U.S. Rep. Adam Smith will never be mistaken for the chairman of the House Select Committee on Fun and Excitement. We’ve teased Smitty about his sleeping-pill personality a time or 12 over the years.

Remember Jimmy Stewart’s speech at the end of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?” In the hands of our own Mr. Smith, that stemwinder would come off like a reading from the Tacoma phone book.

But we gotta hand it to Smith for probing the outer limits of his comfort zone. He will join other T-town celebrities – and we use that term very loosely – on Sept. 26 to raise money for Tacoma Musical Playhouse by going where most men fear to tread, unless lured there by a trail of pork rinds.

To the ballroom dance floor.

The shindig is called “Dancing with the Tacoma Stars,” which first made us think that Preki, Steve Zungul and other legends from the old soccer team might show up.

But no, the highlight of the evening at the Landmark Convention Center will be a fleet-footed performance by your venerable Northeast Tacoma congressman. Or should we say, conga-ressman.

Smith actually has been rehearsing a swing dance this summer with his instructor/partner at Tacoma’s Studio 6 Ballroom. We would’ve wagered he’d choose a square dance – a very square dance.

He’s trying to set the bar as low as possible.

“Losing is perfectly OK and 100 percent expected,” he told a Trib features reporter for this Sunday’s paper – a quote we don’t expect to hear in the run-up to the 2010 election.

There’s no question, though, that he’s laying a lot on the line.

Swishing around the dance floor isn’t likely to score macho points with the Special Forces hombres he pals around with as chairman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism.

And imagine the dejected faces on his female constituent-groupies when he fails to show up in form-fitting pants, red sequined shirt and spray-on tan.

In the pantheon of sexuality-oozing celebrity dancers, we doubt Rep. Twinkletoes will make anyone soon forget Patrick Swayze, God rest his soul.

But Smith and the other two politician entries in the contest (State Sen. Debbie Regala and Lakewood Mayor Doug Richardson) should have a couple of dance moves down cold.

The backstep and the sidestep.

Get a load of this pair of goofballs on the latest cover of Washington Law & Politics. It cries out for a create-your-own caption contest.

 • Dude, this is the last time I hitch a ride with you to Bumbershoot, ’cause that thing sure doesn’t look like the Space Needle.

 •  What, me worry?

 • Behind us is the most important, most talked-about, most written-about edifice in American history. Not including the Luzon and Russell buildings.

Here’s another eye-catching photo that came our way this week.

Does it show Bangladeshi religious pilgrims crowding on a train for the trip home? Or is it a vision of the morning northbound Sounder out of Tacoma after the Russell building closes next year?

Finally, we offer kudos to Miley Cyrus and Jay Leno. For his new talk show, Leno did a remote interview with the tweeny-bopper superstar before her T-Dome concert Wednesday night. And both seemed fully aware and unbothered by her being in Tacoma.

Usually the pop culture elite either pretend they’re in Seattle or truly think they are.

Unlike the Milwaukee-based financial industry elite, for whom pretending and delusional thinking are no longer good enough.

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