Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del) should not quit his day job, at least not for a career in stand-up comedy. He joked with Judy Kurtz (a.k.a. Howlma) of The Hill that he would accompany his wife to her 25^th high school reunion because, “If I’m not there with her, I’ll be looking for my next wife.”  Adding, “She was homecoming queen at her high school — there’s no way I’m going to let her go to the high school reunion without me.”

Carper was making a joke, or attempting to, as he was described as “chuckling” while saying those things. But what kind of joke is that? Not funny for starters. But more importantly, how is that, by any stretch of the imagination even for Washington, gossip?

If you think about it, it’s something like him saying his wife’s high school reunion could devolve into a drunken orgy, and if he’s not there, his wife might join in. Kinda weird for a member of Congress to imply, even jokingly.

That weirdness was matched only by Kurtz’s odd choice of words to describe Martha Carper: “his mate of more than 25 years.” Who describes someone’s spouse as a “mate”? Were they captured in the wild and put in a pen together like a couple of pandas?