In all the old horror movies, the master villain always had an assistant. More often that not, his name was Igor. He tended to lurch and he was usually a hunchback. I always wondered how he got the job. I mean, how would you go about finding someone who’d round up a human brain at a moment’s notice? Was it by referral? Did they hook up during Career Day at the Academy for the Criminally Insane? Did he answer an ad in the New York Times?

Nowadays, I ask similar questions regarding politicians. Who put them up to it? What made a harridan like Nancy Pelosi ever think that people would actually vote for her? And how was it that Harry Reid, a pickle puss who looks and sounds like he was born to play Uriah Heep, ever imagined he’d carve out a successful career in a profession that, at the very least, usually requires a modicum of charm and civility?

Speaking of mysteries, why is it that Obama’s approval numbers remain in double digits? Here’s a guy who not only lied about uniting blacks and whites, young and old, liberals and conservatives, but lied to his own base about shutting down Gitmo, providing illegal aliens with a general amnesty and getting rid of the military policy of “Don’t ask/ Don’t tell.”

On top of all that, what, I wonder, did you all make of his recent declaration that the U.S. and Iran have mutual interests in Afghanistan? Are he and Mahmud Ahmadinejad planning to co-produce “Karzai! The Musical!” on Broadway? And what comes next, an announcement that Russia and the U.S. have mutual interests in Czechoslovakia, Georgia and Poland?

To give you an example of how smitten the loonies on the left are when it comes to Obama, members of the UAW gave him an ovation when he said that Ford’s adding workers at its Chicago plant was proof that his bailing out Chrysler and GM saved the auto industry. As my friend, Don Melquist, a retired ironworker observed: “That’s like suggesting that Ford, which rejected the bail-out, wouldn’t be selling so many cars if Chevys and Chryslers weren’t also available. Obama might as well say that people would stop buying Pizza Hut pizzas if Dominos closed its doors.”

I don’t know where Barack Obama studied economics, but I suspect the teaching staff consisted of Saul Alinsky and Tim Geithner, along with tenured professors Larry, Moe and Curly.

Other current heroes on the left include Shirley Sherrod and Michael Bloomberg. It appears now that Mrs. Sherrod, who suffered the hardship of being unemployed for about 30 minutes before receiving a phone call from the president offering her Joe Biden’s job, is not quite as saintly as she’s been portrayed.

Ron Wilkins, a liberal black civil rights leader, infiltrated the New Communities farm commune back in the mid-70s. It was a commune managed by Shirley and her husband, Charles. Among other things, Wilkins discovered that the black work force, which included a great many children, were paid an average of 67 cents-an-hour, were constantly exposed to pesticides, were often forced to work at night, and were fired if they complained.

For good measure, Cesar Chavez’s far left-wing United Farm Workers joined in the condemnation of the Sherrods and their so-called commune.

When it comes to hypocrites, you would think we had already reached the saturation point. But the way the left keeps churning them out like sausage links, I can only imagine that some very odd place I’ve never heard of, and never wish to visit, must have a large standing order.

Consider Michael Bloomberg, if you will. Here’s a man who, combining the mental agility of a Joy Behar with the eloquence of Barney Fife, has taken it upon himself to teach Americans in general, and New Yorkers specifically, what religious tolerance is all about. Even though he’s the mayor of the city where Muslims slaughtered nearly 3,000 innocent Americans, he has given the Bloomberg seal of approval to the erection of a gigantic Islamic mosque next to Ground Zero.

It would be bad enough if the mayor was merely a run-of-the-mill left-wing moron. But according to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Bloomberg’s self-hyped ecumenical spirit has its limits.

For instance, Bloomberg has consistently opposed putting a nativity scene alongside a menorah in New York City’s public schools.

In 2007, when an “artist” created a huge vulgar “Chocolate Jesus” and sought to place it in a street-level gallery during Holy Week, Bloomberg, when asked about it, voiced no objection.

He also maintained his silence when Anthony Malkin, owner of the Empire State Building, decided not to join with other skyscraper owners in a tribute to Mother Teresa.

Finally, when a federal district court ruled that the Bronx-based Household of Faith, an inner-city Christian church, had the right to hold religious services on Sundays in a New York City school, Bloomberg’s administration sued to block the ruling.

In George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” the evil pig, Napoleon, declares that under his rule, all the animals are equal, but eventually gets around to pointing out that some animals are more equal than others.

Now, far be it from me to call the mayor a pig. However, I’ve always felt that if it grunts like a pig, rolls around in mud like a pig and answers to “sooey, sooey, sooey,” the chances are you could safely stick an apple in its mouth, pop it in the oven and invite the Crachits over for Christmas dinner.