What makes dinosaurs laugh

This is choice.

Here's Dana Milbank of The Washington Freakin' Post -- you know, the guy who has a recurring role as The Washington Post's Dana Milbank on the cable-news "infotainment" lineup -- making fun of a well-to-do politician's attempts to act the part of The Regular Guy.

I am told this is supposed to be witty and amusing, not ironic and hypocritical.

Naturally, if you told the ever-so-in-touch people at the Post that Milbank's Washington Sketch videos were overbearingly self-conscious, lame and not amusing at all, they'd interrupt congratulating themselves for being so hip and "new media-y" to be quite shocked at your impertinence.

NOW, IF WITTY and amusing it what you want, try this takedown of Milbank and the Post instead:


THAT WAS FUNNY. What it was sending up, on the other hand, was not:

I'VE WATCHED this twice now. I can see what they were going for, but . . . no. Does nothing for me.

This is the best the high-priced "talent" at The Washington Freakin' Post could come up with?

What?

Sorry. With which the high-priced "talent" at The Dratted Washington Post could come up.

Trust me on this one: If you're gonna get yourselves in trouble for something like this, make sure it's funny. Now imagine the allegedly lesser lights at (insert local rag here) trying to "do a Milbank" and get his or her own spot on CNN.

Oh, don't get me wrong. The talent is out there to pull it off. Increasingly, however, it doesn't reside in traditional media.

Some of it does, though. And by the time some ink-stained Steve Martin comes up with a killer script and rounds up a killer production crew to shoot it . . . they will send the concept and script into the Newspaper Bureaucracy Dull Machine, and it will emerge as Two Mopes Doing an Impression of Mr. French Reading a Bedtime Story to Mrs. Beasley.

Which is about where newspapers are today -- 1967. Forty-something years out of date and flailing about in a failing bid for relevance.

Ask Dana Milbank.