Who. Gives. A. S***?

America is reeling during these last 100 days of the reign of King George the Decider.

King George does not rule over a happy land; he rules over a troubled land, an anxious land. Bad King George reigns over a kingdom growing poorer, it seems, by the minute.

AMERICANS NOW are in the midst of a momentous campaign to see who will succeed the monarch who has brought endless war to his kingdom and given torturers free reign over his dungeon. Whomever we pick to rule this uncertain principality will face hard times and mighty challenges.

He will become chief executive of a land no longer respected in lands far across the sea, for its robber barons have brought financial ruin to their shores.

At this perilous hour, what crucial word doth thou bringest unto us, o town crier?

And sayeth the crier, MSNBC:

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Joe the Plumber, America's most famous tradesman, said Thursday he doesn't have a license and doesn't need one.

Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, the nickname Republican John McCain bestowed on him during Wednesday's presidential debate, said he works for a small plumbing company that does residential work. Because he works for someone else, he doesn't need a license, he said.

His boss, Al Newell of Newell Plumbing and Heating Co. of Toledo, is a licensed plumbing contractor in Toledo, records show. But anyone working under Newell should have a journeyman’s plumbing license or an apprenticeship license, officials said.

And the county Wurzelbacher and Newell live in, Lucas County, requires plumbers to have licenses, but neither is licensed there, said Cheryl Schimming of Lucas County Building Regulations, which handles plumber licenses in parts of the county outside Toledo.

Wurzelbacher, who voted in the Republican primary and indicated he backed McCain, was cited by the GOP presidential candidate as an example of someone who wants to buy a plumbing business but would be hurt by Democrat Barack Obama's tax plans. Wurzelbacher said he was surprised that his name was mentioned so many other times.

"That bothered me. I wished that they had talked more about issues that are important to Americans," he told reporters gathered outside his home.

Wurzelbacher, 34, said he doesn't have a good plan put together on how he would buy Newell Plumbing and Heating in nearby Toledo.

He said the business consists of owner Al Newell and him. Wurzelbacher said he's worked there for six years and that the two have talked about his taking it over at some point.

"There's a lot I've got to learn," he said.

YEAH, LIKE WE'RE no longer a serious people, informed by a serious press and, therefore, are screwed. Oh, so screwed.

Way to go, Louisiana!

Dear Louisiana,

I assume not everyone in my home state is a Nazi or a racist . . . or even an ignorant knothead.

On the other hand, though, Louisianians have an unfortunate propensity for tolerating crumbling schools, dysfunctional cities, crooked politicians and crypto-Nazis in high office. Judging from crap like this, a lot of God Bless Amerika conservatives down there are more dismayed by me calling "Nazi" on a pol who wants to eliminate the poor by eliminating the poor than they are by one of their own trodding the same path as Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler.

Anything to save the sainted taxpayer a buck, eh? That's where Hitler got his start, too. Kill and sterilize the "defectives," ease the burden on der volk. Then move up to killing out-of-favor ethnic groups -- because they're a blight, too.

Well, given that Louisiana has been judged guilty of "generational welfare," generational stupidity, generational corruption and generational half-assedness, why shouldn't the rest of America deal with the Gret Stet just as some in the Gret Stet would deal with the poor?

I mean, look. All we need to do is turn on the television to collect sufficient information for a quick verdict.

And we don't need no stinkin' tubal ligations to carry out our sentence . . . which would be your vanishing act. We can just cut off the federal tax dollars -- there go those outraged taxpayers again -- and let the Gulf of Mexico (and the storms that roll ashore off of it) do the rest.

After all, since eradication is what you'd like to do unto others, you must be OK with that being done to you. Right?

You can discuss among yourselves.

See, it's kind of like Foster Brooks telling Lindsay Lohan to sober up

It's a bad, bad reflection on the product you're putting on the air when the likes of Connie Chung is telling your anchors to grow up.

TO REMIND YOU of how horrible an indictment that is for MSNBC's political coverage, I reluctantly have posted Mrs. Maury Povich's -- Really, doesn't that say it all right there? -- farewell to her and Maury's three viewers when the cable network canceled their weekend show in 2006.

But, for what it's worth, here's a Wall Street Journal account of on-air behavior so disturbing that Chung was willing to suffer the inevitable slings and arrows (such as mine) accompanying her, of all people, calling out the malefactors:

The convention was supposed to be the network's coming-out party as a hub for politics. But a year of programming and personnel changes have led to behind-the-scenes strain, which bubbled to the surface repeatedly this week in open arguments between hosts.

In an uncomfortable moment Tuesday night, an exhausted-looking "Hardball" host Chris Matthews shouted at a producer ("I'll wrap in a second!") before a stilted exchange with "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann, in which the two argued about who was talking out of turn. Mr. Olbermann made a flapping-lips hand gesture, and Mr. Matthews took umbrage. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer sat quietly on-screen, waiting to be interviewed.

That incident followed a seven-minute back-and-forth Tuesday afternoon between "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough and network correspondent David Shuster. Mr. Scarborough, a former Republican representative from Florida, accused Mr. Shuster, a registered independent, of taking a "cheap shot" by mentioning his party affiliation. Mr. Scarborough sarcastically added: "I feel so comforted by the fact that you're an independent. I bet everyone at MSNBC has 'independent' on their voting cards."

Since the early days of CNN's "Crossfire," cable news has relied on strong personalities to keep drama high and viewers tuned in throughout the day, when news isn't always exciting enough to keep the audience's attention. Passionate debate can make for great television -- and terrific ratings.

But some found this level of personal bickering hard to watch.

"My reaction to that is: 'Grow up!' They have to just grow up," said Connie Chung, a former MSNBC host and former co-anchor of "CBS Evening News."

I DON'T KNOW about you, but I need a stiff drink.

But until I can go round up a fifth of Early Times for each of us, I thought I'd remind us all of what it was like when the grown-ups still ran TV news: