Obama Kicks Off 2012 Campaign in Wisconsin

No surprise here since the rebuttal to his Sputnik speech was delivered by Rep. Paul Ryan. Expect plenty of trips, ostensibly on presidential duties, to all the swing states he'll need to win next year if he has any plans on delivering more of these Land of Make Believe speeches.

The bigger challenge for the campaign might be ensuring that Obama can put the state in his ‘win’ column earlier rather than later, which would allow him to spend more time and money in other states.

“He needs Wisconsin to not be his crucial battleground state in ’12,” Franklin said.

To that end, Franklin said, he expects to see Obama in Wisconsin early and often as he tries to shore up his support.

Obama will be challenged by some key Republicans in the state.

Budget hawk and rising GOP star Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) enjoyed an enormous platform Tuesday night when he delivered the Republican State of the Union response. And Reince Priebus, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, comes to the national stage after chairing the state party through last year’s victories.

Making matters worse for Democrats, Obama might not have done himself any favors by openly rooting for his Chicago Bears over the state’s beloved Green Bay Packers.

In addition to the chilly welcome the president is likely to get from the state’s Republicans, at least one member of the Packers squad has already laid a layer of frost for the president.

After Obama said he would go to the Super Bowl to see his Bears — and predicted a 20-17 win — the Packers ended the Bears run.

Packers cornerback Charles Woodson had some choice words for a commander-in-chief who won’t make the trip to Dallas to see Green Bay in the Super Bowl.

“The president don’t want to come watch us win the Super Bowl?” Woodson said. “Guess what? We’ll go see him.”

He'll be heavily pushing innovation or something. What would be innovative is actually doing his job.

Administration officials said Wednesday's trip would be the first of many stops Obama is planning over the next month to sway the public to push Congress to adopt his ideas on education, innovation and other issues.

Good luck persuading the GOP Congress to willingly go along with a fresh spending binge.

It's a wonder he even has to campaign since according to a CBS News "poll" most everyone in America was enthralled with his speech last night.

Obama Holds Pre-SOTU Huddle With Chris Matthews & Other Select Sycophants

Expect leg tingles and racial amnesia to dominate tonight's post-SOTU media narrative.

President Obama met with several top news personalities and pundits on Tuesday before his State of the Union Address.

Per a White House pool report, the president met with the group for lunch at the White House this afternoon.

Among the figures reported to be meeting with the president were CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos from ABC, Brian Williams from NBC and Chris Matthews from MSNBC. It wasn't clear whether there were more attendees at the meeting.

The president has been known to meet with journalists occasionally for informal chats. The discussions are typically off the record, meaning that the content of Tuesday's discussion will likely remain unknown.

Via The Hill. Cross-posted.

Groundbreaking 'Research': Fox Viewers are Stupid Because the Female Newsreaders are Hot

To be honest I've never heard of this outfit so I figure this is some attempt to make "news" by once again denigrating Fox News Channel. As if that's something new. So their "research" study has come to the earthshaking conclusion that because knuckle-dragging right-wingers are so easily distracted by hot babes, we can't remember anything coming out of their mouths.

Or something like that. Whatever.

Scholars, critics and viewers have noted that some TV newscasts can be momentarily mistaken for Victoria’s Secret specials. In an apparent attempt to capture channel-surfing male viewers, stations have hired attractive female anchors, often outfitting them in attire that emphasizes their sexuality.

This strategy may boost the ratings, but in terms of the programs’ purported purpose — informing the public — recent research suggests it has a definite down side. Males may be drawn to those alluring anchors, but they may not remember what they were talking about.

Two Indiana University scholars report that, for male viewers, “emphasis on the sexual attractiveness of female news anchors distracts from memory formation for news content.” They found that “men’s cognitive mechanisms favored visual over verbal processing,” which is a delicate way of saying their focus — and subsequent memory — are more on the broadcaster’s appearance than on the material she was delivering.

