We've got a new "Think Again" column called called "Kevin Jennings, the Mainstream Media, and Right-Wing Target Practice." Read it here. Now here's Pierce:

CHARLES PIERCE
NEWTON, MA.

Hey Doc:

"People around every corner/They seem to smile and say/We don't care what your name is, boy/ we'll never turn you away."

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "All I Need" (Magic Sam) -- I have no option, public or otherwise, to admitting that I love New Orleans.

Short Takes:

Part The First: The Lt. Steven Hauk of punditry rides again. Still not funny.

Part The Second: Oh, my stars, over in Cambridge, Loser U has hired a new schoolmarm to teach the Defense Against The Dark Arts class. Luckily, one of the students filmed the first lecture session. And all of her students are the creme de la Chardonnay. A guest speaker already has been lined up for later in the semester.

Part The Third: Every time The Big Dawg goes off like this, all I can think to say is, "Yes, they were gunning for you, and you knew they were gunning for you, and you still couldn't keep it zipped, foof." That, and the quote in this month's Esquire about how, to broaden their base, the Republicans need "their own Democratic Leadership Council"--A Republican equivalent of, say, Al From would last about 11 seconds and you wouldn't be able to ID the remains with dental records--make me wonder if they guy understands at all what happened to him and why. And, thanks to Dave Sirota, for this truly egregious get. Go away now, OK?

Part The Fourth: I feel terrible that, in these tough economic times, Ye Olde House O' Mulch For Brains so obviously has had to lay off every single solitary editor they had. Who greenlighted this piece? The guy at the Sabrett's stand outside the building?

Part The Penultimate: Not to belabor the painfully obvious, but there's no f**king way on God's green and pleasant land that she wrote this at all, much less in four months. It would take her that long to find a verb.

Part The Ultimate: Too easy. Much too easy. By now, most everyone in the ginmills along the docks of Blogistan has seen the clip of Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Reality) jiving around with the clown show that is The Situation Room on CNN. Let us leave aside the disgraceful pearl-clutching from the putative journalists on the set, and the always useless cornpone chawin' of James Carville. The fifth clown in the center ring, brought together to lecture Grayson on civil political discourse, is a career goon named Alex Castellanos. In his previous life, he was responsible for the famous "white hands" ad that helped torpedo Harvey Gantt on behalf of lifelong bigot Jesse Helms. That alone should be enough to shatter forever his credibility on the topic of what is permissable political discourse. (Hell, it should be enough that decent people would refuse to treat his wounds.) That this wretched excuse for a public person has a regular gig on CNN should make actual journalists vomit. Instead we have Joe Towns and Gloria Borger and Wolf Blitzer tut-tutting Grayson while their CNN colleague, a race-baiting thug, joins in. Therefore, since apologies seem to be all the rage, let me apologize to Congressman Alan Grayson on behalf of all decent journalists everywhere. I apologize that elite political journalism on television has become so obviously an unbridled whorehouse as to employ Towns, Borger, and Blitzer as eunuchs, and Castellanos as the featured attraction.

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