Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Neal Gabler wrote a NY Times op ed column this week claiming that John McCain has the press eating out of the palm of his hand. It was an interesting and slightly scary (if you don’t want McCain to be president) article. But I guess Gail Collins never rode the Straight Talk Express (she’s “off the bus”) because she’s written one helluva funny column eviscerating McCains’ economic policies and just about everything else for which he stands:

The theme for his mortgage speech this week was basically McCain to Homeowners: Drop Dead. It was, he said sternly, “not the duty of the government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly.” The good news, he noted, was that out of 80 million American homeowners, only 4 million are in the tank, while everybody else is “working a second job, skipping a vacation and managing their budgets” the way Countrywide Financial intended them to.

He did, however, leave the door open for some vague, amorphous, undefined aid to good homeowners, as opposed to irresponsible ones who … did something irresponsible. Like taking that vacation.

I used to think Maureen Dowd was one of the funniest political satirists around. Fuhgedaboudit! Gail Collins is the new It Girl of columnists. She has a deft touch and is funny as hell.

Dennis the Peasant, the scourge of Pajamas Media, has outdone himself in what I take to be a fictional press release (though who knows–it might be genuine) announcing that the wingnuts of PJM (and assorted fellow travelers) will be moderating the next Republican presidential debate. What is most delicious is the media profiles of the various celebrity moderators. Among them are:

Ricardo Klement (Pat Buchanan): Ricardo Klement is your average Professor of Ethic Studies at the University of Bueno Aires in Argentina. He is presently a visiting professor in the Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures Department of Columbia University, and the author of Sometimes Little Eichmanns Push Back: On The Justice Of Roasting Jews. Mr. Klement spends much of his free time advocating for elderly German refugees he feels the government is persecuting. His hobbies include painting and listening to Wagner.

Blanche Yenta-Letard (Pam Geller or, as Dennis calls her “Pammycakes”): Marie-Louise Yenta-LeTard, also known as Blanche, is your average 40-something New York City based Jewish-American Princess. Ms. Yenta-LeTard is founder and chief editor of the Meshugeneh News Network and is presently writing her first book, Your Burqa Vs. My Boobs: A Personal History of the Israeli-Arab Conflict. Her hobbies include producing tightly scripted comedy sketches on YouTube and doing Fran Drescher impersonations until you could just scream.

As I read this post I was laughing so uncontrollably I thought my wife, reading near me on the sofa, was afraid I was having a coronary. Nothing like a good laugh over good satire to revive the soul.