Guest Post by Morbo
This is the time of year when we start thinking of titanic contests of national scope. The Super Bowl is approaching, the Oscar nominees have been announced and there’s a new search for the next “American Idol.”
But it’s not enough. We need a new competition, and I think I’ve got just the one: Let’s find the nation’s most pathetic third-tier right-wing commentator.
Let me define a few terms first. A “third tier” commentator is someone who has a grip on the national stage, no matter how tenuous, but is not famous enough to be a household name. He or she might be an obscure Fox News personality, an occasionally cited blogger or radio talk-show blowhard.
This person should be prominent — but not too prominent. Like it or not, someone like Ann Coulter is a first-tier right-wing commentator. She’s well known, omnipresent and appears in many venues. (Pretty good for someone who is completely incoherent.) The second tier is occupied by someone like Charles Krauthammer. He’s a syndicated columnist and does TV weekly — but if asked people on the street about him, many would stare at you blankly.
Admittedly it can be difficult to define the third tier. In my opinion, it is occupied by people who might have a small national following, a column syndicated in non-urban, non-major dailies, a blog that does not hit the top ten but has some prominence. They might make television appearances regularly but with a modest audience. Perhaps they have a book out that did OK for a week or two but then kind of disappeared. That sort of person.
To give you a feel for the type of people I am talking about, I hereby nominate the following:
John Stossel: This “20/20” correspondent apparently swallowed a copy of “Atlas Shrugged” some years ago and now no longer has to think. Every time he is presented with a thorny issue of politics, economics or social policy, he simply regurgitates libertarian claptrap. Stossel penned a book titled “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.” There are a few things wrong with the title. One, the media is not liberal. Two, even if it were, a pompous gasbag like Stossel would not be the scourge of it. I frequently see this book in remainder catalogs for three dollars.
Dick Morris: Is there anything worse than a turncoat with one story to tell? Morris has a single bullet that he fires over and over again: “I once worked for Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton is bad!” Now that Clinton’s hat is in the ring, we are sure to see a new spate of anti-Hillary books. Morris already wrote that book, but don’t expect that to stop him. He has, in fact, written the same book something like six times now.
Tucker Carlson: Back when “Crossfire” was a going proposition, I would have put Carlson on the second tier. But these days he is on MSNBC at 4 p.m. and apparently has no dignity left. He appeared on “Dancing with the Stars,” and if you go to his website, you can see clips of this. He wants people to know about it. The site also features headlines like, “Ms. America Out of Rehab.”
John Kasich: Did you know that John Kasich has a program on the Fox News Channel on Saturday nights? He kind of leans forward and yells a lot. Other than members of his family, I don’t believe many people are watching (and some of them just say they’re watching).
Remember, we’re looking for a commentator, not someone currently serving in public office. I now open the floor for nominations.