If you want to make fun of the war you’re asking to do the impossible. So what are we supposed to do, sit back and let the biggest televised event of all time pass us by without smirk or comment? Hell no.

We’ll just make fun of the doofuses (doofi?) who are bringing us this war. I mean, you can’t watch hours of coverage and see things like David Bloom trying to look tough on top of a tank (think Mike Dukakis circa 1988) or Peter Jennings giving us that condescending little smirk without venting a little bit.

I put in a call to the parent company to see if I could get them to assign me to cover the war from Kuwait City. The air raid sirens go off six times a day and you have to sit in a bunker surrounded by news babes like Julie Chen

and Daryn Kagan

My only competition for some “we’re gonna die” loving would be other manly reporters like the hunky guy from CNN’s morning show and ABC’s Robin Roberts. Come on, we all know that Robin’s on the other team. Don’t we? Sure we do.

In fact, if it makes everybody feel better, I’ll share my frequent flyer miles with CNN’s Heidi Collins

and Fox News Channel’s Laurie Dhue

And if she’s nice, I’ll even bring Heather Nauert along.

OK, that’s enough of that. OK, there’s never enough of that, but still…

Spending the weekend with my pals Dan, Pete and Tom, I couldn’t help but want to flog all three of them. Let’s review.

Dan Rather, CBS — Can you imagine what kind of red ass Rather was showing off all weekend. You could actually see his contempt for CBS Sports coming through the TV. But hey, CBS gave Dan all morning Thursday and Friday, and while CBS was breaking stories left and right (the first to report that the Camp Pennsylvania incident was a fragging, the first to report on the missing journalists, etc.) Dan makes it almost completely unwatchable. It’s like he doesn’t realize what’s going on until it’s happened. You see a missile slam into a building and ten seconds later he says, “Large clouds of smoke up over Baghdad.” Yikes. The other thing that still bothers me, is that like on election night 2000 he’s surrounded by millions of dollars of high-tech monitors and displays and maps and models and he’s pointing at them with a pencil! A pencil!

Tom Brokaw, NBC — You have to watch NBC because whenever they go to the White House you get to see Campbell
and who doesn’t like that? But this man cannot speak! You know how President Gee Dub can’t say the words horror (comes out hora) or terror (comes out terra)? Brokaw has like 21,000 words like that. NBC has some great coverage. They have the coolest maps, the always hilarious sight of David Bloom making a boom boom in his fatigues as he races through Iraq strapped to a tank and Santa Claus himself, Fred Francis. But Brokaw is ruining it for me. NBC’s already not safe to watch in the morning because of the awful little Katie Couric and the horrible dome of Matt Lauer, but now Tom is ruining the afternoon and night, too. The other hilarious thing is the sight of Brian Williams in Kuwait City (stay away from Julie and Daryn!) trying to finally even his tan out under his eyes. He’s had these weird little tanning bed white raccoon circles around them for years. And just what is Stone Phillips supposed to be covering? He’s been relegated to sixth banana status. Hell, Lester Holt gets more air time than Stone.

Peter Jennings, ABC — We go into this with a list of things we already hated about Peter:
1) Canadian
2) High school dropout
3) Dated Barbra Streisand
4) Condescending jerk
5) Got fooled by a Howard Stern listener on live TV during the OJ Simpson Bronco chase
6) Banned Toby Keith’s “Courtesty of the Red, White and Blue” from a summer concert
Do we need to add more?

But I find myself watching ABC more than the other networks. It’s a habit, I guess. I like Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, and the fact that they brought out the frozen head of Anthony Cordesman to be their military analyst again is just awesome. Plus, while David Bloom is hanging on for dear life, you almost get the impression that Ted Koppel actually the commanding officer of the same unit. Koppel’s reports are just awesome. And, how’s this for clout, he calls the General (Buford Blount) Buford. Buford took Ted up in a Black Hawk helicopter so Ted could get some footage for one of his reports. Plus, there’s always the hilarious sight of Ted’s combover taking a beating in the Iraqi desert.

Before long, David Bloom will be interviewing Staff Sargent Koppel on the air. I know this will happen.

Speaking of tough guy analysts, if you had to bet money on a steel cage match between military analysts, you have to put the early money heavily on NBC. I think Monty Miggs could take out the entire CBS crew by himself, and they have three other tough guys, plus the mother of them all Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf.

NBC has the single nuttiest correspondent, Peter Arnett. If you read Robert Weiner’s book “Live from Baghdad” or saw the HBO movie with Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham Carter, Peter was the star. He’s absolutely nuts. This point was driven home by the guy who played him, Bruce McGill, better known as Daniel Simpson Day (D-Day) from “Animal House.” Awesome.

How bad is it that I’ve already learned what shifts these people work? Hey, Wolf Blitzer, it must be after 11 a.m. our time.

Yikes, indeed.