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Big Birdemic

Silly squawking

When my Twitter feed blew up with Big Bird tweets during the first presidential debate, I realized how badly Barack Obama was losing.

Onstage in Denver, Mitt Romney soared, the president bored, and moderator Jim Lehrer pretty much snored.  And a furious flock of Tweets from Obama-ites could only grasp at the straw of Romney's reference to the Sesame Street icon whose host network the Republican challenger yearns to de-fund.

The alleged outrage over Mitt vs. Bird is about as convincing as Birdemic, a 2009 horror film so fabulously bad it became a cult smash and spawned a sequel.

Yes, the GOP's obsession with gutting public TV's public subsidy is as specious as Romney's attempt to soothe ruffled feathers by praising PBS, Big Bird and even Lehrer immediately after his debate dig. And a pro-Obama TV ad that spins this ginned-up controversy is pretty funny, although PBS seems unamused.

But the president's effort to boost his fading campaign by defending a costumed character won't fly.