Barack Obama laughing at us?

Obama on"60 Minutes" laughed when he said he never would have anticipated that the war in Iraq would be the least of his Presidential problems. He said that the only thing less popular than giving money to banks was giving money to car companies. He found the irony amusing. So did anybody with a brain.

But that obviously didn't include David Shuster, the wholly inadequate stand-in on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" when Keith is away. He asked Fox-like questions like, "Was President Obama laughing at people standing in bread lines? Was he laughing at millions of Americans out of work?" Only to say, "No. He wasn't." So WHY raise the issue?

I'll tell you why: to make a mountain out of a molehill and feed the paranoia and hatred of the Right. Now, even people who (a) didn't see the "60 Minutes" interview or (b) didn't take offense at Obama's laughter are thinking about being offended by it. GREAT JOB, Shuster. Tomorrow, you ought to be Keith's "Worst Person in the World," or at least "Worse."

A shred of sanity slipped into Shuster's smear piece when E. J. Dionne of the Brookings Institution said he thought most people would appreciate the humorous irony of Obama's comments. I think he's wrong, since irony and satire seem to sail way over the heads of most of the American public. However, most people *should* appreciate the irony. Obama was laughing at his own predicament, not at the American people. In the rest of the interview, he was serious about serious topics like Afghanistan. I mean, give the guy a break. He explained that a kind of "gallows humor" was necessary to maintain sanity in the White House.

I understand what he means. When you move into a house and find that the previous tenants have left you a pile of manure in every room, which you now have to clean up, what is there to do but laugh and get to it?

David Shuster makes a mockery of TV journalism (if that's not an oxymoron in itself). He doesn't belong on Olbermann's show. Write to MSNBC and tell them so.