"And the judge said 'guilty' in a make believe trial, slapped the sheriff on the back with a smile and said supper's waiting at home and I got to get to it."

Al Franken couldn't do it.  Jenene Garafalo couldn't do it.  Rosie O'Donnell  couldn't do it. But now, liberals finally have a face and his name is Olbermann. 

Last night on Countdown on MSNBC, the very network that a day before canned Don Imus, Olbermann, almost giddy as a school girl, proclaimed not only victory in the Imus affair but was planning the next assault on talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Michael Savage and Neil Boortz.  Yup, a great night for liberals as the gang that can't shoot straight finally hit something.

Here's the problem with all of this.  When you let Olbermann's buddies, Butch Crywolf and the Clueless Kid win, everybody loses.  Talk show host Neil Boortz wrote a brilliant piece about Al Sharpton (a.k.a. Butch Crywolf). Responding to Sharpton's comment that "we must draw the line in what is tolerable in mainstream media", Bootz shot back "since when is it up to him to decide who is allowed to offend someone and who is not? Who decides where the line is going to be drawn, Al? What about free speech?"

Boortz goes on to discuss the real reasons that Butch and Clueless got involved in this mess in the first place.  "Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are doing their best to cash in the only way they can, by manufacturing outrage and calling out their roving band of race hustlers. For his part, Imus is employing the Michael Richards strategy. That is, handing his head to his enemies and hoping they'll go away. The problem is that when you pay blackmail, the price always goes up. "  And Imus eventually played the price, losing both his TV and radio gigs.

Boortz, no dummy by any standards, calls Sharpton out noting "Sharpton is a race hustler.  That's it.  One issue ... race .. and exploiting the sense of black victimization for his personal aggrandizement." 

Boortz cautions that talk radio hosts should be wary of Butch now that he has succeeded in his mission.  "Somewhere soon Sharpton will sit down with some cronies to review the talk radio landscape to figure out who needs to be the next to go," Bootz says,  In the meantime he'll give some lip service to the cause of cleaning up rap lyrics, but know this ... talk radio is the target.  Conservative talk radio.  Liberals can't succeed at the medium ... so it must be destroyed."

Here is the takeaway from all of this.  I quoted Neil Bootz because he has always made the most sense to me.  And here, he makes a lot of sense.  Sharpton and Jackson are and have always been race baiters and snake oil salesmen.   They are not the face of their community, they only claim to be (when cameras and photo opportunities are involved.)  And those in the media love them because they are always available, even if they occasionally bristle at the notion that they make mistakes too.

I deplore racism.  But what I deplore even more is the fact that in this country, we can't have a normal discourse of issues without self serving buffoons like Butch Crywolf and the Clueless Kid, dictating to us what our standards should be.  What Imus did was far beyond normal discourse, but in the final analysis, what got him gone was the enabling of Butch and Clueless through guys like Olbermann, who is desperately trying to position himself as the eminent liberal of our time.

So these are the new rules?  Say something that is deemed offensive and bring the wrath of God down upon you?  What is considered offensive in terms of race and who decides?  And if what Imus said is offensive to the majority of American citizens, when can we expect the ban on rap music that uses the same words that Imus used?  I mean fellas, fair is fair here, right?

This is about a man, a mistake and a mob.  As a broadcaster, mob rule concerns me.  As an American, deciding what is "toxic" and what isn't should not be determined by a snake oil salesman.  If Rush Limbaugh does not offend me and his program has advertisers and ratings, I have no issue with his place in the universe.  But then, I don't build my career around taking advantage of the misfortune of others.

Beware, talk radio hosts.  Butch and Clueless are coming to get you.  And their friend Olbermann is providing the horses.