Political consultant and Fox News commentator Dick Morris is the featured scoundrel in Politico this morning, having morphed from his Igor-like role of lugubrious éminence grise to "headlining rallies, fundraising and advocating for Republican House candidates."
Why, purportedly, the move from advice to activism? "I’m outraged by the Obama agenda," he told Politico. Bill Shakespeare, however, had already got to the root of Morris' motivations: "Never hung poison on a fouler toad."
When I saw the Morris piece I was also reminded of George Stephanopoulos' sulfurous memories of his former co-worker in Bill Clinton's presidential campaign and White House. One chapter of his All Too Human: A Political Education is tellingly titled "My Dinner with Dick." Its lead sentence: "Where is that cocksucker?"
Where else? Anywhere else. By arriving unfashionably late Morris was merely performing "a transparent power play."
With a nearly unequaled repugnance against the usually polite conventionalities of political memoirs, Stephanopoulos proceeded to describe Morris as just "another unsavory figure from Clinton's past." He, Morris, noted the memoirist, "was missing a gene: He literally had no shame."
In another passage that revealingly alighted on both present-day Morris and his now-exclusive pseudoconservative pals, Stephanopoulos observed that "when Bill looked down at Dick, he saw the devil he knew -- the part of himself that confused power and popularity with public service and principle."
Can a leopard change its spots, a tarantula the length of its legs, a rattlesnake the toxicity of its venom? Morris is a walking, demagoguing, braying monument to the shamelessness of the modern right's luminaries and their gullible, undiscriminating followers.
In the clean, crisp days of your grandfather's conservatism, Dick Morris would have been effortlessly ostracized and permanently exiled. In today's diseased version, he's a celebrated theorist and activist.
Evidently there is no bottom.
To describe Dick Morris as a boil on the ass of humanity is a far greater elevation than he deserves.
Posted by: Mark Reneau | September 26, 2010 at 06:54 PM
For me nothing tops the time he said to Hannity that Israel should bomb Iran so McCain could win the presidency. Are there any equally repugnant lines at your disposal?
Posted by: Chris Call | September 26, 2010 at 07:31 PM
Dick "dick" Morris gives toe sucking a bad name.
Posted by: Richard W. Crews | September 26, 2010 at 08:11 PM
I came here from Andrew Sullivan's blog, and I just wanted to say that this is an excellent little summation of that piece of shit with legs, Dick Morris. Here's a man who will do whatever it takes to squeeze out every ounce of power and money that he can before he dies. He's outraged by Obamacare, yet he worked for the Clintons. What a fuckhead.
Posted by: Jipper | September 26, 2010 at 08:22 PM
Dick Morris and Karl Rove would make such a lovely couple.
Posted by: Brian Handel | September 27, 2010 at 12:34 AM
Brian, you left out old Axelrod to complete the triumvirate.
Posted by: Bob | September 27, 2010 at 05:21 AM
as with Talleyrand, he would sell his soul for a pound of shit ... and he'd be right to do it.
Posted by: Learnedtoe | September 27, 2010 at 05:59 AM
"The crash of the stock market in the days since he took power can increasingly be attributed to his own failure to lead us in the right direction, his failed policies in addressing the recession and his own spreading of panic and fear. The market collapse makes it evident that it is Obama who is the problem."
Written by 'Dick' on Feb 25th of last year.
The stock market is now up 43% since President Obama took office.
Posted by: BeyonKen | September 27, 2010 at 07:30 AM
If I recall correctly, he famously blabbed state secrets on the phone while a whore sucked his toe. Evidently the usual parts are missing or buried in foul lard.
Posted by: XMarX | September 27, 2010 at 09:17 AM
Isn't Morris the clown who said 2008 presidential campaign would be between Condi & Hillary?
Posted by: dave | September 27, 2010 at 10:44 AM
He still seems to be trying to get back at the Clintons for daring to pragmatically dump him after the toe-sucking incident.
That he can possibly not accept that he has been hopelessly beaten in this game for a long time now requires more narcissism than sane people can ever imagine.
Posted by: Joshua | September 27, 2010 at 01:49 PM