Oh, say it isn’t so, Pete. 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, arguably the laziest man in Sleepy Joe Biden’s cabinet (and among the most incompetent), seems to be thinking hard about leaving the rough-and-tumble world of politics behind. It’s just too much work. 

The once-rising star in leftist political circles, who ran for president on the winning platform of being gay and being mayor of a small Midwest city, told “Face the Nation” that politics is hard. Buttigieg came to that conclusion by watching Biden at “work” for the past three years. 

“Well, I certainly have a new perspective on just how demanding that job is, watching President Biden deal with so many concerns, challenges, and opportunities for this country,” he told CBS’s weekly D.C. bacchanalia. 

So Pete’s ideal for presidential work ethic is the geezer who has napped his way through office? Exhausting. 

Buttigieg said he’s “proud to be a small part of the big team.” Members of that team have indeed been working overtime in pursuit of destroying what it has taken Americans the better part of 250 years to build. 

“I sincerely don’t know whether I will run for elected office of any kind again,” he told “Face the Nation.” 

For a guy who has only held elected office of one kind — mayor of South Bend, Indiana — that’s quite a threat. Please, make it a promise, Pete. 

But Buttigieg won’t. He’s like all of the Trump-hating Hollywood glitterati who threatened to leave America upon the election of Donald Trump. Chelsea Handler, Snoop Dogg, Miley Cyrus, Bryan Cranston, Samuel L. Jackson, Lena Dunham, Cher, Whoopi Goldberg — sadly, they are still here. 

Just like Mayor Pete isn’t likely to bow out of politics even after his disastrous tenure as the nation’s transportation chief comes to an end. He’s too much of a political climber. Talent and ambition don’t always go together. 

There wasn’t much on Buttigieg’s political resume before his run for president that qualified him for that job. There are many things on his record as transportation secretary, however, that should to voters disqualify him from holding elected office again. 

A story a little over a year ago in the left-leaning Independent incredibly asked, “Is Pete Buttigieg the best — or worst — transportation secretary in history?” Oh, he’s the worst. Unless there’s some psychopath arsonist transportation chief in Romania who literally burned bridges I’m unaware of (Not talking about you, Sorin-Mihai Grindeanu, Romania's minister of transport and infrastructure. You’re doing a heckuva job, Grindy!).

Just ask the folks in East Palestine, Ohio. It took Buttigieg two and a half weeks to amble his way to the village living under a toxic cloud rising from a massive train derailment. When he got there, Buttigieg defended his “hard-working” president and blamed Trump for the cataclysmic event. 

“In President Joe Biden’s America, the people of East Palestine were left scrambling in the dark, with, until Thursday, an absentee Transportation secretary, a struggling Environmental Protection Agency and industry representatives who won’t answer basic questions,” U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., wrote in a Feb. 23, 2023 op-ed. 

Rubio echoed the refrain of East Palestine residents and their fellow Americans: “Where’s Pete?” 

The answer to that question, at times, has been paternity leave. 

In autumn 2021, as the nation faced a debilitating supply-chain crisis and the Democrat-led Congress was hammering out a trillion-dollar “infrastructure” package, Buttigieg took two months off to spend with his husband, Chasten, and their newborn adopted twins.  

“Unfortunately, the Secretary is currently on leave due to the birth of his twins, and that may lead to a delay in possibly scheduling in the future,” an unnamed staffer at the Transportation Department wrote in turning down a meeting with U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, The Federalist’s Tristan Justice reported. 

“Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression,” former Vice President Mike Pence quipped last year on the presidential campaign trail. Pence was blasted by the left as a homophobe for telling journalists and politicians at the annual Gridiron Dinner that the transportation secretary took “maternity leave” and “thousands of travelers were stranded in airports, the air traffic system shut down, and airplanes nearly collided on our runways.” 

Pence wasn’t wrong. 

When the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed last week, Pete was Johnny on the spot. His pals in the corporate media wanted the world to know that Buttigieg wasn’t bungling the response this time. Politico published a PR piece about the secretary’s fast response, pounding home the point that Buttigieg’s work cell phone was buzzing “not long after the bridge collapsed at 1:30 a.m.” Whether he picked up right away, well, the piece doesn’t specify. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if the call came from the same sycophantic reporters who have given the incompetent Buttigieg a sweeping pass for his dutiful role as ambassador of identity politics. I imagine the phone conversation going something like this: Say, uh, Pete. Did you know a bridge in Baltimore has gone down? You’d probably better head over there, or at least send out a statement or something. This isn’t like East Palestine. Nobody in Baltimore votes for Trump. 

Dealing with his job, Buttigieg told “Face the Nation,” is hard and rewarding. He says it’s “taken about 110 percent” of what he has to give right now. 

If what Buttigieg is giving is “110 percent,” I’d hate to see coasting. A dreadful thought as I prepare to fly in the coming weeks. 

If mercy be not strained, the long national nightmare of Joe Biden and his lousy transportation chief will soon come to an end. After all of that “work” of watching Biden sleepwalk through the last three years, Mayor Pete will definitely need a rest before he storms back into politics like a gay Dick Nixon — after they don’t have Pete Buttigieg to kick around anymore.  

Too bad he won’t be able to take that generous paternity leave plan with him.