. The political playbook is so worn, so stained with the greasy fingerprints of countless grifters and opportunists, that one wonders why anyone still bothers to feign surprise. But feign they do, and Bush, ever the attentive student of the game, plays her part with the practiced ease of a seasoned con artist.

Let’s dissect the psychology here. Bush, like so many of her ilk, suffers from the delusion that she is somehow different, somehow morally superior to the swamp creatures she so readily condemns. This is, of course, a necessary fiction. To survive in the fetid ecosystem of Washington, one must convince oneself that one is not, in fact, covered in the same muck as everyone else. The problem, as always, is that actions speak louder than press releases. And Bush's actions, or rather her *inactions*, paint a clear picture of a politician who prioritized self-promotion over substance, optics over outcomes.

One could argue, perhaps, that Bush's newfound transit fervor is a sign of growth, a testament to the transformative power of electoral defeat. One *could* argue that. But one would have to be a particularly gullible and naive individual to actually believe it. The more plausible explanation is that she simply recognized a vulnerability, a gap in the market, and is now attempting to exploit it with the ruthless efficiency of a Wall Street hedge fund.

And who can blame her, really? In a political landscape dominated by vapid slogans and empty promises, hypocrisy is not a bug; it's a feature. It's the grease that keeps the gears of the machine turning, the lubricant that allows the charade to continue, election cycle after election cycle. The voters, for their part, seem content to play along, alternately outraged and apathetic, forever trapped in a cycle of manufactured outrage and fleeting hope.

So, as Cori Bush embarks on her redemption tour, armed with a newfound appreciation for buses and trains, let us not be swayed by the siren song of political expediency. Let us instead remember the words of that great American sage, H.L. Mencken, who so eloquently observed: 'The only way to console oneself for being a fool is to persuade oneself that it is the duty of an intellectual to be one.' Or, in this case, the duty of a politician to *appear* to be one. The performance continues, and the audience, as always, remains blissfully unaware of the strings being pulled.