If you love to hate Barack Obama, but don’t know where to turn now that 65 million Americans have cast their vote for his bright, passionately expressed vision for our nation’s future, I have four letters for you — WTKK (96.9 FM, Boston).

There, right-wing talk radio host Jay Severin exercised his freedom of speech by playing a snippet of Obama’s moving election-night speech and offering this response to the president-elect: “Go screw yourself.”

This patriotic fellow’s stated aim is “to politically destroy Barack Obama … to undermine and destroy his political ability to govern or to have any hope of a successful administration.”

Mr. Severin praises his listeners as “the best and brightest,” while washing their brains with white noise about the boogie man’s love of socialism and terrorism. He smugly demeans Obama supporters as “the young and otherwise ignorant.”

His station bills itself as “Boston’s Talk Evolution.” Sadly, my commute does not coincide with Mr. Severin’s air time. So to feed my curiosity about the media’s de-evolution, I instead subject myself to small doses of his colleague, comedian Michael Graham, whose best punch line is calling his program “The Natural Truth.”

Echoing the newest right-wing yakking point, Mr. Graham’s post-election shtick is to pretend he is being censored and oppressed by “our liberal overlords.”

Imploring listeners to “join the resistance,” he proclaimed that “talk radio is under assault.” Now that our totalitarian “dear leader” has assumed power, Mr. Graham lamented, he can no longer utter the middle name of “Barack You-Know-Who Obama.”

Of course, he can say “Barack Hussein Obama” till he’s blue in the face. America still isn’t falling for the Muslim terrorist sympathizer routine.

On Friday, one of the Mr. Graham’s first callers picked up on his rhetoric about Obama’s plan to help young people afford college in exchange for military or community service. The caller said the plan reminded her of Hitler youth in Nazi Germany. Guess who plays Hitler in this scenario. (Clue: His middle name is Hussein.)

That’s “The Natural Truth” for you — America oppressed by the evil Obama.

The “fair and balanced” crowd is sounding the alarm that Obama and his godless, elite, liberal cronies are bent on reinstituting something called the Fairness Doctrine, which scares the right with language intended to hold extremists on both sides accountable for their most egregious smears,

However, since Mr. Obama holds our Constitution in higher regard than our current president, it is unlikely he would tolerate restrictions on freedom of speech.

If anything, Obama’s election is regarded as a boon to right-wing talk radio. Now that he is in power, efforts to demonize him — or “politically destroy” him as Mr. Severin puts it — will be even more financially lucrative.

These self-styled mini-Rush Limbaughs are smart operators. They figure the unimpeded flow of anti-Obama effluent is what keeps them in a higher tax bracket than you, me and Joe the Plumber.

* * * * *

Note: I invite defenders of Mr. Severin and Mr. Graham to respond, but please understand that I am unequivocally against censoring them or anyone else.

Also, thank you in advance for reminding me that I can change the channel. Mr. Best & Brightest and Mr. Natural Truth purport to facilitate a public discourse; I am simply responding to their offer in a way that expresses my thoughts more fully than would be possible on the radio.

Related links:
Jay Severin’s phony Pulitzer

Severin’s oops about killing Muslims

As you may have heard, the Boston Herald, where I am humbly employed, was evacuated Thursday for an anthrax scare. For me, the incident triggered severe anthrax flashbacks.

Run for your lives! Anthrax is back!

You remember anthrax: “Powdery poison slays five in mysterious postal attacks.”

That was in late 2001, when the microscopic pathogen was all the rage. All day long it was anthrax. Round-the-clock coverage on CNN, FOX News and C-SPANTHRAX.

Talk of the toxin took over our airwaves with non-stop reports of the horrible spore, a heady mix of fear-mongering AND facts. America’s short attention spanthrax was overwhelmed with anthrax.

The word was drilled so deep into our brains that I became virulently anti-anthrax. It even infected my syntax.

We never found out if it was sent by the evil Talibanthrax, way over in Afghanistanthrax, or whether it was an inside job pulled by some mad scientist or a white powder supremacist from the Ku Klux Klanthrax.

