Anybody familiar with the Advance-Titan probably knows that once in a while I do a column that takes no effort on my part to write because making fun of the subject is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

For example, I wrote a column last year where I verbally assaulted Michael Jackson. One might gaze in awe at my incredible talent for finding foibles in the King of Pop’s character and capitalizing upon them with my sharp wit.

Only a true master could take such a dignified and respected character as the baby-dangling, face-bleaching, monkey-owning creepy weirdo who bought the Elephant Man’s skeleton and portray him in a less-than-favorable manner.

Well, this was going to be one of those throwaway columns where I decide to make fun of something easy so I can spend as little time as possible writing it because, as you most likely have already gathered, I don’t really care.

I had intended to write a scathing column about the California recall election, but there was one thing I hadn’t counted on: writing about the California recall is too easy. That train wreck of an election is just a parody of a real election. Absolutely nothing I could say about it would be funnier than the facts.

Is there really anything I could possibly say that would be funnier than just the concept of Gallagher running for governor? Of course there isn’t.

And even if there were any good jokes about this entire fiasco, they’ve most likely already been told over and over and over again in a David Letterman monologue. Now, I would force feed garbage to an infant if I thought it would make somebody laugh, but even I wouldn’t touch a joke that Letterman laid his greasy tentacles on.

Most of you are probably thinking, “I don’t live in California, hell I barely know where that is. Why would I care about an election there when I don’t care about elections where I live?”

That is, you’re probably thinking that unless you live in California and you’re reading this online. But if that’s the case, then what the hell is wrong with you? Go watch something more interesting, like dancing cartoon hamsters or a cartoon character wearing a Mexican wrestler’s mask and boxing gloves angrily responding to e-mails.

However, this entire country, not just California, should take this recall election as a slap in the face. You should all write letters to the president asking him to change our country’s form of government because democracy has been completely ruined. Arnold Schwarzenegger has killed democracy. Yeah, I said it.

That’s why I can’t write a humor column about the California recall. There’s nothing funny about it. It’s very, very tragic. But you might ask how the porno industry, a Greek political commentator and child-star Webster’s arch nemesis have massacred our country’s political system and then desecrated its grave.

Democracy is dead because not everybody is completely shocked and appalled by the recall. It upsets me that the state of Oregon doesn’t gather as many pitchforks and torches as its citizens can find in an attempt to storm the horrible castle Arianna Huffington was created in. The fact that there are people actually taking the recall seriously makes me want move to Canada and start farming dirt.

For example, the recent debate featured only five candidates of the 34 million total candidates running in the election. The reason it was only five was because it was decided those candidates were the only ones with a chance to win.

Now as much as I love America and patriotism and democracy and all that crap, I believe it’s a sad situation where somebody thinks the actor responsible for playing Mr. Freeze in that festering pile of movie “Batman and Robin” has more of a chance to win an election than Gary Coleman or Larry Flynt.

And since when does a representative of the Green party ever have any chance of winning any election?

I’m not saying that these losers shouldn’t be allowed to run for public office. I’m saying they should know better and voluntarily not run because they aren’t qualified and normally nobody would vote for them.

Normally when a freak candidate runs for public office, everybody knows about it but nobody votes for him or her because the other candidates at least pretend to know what they’re talking about. People usually look at the ballot, see the lead singer of the Dead Kennedy’s running for something, laugh and then vote for a real candidate.

The correct way to handle the debate would be to admit that, in a normal circumstance, absolutely none of the candidates would have a chance to win and, therefore, the debates, as well as the entire recall election should be made invalid.

I’m not saying that because I favor one political party over the other or because I think Gray Davis is doing a good job, because I don’t know if he is or not because I live in freaking Wisconsin.

In fact, I actually hate Gray Davis just because of his voice. Gray Davis makes Al Gore sound like Sam Kennison. Just hearing the sound of his voice makes me want to donkey punch the wall until I can’t feel my fingers.

And that’s why I decided not to write about the California recall election. The whole thing is very sad and by writing about it I would just be reminding people about it, and I don’t want to be responsible for people plummeting into depression because I reminded them that the comic famous for smashing watermelons with a hammer is trying to become the governor of the most populous state in the union.