It goes on to discuss a study where the same young lady was dressed to kill for one "newscast" and dressed down for another. Shockingly, men ogled her when she was looking hot and thus retained a bit less less information.

Sure, but they no doubt retained the more important mental images, which always come in handy for future reference. Needless to say, this cues up the requisite cheap shot at Fox.

This problem did not turn up in women in this study — but then again, they weren’t responding to newscasts featuring muscular male models. While the results of that scenario are speculative, this paper offers one more reason why Fox News viewers are so ill-informed on so many issues. I mean, have you seen those photos of Megyn Kelly?

Of course they overlook the fact Megyn Kelly is more intelligent than most any woman delivering news today and yes, believe it or not, she keeps us informed. By the way, they unwittingly point out regardless of how the woman appeared, men still retained more information. Oops.

Looking at the data a different way, when the anchor had a desexualized appearance, men retained more of the information she presented than women. But when she was dolled up, the men’s retention level dropped to the point where the two genders retained the same amount of content.

But hey, when you need to take a poke at Fox, why bother really analyzing the data?

'There Were a Lot of Crazy Stunts Put Forward by Listeners, but Andreas Won by a Short Head'

Some men are apparently so proud of having a small unit they'll even tattoo as evidence.

Andreas Muller, 39, has gone to extreme lengths to win himself a car - having the word ‘Mini’ tattooed on to his penis.

The crazy German decided to have the rather painful tattoo after a radio station ran a competition to win a £20,000 Mini Cooper.

The brief: whoever pulled the craziest stunt to get the car would win.

Unsurprisingly, Muller’s offer to have the car manufacturer’s name branded on to his penis topped the list of crazy suggestions.

‘There were a lot of crazy stunts put forward by listeners, but Andreas won by a short head,’ said one of the competition’s organisers.

Radio listeners were then treated to Muller’s cries of agony while the unique piece of branding was created.

They ought to tattoo the word "dumb" on his ass while they're at it. Now I could almost see someone doing this if it was to win a Viper. But a Mini???

Photos at the link if you really need to see the evidence.

Photo of the Day: America's Safe From the Dangerous Regis Philbin

I wonder if Regis Philbin is going whine like a baby like Jesse Ventura's been doing. the big, bad steroid-drenched freak is sniveling over being violated by TSA screeners. Heck, it's can't have been any worse than this 79-year-old man being fondled at LAX.

The Chicago Way: Emanuel Back on Ballot

Well, that didn't take long. Must have been a lot of dead fish showing up at judge's homes or something.

The Illinois Supreme Court has ordered the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners to put Rahm Emanuel’s name back on the mayoral ballot, attorneys for Emanuel said Tuesday.

The court has not decided whether to hear Emanuel’s appeal of Monday’s Illinois Appellate Court ruling that tossed him out of the race to replace Mayor Daley. The Supreme Court granted Emanuel’s motion for a stay of the ruling, Emanuel attorney Mike Kasper said Tuesday.

The state appellate court ruled Monday that Emanuel did not meet the one-year residency requirement to run for mayor of Chicago.

Emanuel’s attorneys, heavily citing the dissenting opinion in that case, are hoping to convince the seven justices of the Supreme Court to allow Emanuel to run.

Want to Hunt Down Some Taliban? There's an App for That

Nothing quite like American ingenuity. Especially when it comes to our men in the military.

His thoughts jostled him awake in the hot July night. He had dreamt up a solution to a problem he’d been wrestling with in his mind for months. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He eventually rolled out of bed with a renewed sense of purpose, and called his wife, Katie, then his parents.

U.S. Army Capt. Jonathan J. Springer, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, had searched the Internet for a smart phone application that he could use on his deployment before leaving Fort Campbell, KY, in early May, but nothing was out there that suited his needs. He pondered the idea of inventing one of his own, but didn’t know how to do it or where to start.

