Doghouse Riley, Bane of Punditasters, Dead at 59

True wit is nature to advantage dressed
What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed.
--Alexander Pope

Bats Left/Throws Right, Doghouse Riley's blog, has seen it's last post from the master of lambasting the "Punditasters." It was a quick joke on the Royal Baby. His penultimate post, however, was, quite fittingly, a ripping of one of his favorite targets, former Indiana Governor and once top pisser in the trickle down economy (Bush's budget director), Mitch Daniels. It begins:

“I don’t read Reason magazine.”
-Mitch “Cut and Paste” Daniels

NO, that’s not Reason’s ad campaign for this fall...

Great stuff, as usual. But now that Douglas Case has passed from this world, I'd like to pass on a real sweet taste of what he did best. Via Thers from Whiskey Fire, I find that Scott at World O' Crap, has a penchant for one of my favorite Rileyisms: Punditaster. Here's Riley in 2009 slipping Andrew Sullivan's head onto a pike:

...I've got less use for Andrew Sullivan, Punditaster, than I do for Andrew Sullivan, pudgy Melina-Mercouri-glasses-wearing fashion icon, so whatever it was that sent me there did not prepare me for his Above The Title credit: ANDREW SULLIVAN• OF NO PARTY OR CLIQUE. It's a veritable masterpiece of breathtakingly casual deceit, and I stop short of calling it a work of true genius only because I regularly inspect food labels and, frankly, Sully's got nothing on, just to pick one example among thousands, Prego™ Heart-Smart© Mushroom Sauce and its 410 mg of sodium in one 1/2 cup serving. Really, it was like clicking over to Mark Sanford's homepage and seeing "I BELIEVE IN FOLLOWING YOUR HEART" just under his name, in some ill-considered cursive font for good measure. Hey, Grizzly Adams, Jr.: you, sir, were the posterboy for political party membership that transcended rationality for almost two decades, which leaves alone your ongoing membership in a Church which insists you're going to Hell. Whatever honor accrues for having scurried off that first ship the moment you noticed she'd run aground while following your charts, it does not include getting to pretend you weren't ever on board in the first place. But thanks for adding that CLIQUE bit; one sometimes forgets that The Atlantic and "Sherman Adams Junior High Eighth Grade Dance Decoration Committee" are near synonyms these days.

He was right up there with Charlie Pierce and Hunter Thompson. So, hey, Charlie, do me a favor and watch your cholesterol, OK?