Can't Do It, Man

Right. There's an article in today's NY Times which credits the origins of the "Obama is a Muslim" veshch to a political mope in Chicago named Andy Martin.

He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”

Though he is not a lawyer, Mr. Martin went on to become a prodigious filer of lawsuits, and he made unsuccessful attempts to win public office for both parties in three states, as well as for president at least twice, in 1988 and 2000. Based in Chicago, he now identifies himself as a writer who focuses on his anti-Obama Web site and press releases.

Mr. Martin, in a series of interviews, did not dispute his influence in Obama rumors.

“Everybody uses my research as a takeoff point,” Mr. Martin said, adding, however, that some take his writings “and exaggerate them to suit their own fantasies.”

As for his background, he said: “I’m a colorful person. There’s always somebody who has a legitimate cause in their mind to be angry with me.”

Colorful.

I guess he's been getting a soapbox from Fox News lately. No surprise there.

But ye gods, I just can't do it any more. I just don't have the energy to get angry.

I can't even muster the adrenaline to get mad at the talking heads of Fox News, or at this guy Martin either. I guess contemplating the short career of Caribou Barbie took all the piss and vinegar out of me.

FN is kind of like what the Buddha said: "You don't get mad at a fire because it's hot, do you?"

No, you don't. And I don't get mad at, uh, household refuse because it smells like...well, you know.

But sometimes I wonder why it is that most of the Fox News crew -- Neil Cavuto and Gretchen What'sherface and O'Reilly and the rest of 'em look like the kind of kids that, when they were in high school and eating lunch in the cafeteria, nobody wanted to sit with 'em.

In fact, they didn't even want to sit with each other. But somebody had to.

As for the Obama/Muslim thing and the "terrorist fist pump" and all that, I look at Obama and I see a very articulate and talented salesman, a conformist and organization guy at heart, politically timid and looking reflexively for that deep rut that runs straight down the very middle of the range of political opinion. That's indeed a change from the superhuman crew we've lived under for eight years, who went out of their way to see how outrageous they could be, and laughed at any of us who bitched about it.

So what I'm saying is, I'll bet people who believe all that stuff about him being a Muslim or a terrorist or a Muslim terrorist have a lot of brain hemorrhages, chronic diverticulitis, perforated eardrums, gastric ulcers, and blood pressure problems, not to mention high cholesterol from all that red meat and all those bacon omelets. I'm grateful that I'm not one of them.