When some people dismiss others as low information voters, they’re not always being fair. For instance, I heard from a lot of readers in 2012 complaining that Mitt Romney didn’t bring up Obama’s Benghazi cover-up in the debates, but I pointed out that because the mass media had done such a good job of ignoring the story that if Romney had mentioned Benghazi, most of the viewing audience would have assumed he was speaking in tongues.

I mainly knew about it because Fox News had done such a good job of covering the story. But being a successful cable station doesn’t compare to being a major network when it comes to the number of viewers. But as good as Fox is, I still wish it had competition from a cable station that didn’t waste our time with the likes of Juan Williams, Alan Colmes, Geraldo Rivera, Bob Beckel and Mark Hannah. We would get plenty of divergent viewpoints if they concentrated solely on Republicans. Pitting Ted Cruz against John McCain or Rand Paul against Marco Rubio would be a great improvement over watching Juan Williams do his impression of a minstrel man, rolling his eyes in mock horror whenever Bret Baier, Steve Hayes or Charles Krauthammer, disagrees with one of his inane statements.

Although I get a lot of my news from Fox, I wish they had someone whose sole function is to follow up on things that have been lost in the wake of subsequent events. For instance, when Boko Haram kidnapped those 300 Nigerian school girls, I heard that Obama had sent a few hundred soldiers in to assist in the search, and then I heard nothing more about it. Are the soldiers still looking? Is anyone?

According to Gallup’s latest poll, Obama’s approval rating has soared to 47%. The theory is that a lot of people applauded his re-opening diplomatic relations with Cuba. Even if they disagree with me and Marco Rubio about that bit of executive action, how is it that millions of us have apparently decided after six years of ObamaCare and the Benghazi, Operation Fast & Furious, VA and IRS scandals that they no longer mattered?

Mark Twain once joked that he didn’t lie because he didn’t have a very good memory. It seems to me that Barack Obama lies because he doesn’t think we have very good memories, and the same goes for the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Josh Earnest and Jonathan Gruber. When nearly everything we say or do is recorded on video, you would think they would straighten out their acts, but, apparently, unless you watch Fox, you’d have no idea that these people lie, if for no other reason than to stay in practice.

But maybe Obama is wise to take our ignorance for granted. After all, even after drawing and then quickly erasing red lines with Russia and Syria, and allowing Iran to make a monkey out of him at the negotiating table, our Commander-in-chief has proven himself to be, in the words of my friend Steve Maikoski, the Great Capitulator.

In other news, we are told that Justin Bieber is worth $200 million. We have also heard that Oprah Winfrey is worth two billion and Warren Buffet is worth roughly 35 billion. I know it’s just a figure of speech, but I wish we would learn to just say these pinheads have an awful lot of money without suggesting they are worth a plugged nickel.

After dismissing the movie, “Whiplash,” as a waste of time, a friend let me know he planned to see it because he liked “drum music,” and I congratulated him on coming up with a new and unique oxymoron. But after sitting through 16 other DVDs provided by the studios, all seeking my vote in the WGA award competition, I am wondering why movies even pay editors. When the new releases average 150 minutes, it’s hard to imagine that any footage ends up on the cutting room floor. You would have thought editors had gone the way of those guys who used to provide dialogue titles for silent movies.

Speaking of movies, I can’t say I was disappointed with “Unbroken,” the story of Louis Zemperini, who first survived 47 days at sea after his plane was shot down during WWII and then, according to Laura Hillenbrand’s book, suffered daily beatings by a sadistic Japanese POW camp commander for two long years. It didn’t ring true in the book and didn’t in the movie.

It was hard enough to survive in Japanese captivity without having to endure constant torture and no medical attention. I even wrote to Ms. Hillenbrand asking if she had actually managed to confirm what she was told or had simply accepted what Zemperini said as gospel. After all, rumor has it that men, even those in their 90s, have been known to brag to women. So far, I haven’t heard back.

Because it’s been preying on my mind for years, I would like someone to explain why “Peanuts” has enjoyed such lasting success. I never thought it was a funny comic strip. Not funny or clever or thoughtful, and, what’s more, I thought Snoopy was a bore, even when he went up against the Red Baron. What have I been missing?

I once heard that the best definition of an optimist was a professional accordionist with a pager. But I have come to believe that Alan Jay Lerner, the lyricist and librettist best known for “Brigadoon,” “Gigi,” and “My Fair Lady,” should have his picture next to the word in the dictionary. This is a man who married for the first time when he was 21 years old. By the time he died 46 years later, at the age of 67, he had been married seven more times. What’s more, he was married for 43 of those years, meaning he averaged less than six months between getting a divorce and once again tying the knot. If that’s not optimism, I don’t know what it is. Well, maybe insanity.

Because some of my more concerned readers continue to ask how I am doing in the aftermath of the surgery on my hand and arm last January, I am happy to report that the rheumatoid arthritis is no longer plaguing me.

However, I did suffer an attack of the gout recently. My only prior experience with the condition was seeing old Laurel and Hardy or Charley Chase comedies in which men suffering from the gout would be shown with his inflamed foot wrapped in a Turkish towel. But in spite of the towel, someone was sure to step on his aching foot or slam a car door on it.

I thought it was very amusing until I was the guy who felt like he had a pin cushion sewn up in his big right toe. I never assumed I would have anything more in common with King Henry VIII than the fact we had both been married more than a couple of times – though not as often as Alan Jay Lerner – our occasional disagreements with the pope and our roguish little beards. Too bad it couldn’t have stayed that way.

Believe me, the gout is no joke. The joke is that it’s commonly referred to as the rich man’s disease and somehow I got it!