“Since day one, I always believed that smart phones could be utilized by the U.S. military for combat purposes,” Springer recalled. “So, prior to this deployment, I began searching one of the online application stores for an app I could install on my phone that would assist me as the battalion fire support officer during our deployment here in eastern Afghanistan’s Pech River Valley.

“I remember specifically looking for a navigational-type application that would display the Military Grid Reference System, plot waypoints, give me a direction in Mils, etc.,” said Springer, a Fort Wayne, IN, native. “But sadly, though, I found nothing tailored to what I truly wanted or needed before getting on the bird to head to Afghanistan.”

“I remember waking up in the middle of the night and coming up with an idea for a smart phone application that I just needed to start developing,” said Springer. “It was weird how the whole thing happened – waking up to a dream about an idea and whatnot. Needless to say, after that moment, I decided to begin the process for the app’s development.”

After speaking to his family about the idea to invent his own app, he began working in his spare time doing research on what the project would entail.

“I started the process to legally form my own company and began trade marking my intellectual property,” he said. “After that process was complete, I bought a couple of books and tried to teach myself how to write Objective-C-based code, but that proved to be more of a time-consuming task than I wanted it to be.”

In August, he reached out to a company in Las Vegas for help and since then they have been working together nonstop to ensure his app would make it into the hands of the user before he redeploys back to Fort Campbell in the spring. So far, he said, everything is on track for that to happen — but not without a cost.

“The overall project has cost me about $26,000,” he admitted. “That includes forming my company, trademarking my IP, copyrights, creating a web site to market the app, and paying for the graphic design and the development of the application itself.”

To some, it may sound like a lot of money. But Springer said he just saw a problem and was determined to solve it, making it money well spent.

“Basically, the issue was the fact that these smart phones were being untapped by the Army and I was motivated and determined to change that, even if it cost me my own money out of pocket to do so,” he said.

Read the rest. Let's hope he makes some money off this project. And takes out a bunch of bad guys while he's at it.

Obama Just Too Busy to Have Contact With Cabinet Members

Let's face it: All those vacations, parties, golf, football talk, basketball predictions, wrecking our economy and bullying opposition take up a lot of his time. But hey, he's remaking himself or something, so let's all marvel how he's the new Comeback Kid.

'Some Patients’ Mouths are Already Wide Open on Entering the Practice'

One would imagine there's plenty of drooling from the patients. On the upside, German men are suddenly rushing to go to the dentist.

Advanced drugs can cure many ills, new technology can revolutionise surgery but sometimes a low-cut, sorry lo-tech, solution is all you need - one dentist has bought herself and her ten nurses tight-fitting, cleavage-maximising dresses to distract worried patients while they work.

Dr Marie-Catherine Klarkowski said: ‘The most important thing is to take away patients’ fear. The sight of cleavages gets patients narcotised and distracted from the pain rather quickly.

‘Some patients’ mouths are already wide open on entering the practice.’

It is unclear if the patients feel less pain but the number of clients going to the Relax & Smile practice in Munich has risen by a third since the change. Yes, they are all men.

Dr Klarkowski came up with the fleshy idea at an Oktoberfest event after seeing how men ogled waitresses in their traditionally revealing ‘dirndl’ outfits.

The change has also seen the practice turned into an ‘Alpine lounge’ with open fireplace, deer antlers on the wall and wooden benches for patients.

‘The competition doesn’t sleep. I know colleagues who have decorated their whole practice with Mickey Mouse and one even in Star Trek style,’ added the 41-year-old. And the nurses say the £430 costumes do it for them, too.

‘I much prefer working in a dirndl, I enjoy looking good at work and it’s a lot more fun since we had the new outfits,’ said employee Larisa Hrustic.

The cunning tactic could be used alongside a new device that filters out the sound of a dentist’s drill.

Who knows. Pretty soon every visit to the dentist could involve a happy ending.

