WHAT WOULD GLEN BECK DO? AND OTHER RIDICULOUS PEOPLE...

So, now that Glen Beck has been on the cover of Time Magazine, let's review his accomplishments. Hmm... let's see... okay... there's that... then there's... and also... adding up to ... nothing! There, that was easy, eh? Great, just what America needs, another guy famous for being famous. While his admirers praise him for being a champion of conservative causes, true conservatives cringe at the thought of being represented by a blubbering ignoramus who uses lying and crying as his main oratorical weapons. A man not handicapped with a brilliant intellect, he has risen to highest ranks among that new breed of American celebrities, Ridiculous People.

Glen Beck is not our first Ridiculous Person to rise to fame in spite of his glaring lack of brains, talent or ideas, but he is the most recent. Drawing his inspiration from other know-nothing lying blowhards like Bull O'Really and Crush Limburger, he added the twist of being able to cry at will, a truly odd thing from a supposed political commentator, and an act that makes him compelling in a creepy/funny way. To his credit, though, that bit of histrionics did earn him the cover of Time Magazine, so he must be worth something. At least that's the wishful thinking on Ridiculous People, that there is some underlying reason other than their complete foolishness for their fame. But, like most wishful thinking, there is no reality behind that thought.

Take Paris Hilton, for example, the perfect complement to the Bush The Younger years. Who better to reflect the utter insanity of having a really stupid president than a really stupid celebrity? Ms. Hilton has defined the phenomenon of being famous for being famous and has gone to great lengths to prove to her adoring public that she is indeed unworthy of any admiration at all. She has no wit, no talent and no interest in anything that means anything to anybody. Just like the president under whom she rose to world-wide acclaim for... that is... her, uh... existence. She went our Ridiculous Person President one better by not even pretending to be a Regular Person, content to be as ridiculous and trivial as is humanly possible.

Too bad Bush The Younger, Glenn Beck, Karl Rove, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, Oprah, Geraldo Rivera and all our other Ridiculous People didn't take a better cue from Paris Hilton and stop pretending to be anything other than ridiculous human beings. Ms. Hilton instinctively knows that this is America, where we have the right to be, or not to be, anything we choose. In that sense Paris Hilton is the Perfect Ridiculous Person, demanding no credit for anything else, a true pioneer. What the Glen Becks of this world don't get is that it is enough to be Perfectly Ridiculous in and of itself and any ambitions above that are superfluous, going completely against the grain of Ridiculoushood.

If you are a Ridiculous Person, well, Americans will take you into their bosom and cherish your existence. They just won't take you all that seriously. And why should they? You're a Ridiculous Person! You are there for our amusement. You are not a leader, or a thinker or or a shaper of public opinion. You are Carrot Top in a suit. And as Bush The Younger has proven, you can even become a Ridiculous President. Twice, no less! To ask to be taken seriously by anyone other than your fellow Ridiculous People is to miss the point entirely. If that's what you want, you need to become a Serious Person, or at least a Regular Person, and that's too much work and involves too much brain-busting thought for a Ridiculous Person.

And the achievements of Serious People are not always recognized or appreciated, while the lack of contributions by Ridiculous People make them instant legends. Look at Bush The Younger. With his lack of brains and inability to speak coherently, he would have been an abysmal failure as a Serious Person, never mind being a Serious President. He wisely chose to go with his (lack of) strengths and will go down in history as the worst president ever and into any possible future, right up there in the fame department with Lincoln, FDR or George Washington, without all that bothersome hard work and mentally challenging intellectual credentials. More people know who Paris Hilton is than any serious or talented woman anywhere, again without having to study a damned thing, hone any talent or craft or formulate any cohesive thoughts at all beyond one's own personal desires.

So, Ridiculous People, embrace your uselessness, celebrate your stupidity and stroke your own gargantuan egos to your hearts' content. America loves you just the way you are. Please don't ruin it by demanding to be taken seriously. Twitter the world that you are on an elevator, make pompous assertions based on nothing more than the sugarplums in your head and continue to be as clueless and mentally lazy as you can be. You have been given the rare privilege of being America's darlings for no discernible reason. Don't upset the apple cart or we will move on the the next Ridiculous Person to adore. There's plenty more where you came from and odds are they won't bite the hand that feeds them by going all Glen Beck on us, pretending to be something else.