Did you idiots learn nothing from when O'Reilly sued Franken?

Remember that? When Bill O'Reilly tried to sue Al Franken because Franken's book annoyed him, and it only had the effect of publicizing the book to the top of the bestseller lists? Yeah, I remember that too.

Unfortunately--at least for them--some anti-Obama "Birthers" seem to have missed that memo altogether. Specifically, one Joseph Farah and Jerome Corsi.

Farah is the CEO of WorldNetDaily.com, a shameful website that complains whenever someone suggests homosexuals are actual human beings (at other times, too) and promotes the nonsensical "war against Christmas" idea.

Corsi at least can say he's no anti-Obama come lately, as even before Obama was elected President, Corsi was comparing the then-Senator to Hitler. He was also one of those vulgar enough to say that when Obama flew to the side of his dying grandmother--who you know he loved very much if you read his books--he was really going to get his birth certificate.

Speaking of, Corsi wrote, and Farah published, the book Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President, and now:

...have filed suit against Hearst [corporation], Esquire magazine and writer Mark Warren over a satirical article that they say defamed them and damaged their business interests.

Warren published the article on May 18, 2011, just after Obama released his long-form birth certificate, answering the doubts of Corsi and other so-called birthers...“BREAKING! Jerome Corsi’s Birther Book Pulled From Shelves!”

Fellas, fellas, fellas: You've failed to learn from what G.B. Trudeau wrote in his book Flashbacks: 25 Years of Doonesbury:

Satire picks a one-sided fight, and the more its intended target reacts, the more its practitioner gains the advantage.

And so it was, later, as the Miller told his tale, that my face at first just ghostly turned a whiter shade of pale

Oh, my god. So help me, I'm actually starting to feel sorry for Dennis Miller. Like a lot of people, I used to think he was a pretty great comic; I liked him a lot.

I used to quote his lines very often, some I still do, like the one comparing therapists to hairstylists: "When I leave, my head looks great, an hour later I can't get it to look like that again." Even saw him live in San Francisco once--with a bonus walk-on performance by Robin Williams, yet.

But now? It's not just that he's no longer funny. It's not that his political vantage point has changed. It's that I fear for his sanity. And not for the first time. I noticed back in 2004, writing about his low-rated MSNBC show:

Miller treated his invited guest the way a sulky adolescent treats a chore he doesn’t want to do, like homework.

Then there's this post I wrote two or three years ago, saying of an appearance with Bill O'Reilly,

Watch this and tell me if at some moment you don't get the feeling you're watching a man who is literally out of his head.

Whether or not that's from drink and/or drugs or just his mind snapping from the sheer weight of his stupidity is not for me to say.

And most recently, like 15 minutes ago, I was trying to be brave and watch him on the Ferguson show. Literally the first words out of his mouth are an Anthony Weiner joke. Always on the cutting edge.

But then a little bit later he and Craig get to talking about some tour he's doing with the self-same O'Reilly. Craig throws a line about how they should do a set "like Martin & Lewis," with O'Reilly trying to sing straight and Miller cutting up the act with interruptions.

Ten seconds later (I swear to you), Miller says, "Oh, like Dino and Jerry." In other words, for ten full seconds, he'd had no idea what Ferguson was talking about. He totally spaced.

Now, granted that Dean and Jerry's peak was around the early '50s (give-or-take), when Miller was born. It'd be one thing if, like, some CW drama star named Brandon (they're all named Brandon) was not hip to the reference.

But for a 58-year-old man, a comedian, someone who was alive when the team was still working together as a duo to go up on that...well for me at least, that moves past sad through scary all the way up to spooky.

Then after Craig talked about how he prefers to avoid politics on his show for the most part (which is true), Miller's reaction was to take a couple of swipes at Nancy Pelosi. And just when I think that I couldn't dislike him any more, he takes a shot at Jonathan Winters. In fact, you know what I was saying about feeling sorry for him? Forget that.