Shoe

Iraq should immediately allow Doctors Without Borders to visit Muntazer al-Zaidi, the journalist who shied a pair of Rockports at George Bush's head.

It's not clear that al-Zaidi's "crime" actually rises to lese majeste since a) he missed (no lese), and b) it was George W. Bush (no majeste). But it's clear from the tapes that al-Zaidi should be picked up by the Kernels, the Los Angeles Angels farm team here in Cedar Rapids.

On the other hand, them Iraqis haven't figured out what "freedom of speech" means yet — hardly surprising since the memory of Saddam Hussein is still green, and since George W. Bush will clearly remain unpredictably dangerous until Obama manages to find Cheney's neo-con war room and root out all the post-inaugural sedition cells about four months from now.

Aside from that, Andrea Mitchell makes my skin crawl. We've already got a botox octogenarian schmoozing for pooper scoop, and frankly Mitchell seems to be dwooling on her glitterati lately.

It's still early, but ... *retch*

I'm losing respect for Chris Matthews, which is a pity because if he gets out of the ratings shriek-a-thon and rejoins the elder statesmen of journalism (Murrow, Cronkite, Huntley, Brinkley, even — God help us — Tom Brokaw), his credentials are impeccable.

I've already lost it with Lou Dobbs, who's turned into a flaming loon, at least onscreen.

Oral Calamity, on FOX, doesn't even bear comment, except to note that lies told often enough do not metamorphose into truth. Eventually, they get slapped down hard.