No, you CAN'T have pastrami on white.

No, you CAN'T have pastrami on white.

Harold Ford’s “I can’t believe it’s not a campaign!” campaign is rapidly becoming a caricature of itself:

During the roughly half-hour interview, Ford turned on the full Southern charm, repeatedly referring to the Post’s Fred Dicker as “Mr. Dicker” despite repeated requests that he drop the formality.

The two bantered about the difference between New York and Tennessee, with Dicker poking fun at Ford for pronouncing “smear” (as in: “I’ve been the victim of a smear campaign on my position on choice”) as “schmear”, prompting this exchange:

Dicker: “I think schmear is something you put on a bagel.”

Ford: “I’m a little country. I apologize…It’s “smear”, s-m-e-a-r. Y’all talk funny.”

Well-played, Harold! It’s not every ophidian, carpetbagging politician who can apologize to a group of potential constituents by insulting them. Besides, I’m sure some of your best friends are Jews  bankers New Yorkers.

In the short time since Ford decided to take a territorial piss on this political tree (as a proxy for his BFFs on Wall Street), we New Yorkers have come to delight in the special kind of tone deaf gaffe-a-liciousness from the Joe Lieberman wannabe from Tennessee.

Take Ford’s latest moronic op-ed in the overly accommodating New York Times, in which he performs the most credible impression of an Underpants Gnome this side of Ben Bernanke. At first blush, you’d swear you were reading The Onion:

First, cut taxes for businesses — big and small — and find innovative ways to get Americans back to work. We can start by giving any companies that are less than five years old an exemption from payroll taxes for six months; extending the current capital gains and dividend tax rates through 2012; giving permanent tax credits for businesses that invest in research and development; and reducing the top corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent.

…

Finally, we need to address budget deficits now rather than waiting for some ideal future economic situation. It’s a good sign that the Obama administration is following the advice of Senators Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Evan Bayh of Indiana and other Democratic fiscal pragmatists who embrace the idea of a bipartisan commission to recommend spending cuts to rein in deficit growth. But we must be sure that the administration and Congress heed the commission’s advice.

Rainbow-colored unicorns and leftover Hanukkah gelt for everyone! Remind me again what this meshuggenah (accent is on the second syllable, Harold) is doing to earn a million dollars a year at Merrill LynchBoA? Cutting deficit spending and taxes equals job growth? I may be easily confused by sudoku puzzles, but even I can see that Ford’s math and logic skills are nothing more than nareshkeit (I’ll let you fend for yourself on that one, buddy). As Yglesias puts it: “To make the deficit smaller, you can’t also make revenues smaller.”

Come on, Harold, we all know that the New York Times is providing you a megaphone with which to whistle to the dogs of Wall Street. What do you take us for — shnooks?

Harold Ford is “a little country”.  And Goldmine Sacks’ Lloyd Blankfein, that gonif, is running a credit union.