In the spirit of President George W Bush, the science we went with was our gut. We began with the most obvious — Mitch McConnell as the Ace of Spades as Martha McSally as the Two of Clubs – proceeded to fill in the rest of the pieces. Was it happenstance that the crazies were 8s and all the 4s were fascists or simply the nature of the beast? We did reserve Spades for conniving back stabber types, and Diamonds for those with an exorbitant amount of money. The longer tenure generally earned a higher numerical value, as almost all the current senators who were around in some form for the Clinton impeachment were considered higher up cards. Of course, the Aces are special.

The process could have benefited from the use of an algorithm, but in the end, each Republican senator fell into place as mindlessly as they fell into line.