Seriously, don't doubt for a moment that Siskel wouldn't also be sneering about "tea-baggers" if he were still alive in this climate.

If anything, I think he was worse than Ebert.

It's very disappointing to me personally because I grew up admiring Ebert. I wanted to be a movie critic, and I kept a scrapbook of his columns and movie reviews for a couple of years in the late 70s, when I was just a boy.

He's mainly unreadable now, and it's obvious that he yearns to be something more than a movie critic. I think he wants to be Frank Rich. Imagine that.

His film reviews are bad now. If he isn't casually spoiling major plot developments without warning, he's slipping in grotesque political asides that would make Garrison Keillor blush. But his occasional forays into straightforward punditry are even worse. They read like comments at Daily Kos and rely upon the same, tired liberal tropes that wouldn't be deemed printable if they came in anonymously via email.

You know the drill: Bush no travel. Bush stoopid. Palin mean. Palin mean and stoopid. Rush fat. Rush fat and mean. Tea baggers mean. Tea baggers mean and racist. They no have hearts. Liberals have hearts. They good.

I think it's funny that there are less than 100 comments some twelve hours after this was posted, and I suspect it's because more and more people just don't give a damn anymore. I couldn't care less nowadays and can't even remember that last time I even noticed.

Once I could have told you who the major winners were in multiple categories going back years. Now, I don't even know who won last year. Who cares anymore?

It makes me wonder whether there are plans for a preemptive biopic strike against Sarah Palin planned for Fall '12. Just in case.

Your opinion is shared by a lot of people, I know, but I don't get why Doc Ock was sympathetic to you guys. Yeah, he lost his wife, but my sympathy goes out the window when a guy becomes a mass murderer.

Sure he seemed decent in the opening scenes of Spider-Man 2, but as soon as things went south, he's out chucking pieces of buildings at pedestrians and trying to murder trainloads of innocent passengers.

What makes him sympathetic?

You know what? Even the best of the Spider-Man films is wildly overrated, and Spider-Man 3 was so bad that I doubt I'd even bother seeing Spider-Man 4.

So...whatever!

Woah! Who knew I was just paranoid? Here I thought there really were a bunch of preening, amoral jackasses in Hollywood who got off on casually, constantly attacking the values of heartland America?

What a relief! Is there a pill I can take to cure the paranoia?

Also, I disagree that it would be just as bad if someone were taking a shot at Olbermann or any other of the Left's pundits. Part of what makes the constant conservative bashing so objectionable is how it has gone on relentlessly year after dreary, cliched year.

I don't want the opposite to happen, but if someone was taking a shot at Olbermann or Matthews, it would at least be novel.

Yeah, I caught Mankiewicz pinching out another one of these turds a few weeks back following "Capricorn One." In that case, he felt the need to point out that the film's government-faked Mars landing looked extra believable since the events of the last eight years had shown Americans that their government is still lying to them.

Not only was it an unwelcome sucker punch on a lazy Sunday afternoon, it was particularly muddy-headed.

Only if it comes with the exclamation mark.