WHAT DOES IT MEAN! Are we willing to let Bill Gates spread bull? The answer seems to be yes:

MONDAY, MARCH 28, 2011

The soul of a disengaged class: Lady Collins was drinking life in on her over-stuffed chaise as pool boys rushed up with her fruit-festooned drinks. The sun felt warm as she murmured the mots comprising her latest new column.

“What’s in a nickname?” she thoughtfully mused, thus creating her column’s headline. Withholding the obvious answer—“Nothing”—she regally dictated this:

COLLINS (3/26/11): Our question for today is: How do the potential Republican presidential nominees stack up on Libya?

Also, who has the best name? It has come to our attention that the most likely candidates at this point are Newt, Mitt and T-Paw. A country with a president named Barack is obviously willing to go with the flow on these matters. Still, the lineup for the Republican debates is going to sound like a wrestling tag-team match.

I love this subject! Perhaps if we talk about it long enough I will get a chance to point out once again that Representative Connie Mack of Florida, who surprised everyone by announcing Friday that he would not run for Senator Bill Nelson’s seat in 2012, is actually named Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy IV.

O.K. About Libya.

Bravo! Mack had announced that he wouldn’t be running! Collins used this as the latest excuse to tell us his funny full name.

Bravo! Already, Collins had burned 131 words off her latest column! Before she was done, she would kill at least 200 words with vapid observations about various peoples’ weird names. And speaking of “pointing [things] out once again,” Collins didn’t miss the chance to kill time in the time-honored manner:

COLLINS: Also, perhaps I should point out that Romney was named after J. Willard Marriott, the hotel guy. And that he once drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car.

Bravo! Seamus the Irish setter made Collins’ column again! According to a Nexis search, this represents at least the seventeenthcolumn in which this high lady has burned time away by citing Mitt Willard’s roof-abused dog.

In such ways, an inane upper class toys with American lives.

(For one early effort, “The Revenge of Seamus,” go ahead—just click here. Collins, in 2008: “I’m going to have to get through the rest of the year without ever again referring to the fact that Romney once drove to Canada with the family dog, Seamus, strapped to the roof of the car.” People, please! Fat farking chance!)

A column by Collins spreads pain through the land in various ways, of course. Adding to the human stain, readers rush to append their remarks, thanking this high-ranking lady for sharing her deathless insights. In the case of this most recent column, Commenter 3 complained that, although “the world is filled with serious real problems,” our politics is “little better than a very poorly mounted circus.” He failed to note the way this high lady sidesteps those “real problems” too. Commenter 4 complained that Republican voters “won't see through the usual claptrap.” He failed to note that a similar problem seems to afflict Collins fans.

That said, it was Commenter 2 who made the analysts wander the moors, cursing the heavens and their own fates. That comment: “I had forgotten all about Mitt Romney's National Lampoon of a vacation with the dog strapped to the car roof. Thanks for reminding us, Gail!”

Thanks for reminding us! As they say around the Times pool, seventeenth time is the charm!

Question: Did Collins get around to making real points in this latest new column? Actually, no—she did not. In one paragraph, she claimed that T-Paw contradicted himself about Libya. But if you google Pawlenty’s full statements, you will perhaps be able to see that this just isn’t the case. (If you simply review what Collins wrote, you’ll see that her claim doesn’t make much sense even on its own terms.) But then, look what happened when she tried to challenge a recent bad statement by Willard:

COLLINS: But back to Libya. Willard ''Mitt'' Romney supports the current mission, except for the part where it's run by Barack Obama. Mitt told a conservative radio host this week that the president is weak because of “his fundamental disbelief in American exceptionalism.” This is part of a widespread Republican theory that simply believing that our country is a great and unique nation is not enough unless you also run around the world publicly pointing out to our allies that we are way, way better than they are.

Huh? Rather plainly, Romney said that Obama doesn’t “believe that our country is a great and unique nation.” As usual, Lady Collins missed the thrust of Willard’s remark. But then, who has time for that?

Bottom line: By the time Collins got to Newt, she had left herself so few words that she had to offer a capsule account of his recent apparent flip about Libya. Unfortunately, conservative readers will quickly dismiss what Collins wrote. They have heard Gingrich explain that he truly committed no flip—but after wasting much time on the candidates’ names, Collins simply didn’t have time to debunk Gingrich in full. Nor did she have time to place this apparent foolishness in a larger context—in a context which might help readers understand the disastrous way our discourse now works.

So it goes as a high-ranking royal helps shape the “liberal” outlook.

But people! Collins is a ranking player! Fawning respect must be paid! Adding insult to injury, liberals are forced to watch the lady’s monthly guest spots on the Maddow show, where her keister routinely gets kissed within an inch of its life.

Maddow never fails to kiss the asp of this fatuous lightweight. Here’s the way the fawning went down after November’s chat:

MADDOW (11/4/10): New York Times columnist Gail Collins. It is a pleasure to read your column and it’s even more of a pleasure to have you here.

COLLINS: It’s great to be here.

MADDOW: Thank you.

Here’s what happened after last month’s session:

MADDOW (2/16/11): New York Times columnist Gail Collins, with whom I very much enjoy discussing these matters. Thank you for being here.

COLLINS: Thanks.

That appearance represented an anniversary of sorts. Collins had done her first Maddow spot exactly one year before:

MADDOW (2/16/10): New York Times columnist Gail Collins. Again, I am a great fan of your work and it’s really nice to have you on the show. Thank you for coming in.

COLLINS: Thanks.

Warning! Collins hasn’t appeared on the program this month. And only four programs are left!

Why would a progressive former Rhodes Scholar kiss such flyweight keister this way? Why would she be a great fan of such work? Tomorrow, we’ll look in on Charlie Rose, another High Gotham multimillionaire—one with substantial conflicts.

Rose tends to kiss correct keisters too. Does anyone know why that is?

Respect must be paid: On one occasion, Gwen Ifill appeared on the program. Here’s how that went down:

MADDOW (1/28/09): Joining me now for a much more balanced take on the politics of the new president is Gwen Ifill, who is host and managing editor of PBS’ Washington Week and a senior correspondent with the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Her book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, is available now.

Gwen Ifill, thank you so much for coming on the show tonight. It’s a real honor to have you.

Gag us! In fairness, this wasn’t as bad as the many times Maddow bowed and scraped before Colonel Wilkerson, the man who assembled Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations. Maddow never quite remembered to ask him how he had managed to bungle so badly. For reasons we haven’t fathomed yet, big respect had to be paid!

Good lord! The indignities we the people must bear to keep important careers on track! Tomorrow, we’ll look at Broadcaster Rose and his ties to a high billionaire.