Last week, it was gossip columnist Jonathan Alter whose baldness has left him with a scarier hairline than Bette Davis when she played Queen Elizabeth I.
Imagine what Davis could have done with this dialogue:
They had a group of analytics experts, most of them in their 20s, not just data scientists, but they had a child prodigy, they had a biophysicist, they had three professional poker players who had all been hired on the basis of extremely difficult online exams where they solved various analytical problems.
Then they took their models and their algorithms, and they applied them to the workaday problems of the Obama campaign in field organizing and fundraising and so forth. So, the hundreds of thousands of Obama volunteers out there who were really at the heart of my story, because they did change history, their tasks were greatly enhanced by technology.
So Obama was able to marry technology and old-fashioned shoe leather in door-to-door canvassing, in a totally new way that made even 2008 look primitive by comparison.
You don't just picture it in clipped tones, you also picture Bette's eyeballs bulging.
About the only thing that bulges on Alter is his huge belly.
And the fat f**k can't do a damn thing with anything as he proved repeatedly on Fresh Air (NPR).
After creating a reality that doesn't exist -- child prodigy and poker players can't determine what Alter goes on to offer (who has early voted and who hasn't).
As always Jonathan makes promises his vast body can never lumber up to and Dave Davies pretends not to notice that Alter's gathered the crowd by promising a two-headed, bearded lady.
But this bait and switch has been Alter's m.o. since his time at Newsweek and no one's ever really called him on it.
Being unable to support his claim of a gaggle of precogs, right out of the Minority Report, Alter just transitions into gossip about Bill Clinton. And what does that really say other than "How boring is Barack?"
When not talking up his latest bad book on TV and radio and when not waiting to be fed, Alter dabbles in 'scandals.' He doesn't see any.
The spying on the press? Well Barack's said he is "troubled" and that's all it took for Alter. As for the targeting of political groups by the IRS? Alter clearly hasn't paid attention to the details but does that surprise anyone? Alter dismisses it as a non-scandal.
The spying on Americans?
Alter thinks it's necessary.
Is anyone surprised by this lying?
Of course not. At the end of 2011, Alter was writing the following for Washington Monthly:
Barack Obama was not in office for more than a couple of minutes, it seemed, before conservatives began trying to cover him in muck. Yet for almost three years, the administration has been scandal-less, not scandalous. In a capital culture that over generations has become practiced at the art of flinging mud pies, Republicans and a few reporters have been tossing charges against a Teflon wall.
It's pathetic on every level but the most appalling is the desperation level.
Ronald Reagan is considers the "Teflon President." For whatever reason (limited vision), Alter needed Barack to be Reagan.
Here's the reality that Alter can never speak: Barack is boring.
Barack isn't just boring, he's so boring.
How boring is Barack that Alter has to bring in gossip about Bill Clinton to pad out his 'analysis' and to ensure that listeners remain listening?
Alter's never finished the work required. That's obvious even in his latest book which is entitled, The Centers Holds. He left out the direct object of that statement: Nothing.