Obama Head-Fakes to the Center, Jukes a Handful of Especially Slow-Witted Leftwing Miscreants Out of Their Sneakers

Did Politico even bother letting these guys in on the joke that Obama is "moving to the center"?

Apparently not.

It's all part of the MSM's grand plan though. Articles like this are key if Obama is going to keep up the ruse that he is suddenly the most altruistic, non-partisan centrist since [INSERT NAME OF SOME MEMORABLE 'CENTRIST' POLITICIAN HERE].

President Barack Obama plans to play up a bright future with congressional Republicans by channeling his 2008 campaign message of post-partisanship in his State of the Union address — but the liberal wing of his party isn’t quite seeing the light.

As the president touts spending austerity, deficit reduction and extension of the Bush-era tax cuts, some Democrats worry Obama will pivot too hard away from the party’s core principles and concede too much to the new House GOP majority that campaigned on destroying his agenda.

Now mind you, since Obama took office he has spent money hand over fist and up the wazoo, exploded the deficit beyond recognition, and vowed to campaign against the Bush-era tax cuts in 2012 - the same cuts he's allegedly "touting" now. And yet Anthony Weiner, Bernie Sanders, and Dennis Kucinich can't even tolerate lip service to such common sense notions of spending within a budget, reining in the deficit, and maintaining the status freakin' quo on income tax rates.

And they wonder why their party got slaughtered last November.

Cross-posted.

Jesse Ventura's Latest Bid for Attention

Ever since this boob went 9/11 Truther he hasn't been taken very seriously, not that his turn as Governor of Minnesota left much of an impression. Now he's a couple of months behind the whole TSA patdown brouhaha and is claiming he's been violated or something.

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration on Monday, alleging full-body scans and pat-downs at airport checkpoints violate his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Ventura is asking a federal judge in Minnesota to issue an injunction ordering officials to stop subjecting him to "warrantless and suspicionless" scans and body searches.

So it's all just designed to save him the inconvenience? How thoughtful of him.

The lawsuit, which also names Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole as defendants, argues the searches are "unwarranted and unreasonable intrusions on Governor Ventura's personal privacy and dignity . and are a justifiable cause for him to be concerned for his personal health and well-being."

According to the lawsuit, Ventura received a hip replacement in 2008, and since then, his titanium implant has set off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints. The lawsuit said that prior to last November officials had used a non-invasive hand-held wand to scan his body as a secondary security measure.

But when Ventura set off the metal detector in November, he was instead subjected to a body pat-down and was not given the option of a scan with a hand-held wand or an exemption for being a frequent traveler, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said the pat-down "exposed him to humiliation and degradation through unwanted touching, gripping and rubbing of the intimate areas of his body."

Why anyone would want to rub intimate areas of his body escapes me.

Rahm Emanuel Booted Off Chicago Ballot

Tee-hee.

Rahm Emanuel was thrown off the ballot for mayor of Chicago today by an appellate court panel, a stunning blow to the fund-raising leader in the race.

An appellate panel ruled 2-1 that Emanuel did not meet the residency standard to run for mayor.

Appellate judges Thomas Hoffman and Shelvin Louise Marie Hall ruled against Emanuel. Justice Bertina Lampkin voted in favor of keeping President Obama’s former chief of staff on the Feb. 22 ballot.

“It’s a surprise, said Kevin Forde, the attorney who argued on Emanuel’s behalf.

Emanuel’s attorney’s are expected to use Lampkin’s dissenting opinion to appeal the case to the Illinois Supreme Court.

In today’s ruling, Hoffman wrote: “We ... order that the candidate’s name be excluded (or if, necessary, be removed) from the ballot from Chicago’s Feb. 22, 2011.”

Are you folks in Chicago ready for Mayor Moseley-Braun?

A recent poll showed Emanuel leading the pack of mayoral candidates with 44 percent support, compared with 21 percent for Carol Moseley Braun, 16 percent for Gery Chico, 7 percent for Miguel del Valle, and 9 percent are undecided.

