Chelsea Clinton, White House daughter versus Michelle Malkin, right-wing bitch. (Part 1.)

In his book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," comedian Al Franken describes a particularly low point in the brief TV career of right-wing blowhard and hillbilly heroin addict Rush Limbaugh.

During one episode in 1993, Limbaugh mentioned to his viewing audience that the Clintons had a cat, and displayed a photo of the well-known White House cat, "Socks." Continued Limbaugh, "But did you know they also have a White House dog?", at which point what came up on the screen was a picture of thirteen-year-old Chelsea Clinton. (This is, sadly, standard right-wing operating procedure -- one engages in intellectual discourse by attacking one's opponents or their children on national TV. But I digress. Onward.)

Amazingly, even Rush's mindless, drooling dittohead groupies found this incident offensive and tasteless, whereupon Rush tried to weasel out of it by claiming that it was all a mistake and that the wrong picture had been put up, and it's that story that plays a part in Franken's first encounter with another ignorant right-wing dumbass, Sean Hannity.

In Franken's first run-in with Hannity, the conversation turned to how Hannity was offended by Franken's book title, and Franken defended it by describing it as a ironic comment on how Limbaugh made ad hominem attacks on people all the time.

Hannity disagreed, at which point Franken mentioned (what else?) the Chelsea Clinton incident. Not surprisingly, Hannity came back with the thoroughly predictable defense that, hey, he'd heard about that and it was all a mistake and a technician had put up the wrong picture. At which point, Franken replied to the effect of, "Really, Sean? OK, then tell me, what was the joke? Rush said the Clintons have a cat, and he put up a picture of their cat. Then he said they had a dog and put up a picture of ... Chelsea Clinton. But if that picture of Chelsea was a mistake, what picture was supposed to go up there? What other picture could he possibly have put up that would have made that funny?"

And that's the beauty of this incident. As Franken explains, there is no possible defense for Limbaugh's overwhelming assholitude since there isn't even a theoretical picture Limbaugh could have displayed other than Chelsea that would have made this shtick even remotely meaningful or funny. (And, by the way, this is before the Clintons got their dog Buddy, so you can't even suggest it should have been their dog and, besides, that would still have been thoroughly unfunny and meaningless.)

And how does all this tie in to Crazy-Assed Racist Bitch Michelle Malkin? I'm glad you asked.

To be continued ...