[Blarg]

Bill Maher is great. Jon Stewart is usually pretty decent. Stephen Colbert can be good, but he is so heavily schticky that he can get tiresome real fast. Plus, sometimes his writing really has its ups and downs. I don't know that I'd consider any of these guys pundits, really, though. They interview pundits.

As to the pundits themselves, Christopher Hitchens is about the only one I care much about, except for Al Franken, who is usually funny and often does a wicked skewer right where it's needed. I'd add in Chomsky, but nobody ever has him on.

Dennis Miller is uselessly verbose and hyper-pretentious, while still having either absolutely nothing to say at all or saying something inane. His layering snarkiness on top of non-observations as if it were a final crowning glory on a remarkably keen, nuanced series of insights and brilliant commentary make him look like a lost, bewildered, and ever more frantic little boy who can't find his way home.

People like Coulter and Limbaugh make virtually anyone look good in comparison. I'd rank their contributions as worse than none, because they make their dollar on simple sensationalism and hate-mongering. Ann Coulter makes Wally Jay look even-handed.