There's a price to pay for always being wrong about every single thing. When you're a pundit, it means even Fox News declines to renew your contract. When you're a pundit with a penchant for toe-sucking and an irritating habit of making absurd pronouncements in a tone that suggests they're fact, the fall can be especially precipitous.

So it is for Dick Morris, who waxed eloquent over Sarah Palin's electability and Mitt Romney's inevitability. After a three-month absence from Fox News' airwaves, they confirmed today his contract expired without renewal.

Thanks to Lawrence O'Donnell and The Last Word, we have this delicious mashup of some of Dick's dumbest moments. It's hysterical, particularly with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. If you haven't had enough of Dick after that, we have a wonderful collection here at C&L for you to browse.

Rumor has it he's jonesing for a gig on CNN. Let's hope Jeff Zucker is smarter than that.

Bowtie Guy thought he was the only one man enough to criticize Jon Stewart in the media, but now his old boss is taking up the slack and going on the offensive, attacking Stewart for having the audacity to tell the truth about CNBC's coverage of the financial sector.

NBC Universal's CEO said this at the BusinessWeek media summit:

NBC Universal CEO went out of his way to blast Jon Stewart's ongoing dissection of CNBC's ludicrously amped-up coverage of the stock market train wreck, saying that "just because someone who mocks authority says something doesn't mean it's true." Of course, that's the exact definition of being out of touch: When everyone else is looking at your financial network and seeing a bunch of ratings-obsessed charlatans who, though they surely knew better, talked up a host of terminally ill companies that were about to collapse, you look at your financial network and tell a media conference that "CNBC is a spectacular organization that's done a tremendous job."

The next thing you know, Zucker will be saying Ben Silverman is doing a wonderful job of running NBC too.

What I found especially appalling about Zucker's remarks was his faux populism. Here's a guy who travels on a corporate jet, whose salary, bonuses and stock options are probably right up there with most of AIG's bonus babies (Zucker doesn't have to disclose his compensation, but his predecessor in the job, Robert Wright, earned $17.8 million in 2006), yet he has the nerve to act like he's in the same boat with the rest of us, telling the audience, "Everybody wants to point a finger -- I'm upset that my 401(k) isn't what it was too. ... But to suggest that the business media is responsible for what's going on now is absurd."

Buzzmachine has a good observation too:

The press didn’t cause us to go to war in Iraq, he said; a general did. The press missing the financial crisis didn’t cause it. “Both are absurd,” he said.

Really? I think that says that the press has no importance and no role in public policy. Doesn’t matter if we miss the story, he’s saying. It’s not our fault. Will he take no responsibility?

I'm confused. What is the function of the press then? Are they only supposed to hand out doughnuts to their favorite politicians during a major campaign? Is that their role?

They have been given certain freedoms so they can police the government, but Zucker is abdicating that right. We need investigative reporting immensely because of the need to uncover the Watergates in the Beltway. Without the press monitoring the system all hell could break loose. Oh, wait. it already did.

See also:

Moyers on the Neocons and William Kristol

Moyers and Russert and Cheney Oh, My!

Bill Moyers Rips MSM Complicity on "Real Time"

Moyers: Roger Ailes didn't want to "Scoop himself." WTF?

Are we heading towards a 1929-like economic crash?

Bill Moyers' Journal: Inside The White House's War on Terror

Keith Olbermann responded to Bill O'Reilly's egomaniacal rantings and actions he took on his radio show by sending the falafel police after callers for mentioning Olbermann's name.

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT (big file 24mgs) (working, but very slow to engage)

Bittorrent-WMP Bittorrent-QT

Susan Filan, a former prosecuter says the one person that might have a legal problem is O'Reilly himself. I called the head of FOX security for comment, but he hasn't returned my call as yet.

Here's the transcript :

First it was the warnings to NBC chairman Robert Wright, then the phone calls to NBC president Jeff Zucker, then the petition to get me fired and Phil Donahue brought back, then the erroneous ratings information he gave out. Even in that context, though, this is pretty special. Ted Baxter telling uncooperative listeners that he'll turn their phone numbers over to Fox security, and that Fox security will in turn contact the local authorities.

Bill thinks he has his own police.

A caller got through to O'Reilly's radio show yesterday. He insists he used no foul language, that all he did was mention my name, compliment my show, and asked, Why are you always smearing him, Bill? And the host, using the dump button all talk radio shows have on the seven-second delay, cut him off.

We're not certain what actually got on the air, but this was what was posted on O'Reilly's Web site as the air check for that part of the show.

In the episode, police are frustrated by a lack of clues, leading one officer to quip, "Maybe we should put out an APB (all-points-bulletin) for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt."

In a letter to NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker, DeLay wrote: "This manipulation of my name and trivialization of the sensitive issue of judicial security represents a reckless disregard for the suffering initiated by recent tragedies and a great disservice to public discourse."...read on

Producer Dick Wolf, creator of the "Law & Order" franchise, took a swipe at DeLay in his own statement on Thursday, saying, "I ... congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show."

You know things must be really getting to the Hammer when an obscure line of dialogue irks Tom this way. He probably must have read Jonah's Ode to L&O too.