Put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day

Anti-Obama madness over at the McLaughlin Group is reaching a fever pitch as the election nears. Last Friday's episode represents a culmination of terror which Obama has been inspiring, for the past two years, among the more paranoid conservatives. Three of the show's most regular members have close ties to Richard Nixon: John McLaughlin, Pat Buchannan, Monica Crowley.

So really it is the go to place to find out what Nixon would think about present day politics. And as bearers of his legacy, they are driven by the fear that someone will out Nixon Nixon. Obama's speech on Race, which nullified the Reverend Wright issue, was as good as Nixon's Checkers Speech, which nullified the slime issue, for a few years anyway.

Robert MacNeil wrote in his memoir that Richard Nixon had a sort of charisma in color television that was lacking in black and white. With the Checkers speech it was a charisma which was conveyed by his voice. The radio helped humanized him, while black and white television, while providing more information, lowered his charisma. Obama has the political gifts of Nixon, and the comfort with each present and emerging technology which presents him to the public with his charisma intact. As Richard Nixon's head in a jar says on Futurama, "Nixon with charisma? My God, I could rule the universe!"

So you can appreciate this mad episode of McLaughlin Group now. OR put it on your pocket, save it for a rainy day sometime after November 4th. I have a feeling it will seem even funnier then.

Rainy Day Laughs with the McLaughlin Group