Twenty-Nine Villagers Worse Than David Brooks

And yes, Salon manages to find that many.

Think of the War Room Hack 30 as an all-star team -- or a rogues gallery. These are the most predictable, banal, intellectually dishonest and all-around hacky newspaper columnists, cable news shouting heads and political opinion-mongers working today. We compiled the list by reading blogs and Op-Ed sections and watching 24-hour cable news channels for about a decade, and then listing about 200 people who rarely fail to annoy us. We cut the list down to 30 people whose continued employment most baffles us, and then we ranked them in order of shamelessness.

Your top 5?  Marty Perez, Dean Broder ("Blogggggggerrrrrrr HOOOOOOOOUSE!"), Thomas Friedman's Mustache That Can Type, Mark "D.R.E.A.M.:  Drudge Rules Everything Around Me" Halperin, and your Village Idiot Of The Year?

Richard Cohen.  Who has been a WaPo columnist nearly as long as I have been alive. Alex Pareene:

I sometimes ask myself, who is the intended audience of a Richard Cohen column? Who reads a Richard Cohen column and thinks to himself, "Yes, I agree with this"? I don't write "thinks to herself" because I cannot fathom the existence of a woman who'd respond approvingly to this defense of Clarence Thomas' vocal appreciation of large breasts. I think Ginni herself would say it does Justice Thomas no favors to have the support of this guy. And what does Cohen leave out of his defense of Thomas? That he was accused of creating a hostile work environment himself, for making inappropriate comments to a 23-year-old editorial aide in the late-1990s.

There's no subject on which Richard Cohen is not completely inessential. The looming debt crisis? Caused by kids today and their tattoos and hippety-hop music! The financial collapse? Did you know that Richard Cohen went to high school with Ruth Madoff? 'Cause that's all he's got.

Richard Cohen is the worst hack in the country.

Really, really hard to argue with stuff like this:

"First, let me state my credentials: I am a funny guy. This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to "say something funny" -- as if the deed could be done on demand. This, anyway, is my standing for stating that Stephen Colbert was not funny at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner."

And he gets actual spendable legal tender for that.  Awesome.