Juan Cole is advertised to Salon readers and others as a Middle East scholar at the University of Michigan.

Here, we see him as a kind of glorified Frank Rich. (Anybody ever wonder what Frank Rich's credentials are in military affairs, macroeconomic theory, corporate finance, or American history and government?)

Professor Cole does have some academic credentials, unlike Frank Rich; but at heart Cole reveals himself in this column to be just another wannabe all-purpose political pundit.

What a thin skin guys like Cole have when they abandon their ivory tower jurisdiction! There is not a single thing that Cole accuses Rove of (at least not with the faintest whiff of serious credibility), that is worse than the invective and the slander that has been hurled at Rove by people like the editors and letter-writers at Salon. Rove has been accused of facism, of genocide, of crimes against humanity, of felonies in the United States, etc.,etc.,etc. By people like Juan Cole. In turn, and faced with the need to advise the President on the political claculations involved in conducting the war on terror, Rove's language, by contrast, has been measured, considered, and informed.

Is there anything in this hysterical screed by Professor Cole for which he is specially qualifed by virtue of his academic credentials? Or is Cole a glorified version of Arianna Huffington, or Frank Rich, or, say, Barbra Streisand? Let's pitch together to endow Prof. Cole a new academic Chair -- The Alex Baldwin Professor of Screedwriting Political Punditry at the Rosie O'Donnell school of Hysteria...

My considered advice to all of the Salonistas; Hold your breath, please, as an act of service to the nation, until Karl Rove is 'brought to justice.'

Just asking. I mean, Elizabeth Edwards is so right; we really need to stop the personal attacks, and name calling, don't we?

The Democrat Congress sure is unpopular. They'd be so much more popular if they passed a resolution that U.S. troops were like Nazis (Durbin and Murtha), making Chevy suburbans illegal (Markey) adding a 50-cent gas tax (maybe not a bad idea, but see how many votes it gets - Rep. Dingell), nationalizing health care (Dingell & co.), impeaching the President, and beginning the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq (Conyers).

In that case, the Democrats will easily carry the nation. If the nation happens to be Iran, or perhaps North Korea. (I was going to type "France," but the French have shown too much good sense lately.)

What we really, really nedd is more federal funding for more leftwing blogs.

That's my point. You all don't have the skills, or the conviction to do what you say. Please, prove me wrong. Nominate Obama. Or Edwards. Please. Make my day. Those are the guys we want. Please. Nominate them. And make sure that they run on a platform of more taxes, and a larger government, more lawsuits, and more regulations. Do it.

Yes, Tim Grieve, it does indeed seem like some ambitious and largely pointless controversy-creation, to make a mountain out of Michelle Obama's molehill remarks. Why, in any event, would Michelle Obama criticize the future Democrat nominee for President -- her husband's future running mate?

So, Tim Grieve, your point is well taken.

But then we have the Associated Press and Karl Rove. The AP reports that:

Rove harshly criticized Clinton, saying more people have an unfavorable than favorable opinion of the New York senator and former first lady.

"She enters the general election campaign with the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup poll," Rove said.

Uh, okay, so Rove recited a fact, that Hillary Clinton has the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup poll. And that's "harsh criticism"? Hmmm. And the Junior Senator from New York thinks that Rove is "obsessed" with her? Because a reporter specifically asked Mr. Rove about her candidacy?

Tim, are you seeing any parallels here? I knew that you'd want to report on this other "Hillary" story, because Salon has such a history of fair treatment of Mr. Rove.

Keillor, whose radio broadcasts are so gentle and genuinely entertaining, can really lose it when it comes to politics on the internet. To use his own metaphors, the combination of internet politics Keillor is like Baptists and alcohol. They generally either remain strictly and safely on the wagon, or else they end up face down in the gutter. There's no easy in-between.

So here's a cold shower of reality for Keillor and his Salon friends, from today's Wall Street Journal opinion page:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010505

The author of that Wall Street Journal opinion column is Michael Mukasey. Mr. Mukasey was the United Sates District judge who signed the material witness warrant authorizing the arrest of Jose Padilla a/k/a al Muhajir in 2002, and who handled the case while it remained in the Southern District of New York. He was also the trial judge in United States v. Abdel Rahman et al; the original World Trade Center bombing case. He is now retired from the federal bench.

Really, sometimes Keillor and his NPR cohorts are just so far removed from reality, that it concerns me that their programs share the airwaves with NPR News.