WSJ's brilliant and hilarious James Taranto has the distinction of being Tuesday night Countdown's Worst [Republican/conservative/libertarian]In The World. I think that title ought to be worn as a badge of honor.

Taranto was in competition with Louis Farrakhan and ABC's libertarian reporter John Stossel. I went and looked up the Stossel article that Keith mentioned and found it on Town Hall. It is some of the most convoluted thinking I've read in a while. No argument there.

On the other hand, what Taranto did was to report on a guy being interviewed at the Super Dome who was griping and saying the government ought to give Katrina refugees 20K apiece and likening the buses transporting folks out the area to "slave ships". Taranto's comment to that analogy was essentially-- dude, this isn't 1840 or even 1950 and you ain't being treated like the slaves where treated. In fact, you're being interviewed on national television and you're not being lynched for having your arm around a white woman.

Here's what Taranto says about his commment, which was, of course, immediately classifed as racist by some ankle biter sorts:

"In post-civil-rights America there is nothing at all remarkable about a public display of affection between a black man and a white woman. The same was not true in the days of slavery, or for about a century after abolition. Emmett Till was lynched barely 50 years ago. To liken America in 2005 to America in the days of slavery reflects a stunning degree of ignorance, malice or both."

Taranto makes an accurate point about this guy's thinking, but when you have other folks hell-bent on playing the race card at every opportunity, Taranto's comment was ripe for picking.

Keith, who has been lamenting the fact that there weren't buses to take people out of New Orleans, didn't seem to mind that someone was now griping about the help they were getting and comparing it to being treated like a slave. Isn't that the sort of behavior that ought to qualify you as "worst person in the world" (for folks who enjoy hanging that sort of label on others? Heck no. Instead Keith hangs that moniker on a conservative who replied in kind to this guy's analogy. And not only that, he called for the WSJ to fire Taranto.

Well, I have to disagree with Taranto about one thing. There still are folks with a lynch mentality around...

BTW, Johnny, I'm astounded daily at how savy you are. The comment about Keith playing to DU types is dead-on. Did you hear the aside Keith made about there only being "one shark in New Orleans"? All the DUer high-fived and shouted "Dick Cheney"! :D

Cecilia and Johnny,

I fear that you two are getting too close to your subject matter. When you know details that only DU'ers and Daily Kosmonauts know, you are in dangerous territory.

I am not saying that you two need an intervention yet. However, I am urging caution. The "cult of Olby" can lead one into dark places where few return.

"The "cult of Olby" can lead one into dark places where few return."

Oh, we've stared that darkness in the face right here on Olberman Watch. It slithered in under the pseudonym of "M".

We'll tell you about it when you're older.