Emanuel has also received the support of heavy-hitters such as former President Bill Clinton.

Attorneys for Emanuel are expected to take the case to the Illinois Supreme Court.

'This is Not Burger King Where You Get to Have It Your Way Every Time'

You have to feel sorry for a judge in cases like this, dealing with psychopaths like a guy named Mo.

Muzzammil S. "Mo" Hassan will be allowed to act as his own lawyer in the jury trial over the beheading of his estranged wife two years ago, Erie County Judge Thomas P. Franczyk ruled this morning.

Jeremy D. Schwartz, Hassan's latest lawyer, told the judge that weekend talks with the jailed cable television entrepreneur failed to resolve what he called the "irreconcilable differences" they have on their approach to the case.

Hassan, 46, jailed since he turned himself in at Orchard Park police headquarters about an hour after the Feb. 12, 2009 killing of Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, told the judge Schwartz will remain his legal adviser and "will help me with legal procedure" that must be followed.

Franczyk noted that the defendant must have an idea in his head of how a lawyer should represent him. "This is not Burger King where you get to have it your way every time."

The judge also said: "Bottom line is [Hassan] does have the right to steer his own ship even if unwittingly he steers it into an iceberg."

Schwartz is actually the fourth lawyer representing Mo, so I guess Mo makes it five. Good luck explaining the head-chopping, Mo.

You can already see he's struggling. Hope he doesn't lose his head or anything.

Great News: ACORN Back in Business in NYC

New name, same old thuggery, and supported by the unions. What a surprise!

Watch out! ACORN is back -- in all but its name.

Backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars in union donations, New York Communities for Change -- a rebranded version of the controversial organization that closed up shop amid several scandals -- is acting again as labor's attack dog on controversial issues.

NYCC took over ACORN's office on Nevins Street in Brooklyn, shares some of the same board members and uses its membership lists and other resources.

The "new" organization also fights to provide and preserve affordable housing for low-income New Yorkers.

But when NYCC has to choose between low-income consumers and unions, it dances to Big Labor's tune.

Consider Walmart's bid to open in New York City. It would offer discounted prices, which would disproportionately benefit the poorest New Yorkers.

But instead NYCC has joined the campaign to block Walmart because it is a non-union shop that would compete with unionized stores. That puts NYCC on the same page as Stuart Appelbaum, head of the National Retail, Wholesale and Department Store union -- not all those low-income consumers.

"A Walmart in Brooklyn?!? NO THANKS," NYCC says on its Web site.

Meanwhile the United Federation of Teachers gave NYCC more than $200,000 last year -- a big chunk of the advocacy group's budget -- to help organize child-care workers and parents.

NYCC's views on education mirrors the UFT's.

The UFT last year opposed the city's attempt to close 20 failing schools and replace them with new schools with new principals and teachers.

NYCC agreed. "Fix Our Schools, Don't Close 'Em," it declared.

I'm glad we can help people who provide a valuable service. I'll take help wherever I can get it to help working people. God knows the mayor isn't looking after them," UFT president Michael Mulgrew said.

I guess the fact the First Lady has teamed up with Wal-Mart hasn't helped their image yet. You would think giving "working people" shopping options isn't in the best interest of the unions. Well, not everybody is looking the other way.

Lawyer Randy Mastro, who has battled leaders of the ACORN-tied Working Families Party in court over alleged campaign finance violations, said, "It takes more than a name change to avoid the stigma of ACORN. Nobody is going to be fooled."

Well, most of the media will be. Or they'll just ignore this story. As they do with Walmart philanthropy that does far more to help New Yorkers than these union goons do.

Walmart has spread its philanthropic wealth to local community groups ahead of its campaign to open its first megastore in New York City, The Post has learned.

The Walmart Foundation has contributed $9 million to 40 Big Apple organizations over the past three years.

