The Rant: CNBC's Lawrence Kudlow -- A New Low in Right-Wing Trash Talk and Hypocrisy

Why does CNBC host Lawrence Kudlow still have a job? Not only is Kudlow a corrupt goon who has called everything 180 degrees wrong over and over, but he pretty much set the standard for Wall Street’s “most humiliating failure” back in the mid-1990s when he was fired from Bear Stears -- the last smart move Bear Stearns ever made. Why was Kudlow fired, you axe? Well, it wasn’t because he called the economy wrong at every turn -- hell no! Being wrong is a basic requirement for pundits and Wall Street analysts, you just have to be aggressively wrong and not worry about it, something Kudlow excels at. No, Lawrence Kudlow’s career problems in the 1990s stemmed from the fact that he couldn’t handle his drugs. Cocaine, to be exact.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: what sort of man -- a rightwing free-market mensch to boot -- can’t handle his coke? I mean, cocaine is a sorority girl’s drug. It lasts like 15 minutes, turns you into a babbling idiot who loves everything -- the perfect drug for a pro-Reaganomics stock market cheerleader like Kudlow.

I’ll get back to the cocaine-bitch part of this story, but first, the reason I’m bothering about Lawrence Kudlow is because there’s a clip of him blasting Obama for what Kudlow called the President’s “BOYZ IN THE HOOD handshake” with Hugo Chavez, a clip that went viral all over the blogosphere this week. Just look at Kudlow’s spastic face contortions as he rants: you don’t see that sort of scowling psychosis except on a guy whose just blown through his last eight ball at the end of a six-day binge, his dealer’s cellphone is switched off, and Kudlow’s spent the last four hours picking through the carpet threads in a frantic search for that one last uninhaled granule of llello. That’s what’s written all over Kudlow’s face as he shouts, “Mr Obama didn’t say a darn thing in favor of our ally Colombian president Uribe!…”  Colombia -- get it? And then, as if crashing hard on live television, Kudlow goes into a bizarre fit over human rights, screeching, “Why didn’t Obama make a clear statement on human rights which Chavez violates daily.”

Er, human rights? Lawrence Kudlow? Ex-squeeze me? This is the same clown who wrote a few years ago in the National Review an impassioned defense of China, and I quote, “Yes, the communist government in Beijing prevents free elections and free speech, continues to persecute religious groups, and has a record of pirating music and software as well as other intellectual property. But according to a recent study by the Council on Foreign Relations, China has also changed 2,600 legal statutes to comply with World Trade Organization rules.”

Wow, 2,600 legal statutes complying with the WTO? Those Tiananmen Square democracy martyrs didn’t die for nuthin’!

My point here isn’t to show what a hypocrite Kudlow is — that’d be too easy, like doing donuts on road kill. No, what I’m trying to bring to your attention, and hopefully to Kudlow’s AA sponsor’s attention, is that Lawrence Kudlow is showing every sign of a man deep in the spiral of a new and violently dangerous relapse. It wouldn’t be the first time-just look back through the New York Times’ archives, and you’ll find some really gripping articles about Kudlow’s tragic, losing battle with the drug they call “the sorority girl’s powdered curse.” Kudlowphiles can learn all kinds of trivia nuggets about their favorite sweaty-pated grouch. Like in 1969, as a university student having to choose between liberal vice (free love, drugs) and patriotic Republican duty (going to war in Vietnam to defend freedom), Lawrence Kudlow did what all the other sly chickenhawk Republicans did: he wormed out of the war, getting an exemption due to alleged “asthma” — which explains why Rush Limbaugh loved him so much. Funny how that asthma never stopped Kudlow from snorting up his retirement money.