Randi Rhodes 1, 101st Fighting Keyboarder 0

If you missed last night's radio talk show steel cage match smackdown on Larry King Live, you missed a real treat. Subbing for the Gravelly One was John Roberts, still smarting from being snubbed for the CBS anchor job, but clearly having a marvelous time refereeing a panel that consisted of the loony Dennis Prager, Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, and Ben Ferguson, a pod person spewed from the same conservative peachfuzz-faced fat pisher factory that produced Ramesh Ponnuru.

The wingnuts are, I'm sure, all having the vapors over the "strident" Randi Rhodes, but when the guys won't let you get a word in edgewise, you don't have a whole lot of choice but to out-shout them. And say what you will about Randi, she will NOT allow the wingnuts to tell their Fox News lies without calling them on it.

I try to avoid Fox News at all costs, but yesterday morning I was sitting in a doctor's office, a capitve audience to Fox News, and I found out that:

a) Whoever leaked the fact that the government is data mining the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans should be executed;

b) The leak is the reason the stock market dropped 144 points the day before;

c) The stock market was poised for a sure-thing rebound yesterday.

Being stuck with this kind of yammering in my ear for an hour not only made me realize just how truly spot-on a spoof The Colbert Report is (cue Barry N. Johnson remark about how Colbert isn't funny), but also just why Fox News watchers are so full of shit -- because that's what they're being fed.

And last night, Ben Ferguson, an El Primo Shit-Feeder of the auditory side of the media, was smacked down royally by La Randi:

FERGUSON: Who said war was easy?

RHODES: Our troops don't get the support they need. They're there without the proper troop numbers.

FERGUSON: Because you guys are say that it's a quagmire.

RHODES: They are there without the proper body armor. They're there without the proper exit strategy. FERGUSON: You're right. There's no support from the left because you say it is a quagmire, it's a waste of time, we shouldn't be there. We need to come home.

RHODES: There is no leadership. Eight generals have come out, and maybe they know a little more than you do...

FERGUSON: They don't need your support, you're absolutely right.

RHODES: ...Ben and Dennis Prager.

FERGUSON: Randi, I have friends in Iraq, OK?

RHODES: Listen, you should be in Iraq. You're 22. When I was 22, I was in the military. Why aren't you there?

FERGUSON: I'm 24 years old.

RHODES: Why aren't you there? Then go.

FERGUSON: And just because I support something doesn't mean I have to always go fight.

RHODES: You go. You go. Go ahead. You go and then you come back because you know what happens when we come back?

FERGUSON: I support the Yankees doesn't mean I wear their uniform.

So there you have it, folks. "Just because I support something doesn't mean I have to always go fight." Ben Ferguson, age 24, sits in his studio and cheers on the valor of the very troops he claims to support, troops who have no body armor and insufficient food; troops being given polluted water by companies like Halliburton, who stuffs its exectuives' pockets with OUR tax dollars; troops on their third and fourth tours of duty because of stop-loss orders instituted because George W. Bush dares not ask people like Ben Ferguson to get their hands dirty.

And he likens it to supporting a baseball team.

THAT, my friends, is the 101st Fighting Keyboarders in a nutshell.

Hat tip: Atta-Effing-Turk!!)