And the Walton Foundation -- a separate arm of Walmart's founding family -- has contributed more than $3 million to New York charter schools and education-reform groups in recent years, records show.

No wonder the teacher's unions so desperately want to stop them.

Crony Marxist Barack Obama Touts His GE BFF Jeffrey Immelt in Weekly Radio Address

Remember how George W. Bush would hold out the CEO of Halliburton as Upstanding Global Citizen #1?

Of course you don't, because he didn't do that.

So do you think the BDS-addled moonbats who went berzerk over Bush's cozy relationship with corporate devil!!11! Halliburton will have a problem with Obama gushing over GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt in his weekly radio address?

Of course they won't, because they're dope-smoking hypocrites.

Nothing to see here, move along!



Oh, and speaking of China, you'll be thrilled to learn that Operation Kick Me was a smashing success.

h/t: Breitbart. Cross-posted.

Man Kisses Wife's Ass, Nearly Goes to Jail

Women, there's just no pleasing them.

A MAN who drunkenly kissed his estranged wife on the bottom has avoided a jail term.

The unemployed 48-year-old former social worker - who cannot be named for legal reasons - pleaded guilty to indecent assault.

He was sentenced in the Hobart Magistrates Court today.

The court previously heard the man had been drinking when he went to his wife's Hobart home in June last year to talk with her.

She was lying on a bed and he twice asked her to turn over on to her stomach. When she refused he forcibly rolled her over, straddled her, pulled down her pants and kissed her on the bottom as she screamed "No, no!"

When their children ran into the room, the victim explained she had been tickled, but the man made a vulgar comment, the court heard.

When interviewed about the incident, the man admitted the attack and apologised to the victim.

Heartbreak: No Super Bowl Trip for Obama

You knew the Bears were doomed when this boob chimed in about what a big fan he was. Sure enough, the patented Obama jinx led to defeat for the Bears at Soldier Field today in the NFL Championship game.

So much for that Super Bowl trip President Obama might have been planning.

His hometown’s Chicago Bears lost their chance for a championship berth Saturday to the Green Bay Packers, ending the season with 11 wins and five losses.

President Obama said last Wednesday that he would attend the Super Bowl if the Bears beat the Packers in conference finals Sunday. He was responding to a question from a reporter after his meeting with President Hu Jintao of China in the Oval Office.

Obama said laughingly: “Oh, if the Bears are in the Super Bowl, we’re going.”

It was unclear whether Mr. Obama’s lighthearted answer was sincere, but this is apparent: It is the Packers, not the Bears, who will take on either the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Jets in the big game. So if Mr. Obama’s Super Bowl appearance hinged on a Bears win, consider it kaput.

On the upside, at least Obama can have it both ways, as usual.

A Steelers win would give Mr. Obama reason to celebrate. He has said that he is a longtime Steelers fan. And Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was born in Pennsylvania, shares his affection for the Steelers.

Don't worry, though. Obama willstill see some facetime on Super Bowl Sunday as he'll be interviewed b y Bill O'Reilly during Fox's coverage.

Obligatory Hitler Finds Out Olbermann Was Fired Video

Even "Special" Ed Schultz would find this funny if he knew what humor was.

H/T Eric.

Laugh of the Day: Obama to Press Centrist Agenda in His Address

Apparently the idiots at the New York Times are living under some strange delusion that Barack Obama is a centrist. Do they really believe this? Of course not. But they figure enough stupid people are still buying their nonsense.

President Obama will outline an agenda for “winning the future” in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, striking a theme of national unity and renewal as he stresses the need for government spending in key areas and an attack on the budget deficit.

Mr. Obama previewed the themes in a video e-mailed Saturday evening to supporters who had helped in his election campaign. But the video made plain that his speech would be geared more broadly toward the political center, to independent voters and business owners and executives alienated by the expansion of government and the partisan legislative fights of the past two years.

