Here’s the thing you should have figured out by now — Congress is not about you.

As long as you are an elected official, paid by the taxpayer, and working on our time, you are a public servant not a private citizen. You are about us.

That means you may not choose whom to debate, or under what conditions you wish to debate.

It is your job to simply answer the questions that are asked.

If some of those questions turn out to be embarrassing, and if the answers reflect poorly on you no matter how you find a way to say them, well, you did that to yourself without help from anyone else.

In fact, your refusal to face up to us has destroyed whatever slight scrap of sympathy — you are human and no one is perfect — might have existed a week ago.

Sadly sir, you have thrown everything away, starting with your family.

Forget about becoming a part of history, a force for good in whatever movement comes out of this election, no matter who becomes president; forget about what good your own efforts might have accomplished; it’s all over now.

At this late hour in the day, if you still believe you can dictate to anybody, especially to order television cameras out of an official debate, then some one needs to you tell you’ve broken with reality. The sad thing is, we don’t care anymore.

The harshest judgment we can pass on you — and we’re angry enough to want to pass harsh judgment — is to point out that the best you deserve is no vote at all.

So you ought to find out if Tom Rooney wants to keep that saltwater aquarium in your Washington D.C. office — you’re not going to need it come January.