Wet Fish Slapping For Dummies

David Brooks is an individual who often needs to be hit with a large wet fish whenever he pens a column. Seriously. He's that guy in the office that says the most pointlessly vapid thing imaginable, then holds it out for the world to see and is as proud of it as a toddler making bubbles in the tub. Today's piscatorial punishment comes courtesy of this.

If I were advising the candidates, I’d tell them to double down on weirdness. Obama needs to occasionally criticize his own side. If he can’t take on his own party hacks, he’ll never reclaim the mantle of systemic change. Specifically, he needs to attack the snobs who are savaging Sarah Palin’s faith and family. Many liberals claim to love working-class families, but the moment they glimpse a hunter with an uneven college record, they hop on chairs and call for disinfectant. Obama needs to attack Bill Maher for calling her a stewardess and the rest of the coastal condescenders.

If I were McCain, I’d make the divided government argument explicit. The Republicans are intellectually unfit to govern right now, but balancing with Democrats, they might be able to do some good. I’d have McCain tell the country that he looks forward to working with Congressional Democrats, that he is confident they can achieve great things together.

The candidates probably won’t take this kind of advice. But remember: Weirdness wins. Surprise me most.

The GOP is unfit to rule, and can't win on the issues, so instead of Obama attacking on that, he should what, act like Martin Lawrence in Big Momma's House? A minstrelsy act from the bad old days? He should juggle chainsaws while drinking malt liquor? I'm not sure what's more infuriating, the fact that Brooks admits that the GOP has nothing but Cirque de Palin to distract the public with, or the fact that he thinks the black guy who is winning hands down on the issues and should be winning on the issues is in fact not entertaining enough for a black guy on his TV.

Now you're thinking "Zandar, you're making too much of that second point there" and I agree with you, except Brooks's fellow columnist at the Washington Post, Richard Cohen, said pretty much the same thing today.

Not, anyway, the Obama who appeared Sunday on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. That Obama was cool, diffident, above it all -- unflustered, unflappable, unexcitable and downright unexciting. These "uns" ran on, a torrent of cool that frosted my flat-panel TV and had me wondering if, as a kid, Obama ever got a shot in the mouth on the playground, he'd glare at the bully -- and convene a meeting.

Stephanopoulos vainly tried for some genuine reaction. In choosing Palin, did John McCain get someone who met the minimum test of being "capable of being president"? Everyone in America knows the answer to that. They know McCain picked someone so unqualified she has been hiding from the media because a question to her is like kryptonite to what's-his-name. But did Obama say anything like that? Here are his exact words: "Well, you know, I'll let you ask John McCain when he's on ABC." Boy, Palin will never get over that.

And how about this silly business that she's qualified for the presidency because she's commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard? Another softball. Another slow one, right down the middle. Obama reared back . . . and told Stephanopoulos that those questions should come from the media: "It's going to be your job and. . . ." Pathetic.

Obama needs to be angrier! Wackier! More entertaining! Not clean and articulate! America can't handle a black guy that's not bustin' caps in asses or an Original King of Comedy, apparently.

I mean damn. Obama should just combine the images of the entertaining black man and the angry black man by hitting people with fish. Starting with these two idiots.