“My No. 1 focus,” he said, “is going to be making sure that we are competitive, and we are creating jobs not just now but well into the future.”

“These are big challenges that are in front of us,” Mr. Obama also said in the video, sent to members of Organizing for America, his network of supporters from the 2008 campaign. “But we’re up to it, as long as we come together as a people — Republicans, Democrats, independents — as long as we focus on what binds us together as a people, as long as we’re willing to find common ground even as we’re having some very vigorous debates.”

The annual address on Tuesday, with much of the nation watching, will pull together themes suggested by Mr. Obama over the past two months as he has moved rapidly since the midterm elections to retool his presidency.

In his speeches, policy choices and personnel appointments, Mr. Obama has signaled that after two years in which his response to the economic crisis and his push for passage of the health care bill defined him to many voters as a big-government liberal, he is seeking to recast himself as a more business-friendly, pragmatic progressive.

Memo to the Times: So-called "progressives" aren't centrists. They're leftwingers. But you already know that.

Sane folks aren't buying this claptrap.

How can a president subtly distance himself from the macabre and revolting behavior of his left-wing base while simultaneously editorializing on unhinged invective in general (e.g., without an embarrassing extreme, there is no occasion to call for moderation from others)?

Why did five days of presidential silence follow the shootings (so unlike instant editorializing about the Mutallab and Hasan incidents), when the likes of Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Andrew Sullivan, Sheriff Dupnik, and the New York Times rushed in to scavenge political capital amid the carnage? All that might have been bridled with a brief word or two from the White House, a brief Sister Souljah moment admonition to the New York Times to cool it for a while. We know that would have worked, because the Times within hours after the successful Obama speech was calling to cool what it had helped arouse, apparently realizing that its demonization and its refutation of demonization hand-in-glove were politically useful.

And why not some therapeutic confessional of past (and in many cases quite recent) presidential culpability (e.g., the president’s own metaphorical use of knives, guns, enemies, punishing, kicking ass, relegation to backseat, get angry, getting in their face, hostage takers, trigger fingers, tearing up)?

Olbermann Notoriously Difficult to Work With: 'He Didn't Burn the Bridges Here; He Napalmed Them'

Gee, ya think? An angry megalomaniac is tough to work with? Go figure.

A swirl of questions Saturday surrounded political provocateur Keith Olbermann's abrupt departure from MSNBC, the network he helped transform - by dint of his fiery eloquence and on-air presence - into the left's answer to Fox News.

For all his skill as a broadcaster and his undisputed value to the network, the Olbermann quality that appeared suddenly most relevant was this: He can be difficult to work with.

Iconoclastic and mercurial, Olbermann has often clashed with his employers, condemning - sometimes quite publicly - directives with which he has disagreed. His departure fit a pattern that has marked his 32-year career. He has had frequent run-ins with his bosses, most of which resulted in Olbermann leaving a job, including an earlier flameout with MSNBC in 1998. His nearly eight years hosting "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" was by far the longest he's lasted in a job during his career as a broadcaster.

Who knows. Maybe if the guy wasn't unhinged he may have kept a job longer. Best quote comes from someone who endured working with the moron at ESPN.

Over the course of his career, Olbermann transformed himself into a star political commentator after achieving fame as a sports broadcaster. His skills in front the camera and behind the mike were evident early, but so was his divalike behavior. While working for a TV station in Los Angeles in the late 1980s, he broke a bathroom door in anger when the station aired a promotional segment he felt was not up to standards.

After working his way up through stations in New York, Boston and Los Angeles, Olbermann gained national prominence in the 1990s as co-host of ESPN's "SportsCenter."

When Olbermann left ESPN after five years in 1997, it was clear there were hard feelings on both sides. A network official was quoted saying at the time: "He didn't burn the bridges here; he napalmed them."

No wonder the left loves this guy so much. They're typically as infantile as he is. Speaking of which, some are now blaming Bush for his firing.

Yes, really.