Punditry's Mendoza Line

In baseball, poor Mario Mendoza was a hell of a defensive shortstop in the 70's, but in 1979 he hit .198 for the Seattle Mariners and was forever saddled with the term Mendoza Line to commemorate hitting under the .200 mark (his lifetime batting average was a paltry .215, technically.)

If political punditry has a Mario Mendoza, it's Politico's Ben Smith, a guy who -- like Mendoza -- only manages to get a hit about one in five times...today he manages to ground out yet again.

And the Muslim attack comes roaring back from the political fringe today with a Washington Times op-ed by Frank Gaffney that concedes while he isn't -- "necessarily" -- a Muslim, there is a valid Hitler comparison to make:

This is not to say, necessarily, that Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim any more than Mr. Clinton actually is black. After his five months in office, and most especially after his just-concluded visit to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, however, a stunning conclusion seems increasingly plausible: The man now happy to have his Islamic-rooted middle name featured prominently has engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich.

Stunning.

"Stunning" is his response to one of the most vile winger screeds I've read in quite some time. And this guy gets paid to do this. He does at least note that Obama mentions Jesus a lot (because he's a Christian), but he then goes for the gusto by pointing out that this is pissing off atheists.

Obama can't win, dur. Still hasn't occured to Smith that Obama can't win because of people like Ben Smith.

On second thought, maybe Smith's lack of self-awareness is more like a failed Turing test than it is a Mendoza Line.