This is a very tough battle, closely contested. Every month, every week, every day one Cabinet Secretary or another makes such outlandish claims, takes such unjustifiable steps, or exemplifies such a dumbfounding inability to perform the job to which she or he has been elevated that the competition is fierce.

This week, it has come down to two who have distinguished themselves in their Race to the Bottom: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

Ms. DeVos, the Education Secretary whose own education was a bachelor’s degree from a small conservative Christian college, gave such a jaw-dropping interview on CBS’s Sixty Minutes on March 11, 2018, that she appeared to be a total lock. She came across as clueless, made unjustified and unsupportable assertions, and exhibited utterly no grasp on the role that she occupies at the taxpayers’ dime. She exhibited an equal if not greater concern for those accused of sexual assault than those who report being assaulted, and she decried that she’s “more misunderstood than anything.”

Yet, in late-breaking developments, the misunderstood Ms. DeVos once again falls short. She’s not even able to sustain her lead in the Race to the Bottom. Lone Cabinet minority Ben Carson, Secretary of HUD, grabs hold of the Bottom with both hands when, in sworn testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, Carson blames his WIFE for HIS Department’s excessive spending on dining room furniture for HIS office. Not only was the $31,000 price tag exorbitant for anyone’s dining-room furniture–that single amount is higher than the annual family income of those living IN public housing–The-Godly-Husband throws his own wife under the bus.

Setting aside the question of What Government Office Even NEEDS a Dining Room Set?!?!?, Dr. Carson told the House Committee regarding the purchase, “I left it with my wife, I said ‘help choose something.'”

Given that both Secretaries are committed through inaction, incompetence, and ill-will to the destruction of public education and public housing, the Race ultimately came down to this: throwing your own spouse under the bus trumps whining about being misunderstood.

Congratulations, Dr. Carson.