He is strong and all-powerful, Chuck Norris is. The lists of his accomplishments fly across the web. The first I read this morning, here on Chuck Norris Facts, notes that Apple pays Chuck 99 cents every time he listens to a song, and that he can kill two stones with one bird. Yes, Chuck Norris is the walking, talking legend and exemplary parody of himself. And that makes his column at WingNutDaily such a hoot. The poorly written column, which has such a weak and tenuous hold on reality, has been spreading across the web like wildfire, and the whack jobs, mixed nutcases are lapping it up as if it were warm ovaltine. What’s it about? It’s an open letter to Barack Obama, telling him, if not warning him, about how to govern.

I’m thinking Norris may simply be following the lead of his candidate from the spring, Mike Huckabee, who wrote a column the other day for Fox News commenting about how loyal he would be in an Obama Presidency. Good for Huckabee, I suppose, and if it starts a trend of Republicans at least pretending to be loyal to an Obama Presidency, then I like that trend, but Chuckie sort of didn’t get the point. Chuck comes off as threatening, and also more than a little clueless. Let me just throw a little of Norris’ column out there. From WingNutDaily:

Now that Democrats have a virtual monopoly over our land, with control of the White House, both houses of Congress, a majority of gubernatorial positions, state legislatures, the courts, the news media, the unions and the entertainment and educational fields, it would be relatively easy for you to rule as king, casting liberal edicts in any direction. But now will come your biggest test: Will you be able to lead the other half of the country that doesn’t agree with your vision, views and policies?

It’s no big surprise that I don’t see politically eye-to-eye with you. Actually, I stand in stark opposition to most of your politics. Still, even in our differences, I realize that we must learn to work together if we are to see our country get back on track. After Election Day, I asked myself, despite the outcome, how can I work for our new president to help better America? Then the thought occurred to me, the first question that should be answered is: How will you work for me? After all, it is “We, the People” of the Constitution for whom you are employed, correct?

This is simply sloppy. I’m actually up early this morning to correct student papers. A Professor’s work is never done, and that glass of wine last night put me under. As I go over that student work not one of my kids writes so presumptously, nor as sphmorically. The game is to not insult your readers, and Norris has done just that. He addresses this to Barack Obama, and vaguely implying that Obama might want to be King is indeed an insult. But maybe I’d let that clumsy moment of hyperbole go. I wouldn’t let the string of rhetorical questions go. Rhetorical questions are the lazy writers’ crutch, or a shortcut a bad writer uses to cover up. Norris may simply not know better, but I’d mark off for such sloppiness.

But Norris’ big problem is with the facts. He warns in the essay of Barack Obama needing to avoid the mistakes of Carter and Clinton. Anyone with a grasp on history will start to howl with laughter upon reading this.

3. Learn from the mistakes of your Democratic predecessors. I’m referring specifically to presidents Carter and Clinton. Despite how many trumpet their accomplishments today, they learned big lessons at our expense about international diplomacy and economic recovery. Carter’s diplomatic naïveté, combined with his overly altruistic belief that America’s enemies can be won by a smile and handshake, ultimately gave rise to Ahmadinejad’s Iranian regime. Furthermore, Carter’s handling of our economic affairs also led to the highest interest, inflation and unemployment rates in history. You were only a young man, I realize, but I respectfully wonder if you know of those lessons, or might be doomed to repeat them? You can increase the taxes of individuals who make more than $200,000. You can impose the same on companies and corporations. But don’t believe for a minute that they aren’t even now making plans and moving their monies into overseas accounts. Any businessman knows that such tax increases will trickle down to employees, shareholders, consumers or further tempt them to take their productivity abroad where costs are lower. And what will be the effect on our economy? Isn’t it obvious? And don’t forget this: Bush is only partially to blame for our economic woes. Remember, it was the Clinton administration in 1999 that was the primary contributor to our Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae subprime fiasco (and subsequent Wall Street bailout need), by extending billions of mortgage loans to those who wouldn’t or couldn’t ever pay them back. Though gloating over his end-term budget surplus, Clinton paved the path through his government backing of millions of toxic mortgages to low income households – all of which would turn into gargantuan balloon payments years down the road that would bankrupt corporations and lead to our economic recession.

Again, forget Norris’ factual disabilities, such as his getting Obama’s proposed tax policies wrong. Forget the repeated overuse of rhetorical questions, a tactic one would never use in such a direct fashion if one were trying to respect one’s reader. The guy warns about not following Clinton and Carter examples when we’ve got the best negative example of a President in the history of our country still in the White House. How could he be so stupid? (That was on purpose.) It is hard to understand how anyone could take Chuck Norris seriously. He’s not a thinker unless it is in comparison, perhaps, to Lindsey Lohan. Even then, the Wing Nuts and Whack Jobs drool over this guy.

Perhaps the best part of Norris’ column is that it gives us insight into the whack jobs, that they would rather revere a poorly written and dishonest discussion of politics, one that belies what it claims to set out to do, rather than think. OK, that’s stating the obvious, isn’t it. Norris, even the phenomenon of Chuck Norris, actually gives us little insight into the brains of the Wing Nuts. There is just not enough there there.

Perhaps I need to just close this with a contest: Make up a Chuck Norris fact about politics and the world of Diplomacy. I’ll go first:

When Chuck Noris visits the Pope, the Pope kisses his ring.

As Andy Reid, the coach of my Philadelphia Eagles says, Time’s yours.