Is he awake or is he being sarcastic?

This article, written by Lynn Ashby a columnist in Houston, was in the Brazosport Facts today (Ron Paul's local newspaper). "President Ron Paul" are the last three words of the article. I don't know how to take the article. What are your thoughts?

Texas has lost influence in Washington

By Lynn Ashby
The Facts

Published January 9, 2009

For the first time in decades, Texas has almost no stroke in Washington, which means no muscle in the federal government and no bailouts. We have suffered a hit below the Beltway. This is because we backed John McCain for President, who took Texas with 55 percent of the vote compared to Barack Obama’s distant 44 percent.

Today, Obama cares not a fig for Texas. Why should he? Obama won without us and our 34 Electoral College votes. To the victor belongs the top jobs. Obama’s first pick was for a running mate. It was Joe Biden, the senior senator from the powerful state of, of, uh, Delaware, a state with a population of 853,474 — less than Travis County. Hillary Clinton, junior senator from New York, got the plum assignment of secretary of state. Sen. Ken Salazar from Colorado is nominated for interior secretary. Commerce secretary went to Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico which, geographically, is about as close as Texas got to the Cabinet. But then he bailed. True, Robert Gates is being kept on as secretary of defense, and he took that job when he was president of Texas A&M.

The only Texan near the outer center of power is former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk. He was nominated to be — please hold your applause — U.S. trade representative. Actually, Kirk is the lone Obama nominee from below the Mason-Dickson Line. Even the newly blue states of Virginia and North Carolina got stiffed.

Currently, there are no Texans on the Supreme Court. Dallasite Harriet Miers almost made it to the top bench, but her nomination was de-railed due to charges of mediocrity. In Congress, thanks to Tom DeLay’s redrawing of Texas’ congressional districts so he could strengthen his GOP majority, we lost decades of seniority and power among Democratic representatives.

Across the Rotunda, just as Kay Bailey Hutchison finally reached the upper realms of seniority and power, she’s leaving. Plus, she, like our other senator, John Cornyn, is in the minority. Then there is the aftertaste of eight years of the Bush administration. The last NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that 79 percent of Americans will not miss President Bush after he leaves office. And the latest CNN poll found that only one third of Americans want Bush to play any role in his post president public life. To the rest of America, Texas is toxic.

Ah, for the good old days when Texans ran Washington: Cactus Jack Garner, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. Since 1980, there has been a Bush from Texas on the vice presidential or presidential ballot six times. During those days, we dominated Washington.

Texans love to disparage Washington, but that didn’t keep us from getting us the Houston Ship Channel, the Johnson Space Center, some of the largest military bases on Earth, the oil depletion allowance and the Superconducting Super Collider. Unfortunately, for the next four years there’s not much Texans while waiting until 2012 for President Ron Paul.

Lynn Ashby is a Houston-based columnist. Contact him at ashby2(at)comcast.net.