Dennis Miller. Next Stop? Touring With Gallagher.

I'm a day late and a dollar short on this story, but I've been fuming all night about it. This is a link to one of the many rightie sites that gleefully extolled "comedian" Dennis Miller's attack on Harry Reid: http://newsbusters.org/node/13366

As I watched the video and read the transcript, I couldn't help but notice the irony of Dennis "I Used To Be Funny; I Swear" Miller calling Harry Reid irrelevant. Dennis Miller, he of four unceremoniously-cancelled shows and one spectacular firing from Monday Night Football. Dennis Miller thinks Harry Reid is irrelevant? Whatever. Harry Reid is so Inside the Beltway anyway. If you asked the average American to identify Harry Reid (or Dennis Miller for that matter), I can't imagine you'd get far into the double digit percentages.

So on the one hand I am irritated at Dennis Miller, the classic, angry, used-to-be funny comedian launching a diatribe at Reid focusing mostly on his appearance, his voice, his hair. Dennis used to be so much incisive and witty than that, which pisses me off. What happened to your "comedy for the thinking man," Dennis? I used to love your esoteric cultural and historical references. A college friend and I would hang out in his room whenever Miller was on TV and actually write down the references so we could research and understand them--and then laugh a day later once we got them. He used to be THAT good. Now he's making fun of Harry Reid's skin tone? It's a sad, sad day for a sad-act of a comedian.

On the other hand I think it's indicative of where the Righties are right now. They are being so pounded with reality, with the truth of where their devotion to all things Bush has gotten them, that they are positively gleeful when a has-been comic beats up on....Harry Reid? He didn't go after Hillary or Barack or John or even Joe Biden. Nope. He went after Harry Reid, a man whose name recognition has to be less than or equal to about 9 percent. How sad for them that this vitriolic, meaningless monologue is being seen as the funniest and most insightful smackdown in recent memory. I mean, is this all you got, Righties? Dennis making fun of Harry's hair? How sad for you all.

But because I'm nice I'll give the Right a tip. If you'd like a primer on funny and satirical and wittily incisive, just turn on The Daily Show or Keith Olbermann any day of the week. Then you'll see why no one who isn't desperate for Poconos-level warmed-over "humor" finds Dennis' monologue threatening, funny---or--hell, even relevant.