SORRY, TEABAGGERS -- I THINK ROGER AILES JUST PAINTED YOU OUT OF THE PICTURE

You recall what happened yesterday:

Just how sparse was the Tea Party crowd? A Bloomberg dispatch tactfully noted the rally attracted "dozens" of supporters.

Dozens!

And today, there's this:

You Saw This Coming: Fox News Announces 'Mondays With Trump' On Fox & Friends

... Fox & Friends has announced ... "Mondays with Trump," a brand new segment where "The Donald now makes his voice loud and clear on Fox" on the news of the day....

What's the connection? Think about it: Why do you think the tea party rally in D.C. was sparsely attended? Maybe because it wasn't hyped endlessly on Fox for weeks?

Notice who was hyped endlessly on Fox in that same period?

Sorry, guys -- teabagging is so 2010. Trump is very 2011. At least that's the way it looks right now.

Anyone remember the Esquire profile of Roger Ailes? Here's a short excerpt:

...show Roger Ailes a television screen, he'll tell you what works, what doesn't, and how to make it better. "I tell my people that if they want to be artists of television, the screen is their canvas, but they have to repaint it every three seconds."

He may not do serious remodeling every three seconds, but he is an impatient guy. It looks as if he's repainted the screen. Out go the tricorn hats. In comes that hair.

Why? Well, besides the obvious (celebrities sell, and it's nice if they're ideologically compatible celebrities), it looks as if the plan at Fox may be to attack Obama between now and November 2012 not primarily as a socialist wealth-redistributor or taker-over of health care, but as a sinister Manchurian-candidate alien. All this Constitution jabber is nice, but Obama's alleged alienness is visceral.

It's visceral the way anger at illegal immigrants is visceral -- and that, by the way, is why I think birtherism is so potent on the right. It touches the same tribal nerve as immigration -- remember, immigration is the only major issue on which wingnuts disagreed with George W. Bush, ever. (They'll say they thought he spent too much, but they're lying -- when he was in office, they didn't give a crap.)

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By the way, Glenn Beck may not have his Fox contract renewed, but I think this is a pretty good sign that even if he's dumped, Fox won't get any less crazy or toxic. (Hell -- Trump probably won't run for president, and maybe Ailes will put Trump on in Beck's place.)