I hated that raggedy anthrax. It was out there lurking in our mail sacks. We knew it could turn up anywhere — from sea to sea, from the Rockies to the Adirondacks.

Way smaller than Tic Tacs, it could be hidden in backpacks and knapsacks, smuggled in sedans or late-model hatchbacks.

I was scared of the sugar on my morning stack of flapjacks, paranoid I’d be poisoned by my Post Raisin Branthrax. What if the terrorists planted a lethal surprise in some poor kid’s Crackerjacks?

The media fed us countless angles on the anthrax maniacs. Could they slip through security cracks and make weapons of smokestacks? Could they contaminate the economy, devalue our greenbacks? What if it ransacks our Dows and our NASDAQs?

But the anthrax probe hit a big anticlimax and vanished from TV, another media flash-in-the-panthrax.

Now, just as you thought it was safe to relax, comes news of a possible anthrax relapse. Is it a false alarm or a threat of real harm? I’m hyped up to see how the media reacts.

I’ve never been one of those hypochondriacs, but now I’ve got this itchy spot on my thorax. I’m worried my homeland security is lax; yesterday I thought I saw white powder on my tan slacks.

So I’m irradiating my mail and turning my angst into wisecracks.

HUMOR VIDEOS:
McCain Lovers for Obama
Swift Potato attack targets McCain

Erection ‘08: Bob Dole for President

Thurston Howell III endorses McCain

New evidence has emerged linking Republican presidential nominee John McCain with Canadian-based McCain Foods, the world’s leading producer of French fries.

A group calling itself McCain Lovers For Obama has released an anti-McCain attack ad charging that Sen. McCain is “in the pocket of Big Potato,” having taken billions from “the Potato-Industrial Complex.”

The ad features two iconic blue-collar voters, Joe Lunch-Bucket and Tommy Twelve-Pack, discussing their love for McCain while savoring a plate of McCain crinkle cut French fries.

The ad then blatantly attempts to “Swift Potato” Sen. McCain with unsubstantiated “Tater-Gate” allegations.

Related story:
McCain linked to error kingpin Abu Dubya

Saying America needs a spunky, virile leader to get its flaccid economy back on top, 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole announced today he is taking another crack at the White House.

“The economy’s shootin’ blanks,” said Bob Dole. “America needs a stiff dose of Bob Dole.”

Pledging to “stick it to the special interests,” the former Viagra pitchman and Senate stud said he is counting on support from “schwing voters” who may be suffering from “electoral dysfunction.”

Watch the video as Bob Dole lays out his platform for what he is calling “the biggest erection of our time.”

Related story:
Doctors: Bush suffers from Iraq-tile dysfunction

Sen. John McCain emerged the clear winner of last night’s debate, calling the American people “my friends” no fewer than 22 times while Sen. Barack Obama simply tried to distract voters his superior ability to talk about the issues.

Said one GOP pundit, “The American people needed to hear John McCain call them ‘my friends’ at least 20 times and McCain easily surpassed that goal.” McCain also scored points by “projecting that pent-up anger that Americans are yearning for.”

McCain’s call for a fear-based economy has broad appeal to the far right, said another pundit. “For McCain, the message is simple: ‘I am your pal. My opponent’s pals are terrorists.’ ”

McCain also managed to resist the urge to brand Obama an America-hating, terrorist-loving liberal, instead calling his opponent “that one,” as if he was picking a perp out of a police lineup for trying to steal McCain’s presidency.

Exuding far more sincerity than a used-war dealer, McCain told “my friends” he’ll keep us safe from such rogue regimes as Iran, Russia and Spain, while protecting us from the evil Osamas and Obamas of the world.

But despite McCain’s new strategy of characterizing Obama’s tenuous link to a member of the radical ’60s terror group the Weathermen as “palling around with terrorists,” millions of his “friends” understand it doesn’t take a Weatherman to know when a desperate presidential candidate is blowing noxious slime about his opponent.

Related stories:
McCain linked to error kinpin Abu Dubya

Negative ad links McCain, Hussein

Palin comparison: She’s no Dan Quayle

McCain wounded in Letterman attack

McCain flip-flops on debate ‘bailout’

Palin: How many igloos does she own?