Abridged Daily News Columnists

Oh, hell. It’s 9/11. That means the news is going to be full of annoying tributes and fake politicians who insist they’re putting politics aside. So let’s just do a baptism by fire and read Michael Smerconish’s 9/11 column right away.

Michael Smerconish: Oh, no! It’s an excerpt from his new book, to boot, and it opens with the “why don’t people care about this story as much as I do” construction — always an enticing intro for a columnist, but one you should always remember to edit out once you finish.

This opens with three rhetorical questions, the third of which is, “What’s changed since the days when any suburban soccer mom would have strangled either of them with her bare hands if given the chance?” Then it’s just a bunch of stories about how great it is to be Michael Smerconish or Osama bin Laden.

Then there’s some more stuff — this thing is three pages long — and Smerconish then randomly bashes Hillary Clinton near the end. Neat!

Ronnie Polaneczky: TV news-style crap turned into a column. On the plus side, we learn that if she were God, Polaneczky would send bad wedding photographers to hell. Yeah, I’d do the same with columnists. Rimshot!

John Baer: Yes, presidential campaigns aren’t about the issues, and TV news and blogs certainly aren’t about the issues, as much as they tell us they are.

Stu Bykofsky: This is about 9/11, too, I guess, but the best part is when Stu compares Obama to Gentle Ben.