If it’s Friday, it must be time for our weekly slap-and-tickle fest (minus the tickle) known as The Hit List. Watch the grown men of Grey’s Anatomy act like children, then let’s talk about who deserves to be knocked upside the head this week! I’ll show you mine… then you show me yours!

Topping my list of people needing a good, old-fashioned slap to the head is Ohio Congressman John Boehner, who had the nerve to say that he hadn’t had a single American “lobby” him for a public option where health care reform is concerned. Now perhaps Mr. Boehner used the word “lobby” to mean “throw lots of money at a politician in the hopes of swaying him to suddenly see things your way”, but assuming he actually meant that nobody in this country has filled him in on their desire to have a public option, I’d like to slap him not upside the head, but with a flood of tweets, e-mails and phone calls to let him know just how many of us want the public option. You can tweet the Congressman at @johnboehner, hit him up on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/JohnBoehner, call him at 202-225-6205 or fax him at 202-225-0704.

Others deserving a knock on the noggin:

* New York’s Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who after eight years in which he could have dealt with the parking problems in Manhattan, is suddenly vowing to make it a priority. Not coincidentally, he’s running for election. Worse, he wrote a recent op-ed piece saying his plan might involve using your cell phone to find available parking spots. You know, the very phone that his police force can ticket you for using while driving!

* Jon Gosselin — he of the reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8 — who has, since being excised from the show (which will now be called Kate Plus 8), suddenly decided reality TV is “bad” for his kids. The disgruntled dad even went so far as to hang up signs warning that film crews would be charged with trespassing… on which he misspelled his own name. D’oh!

* The man I overheard telling his wife, via cellphone, that he’d watched a teenage boy slap and verbally berate his girlfriend. Why the man on the phone sounded proud I don’t know, but I have to feel sorry for his significant other.

That’s my list for the week… who’s topping your list of folks who need a bit of sense knocked into them, not literally, but perhaps by a little public shaming in our forum?

You can’t have a political discussion in this country without talk of “bipartisanship” rearing its head… and one might think that’s a good thing. I mean, doesn’t bipartisanship mean we all get along? We share our toys and join hands and sing songs around a camp fire and get things done?

Um, yeah, not so much.

In the real world, true reach-across-the aisle politicians are as much a myth as unicorns and “I’m not gay, I’m bisexual” men.

Never has that proven more true than in the currently-unfolding debate over health-care reform. And so far, no one in the media has done a better job of clarifying the difference between what republicans say and what they mean than MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who is increasingly becoming that formerly-trustworthy network’s lone voice of reason among the howlers (Chris Matthews) and ranters (Keith Olbermann).

So without further ado, take it away, rachel…

If heaven gets television, Walter Cronkite must be weeping about what passes for so-called news or even intelligent debate in this country. And while in the past these words would have signaled my intent to go on a Fox-bashing, O’Reilly roasting rant, my target tonight is actually — and it pains me to say this — MSNBC in general, and HARDBALL in particular.

During the 2008 election cycle, MSNBC became my go-to place for political coverage as the various programs offered seemed to be in touch with my political leanings, which are obviously to the left.

But with the elections over, MSNBC has taken an increasingly nasty turn toward the same guest-blasting, name-calling, intelligence-insulting blather than can be found on Fox News. The clip below — in which HARDBALL guest host Lawrence O’Donnel shouts at, talks over and eventually slanders Republican Congressman John Culberson of Texas.

It would be disturbing enough to think that this is what political discourse had devolved into, but what is particularly bothersome  is the fact that for weeks now, MSNBC has relentlessly covered the outbreaks of disruptive behavior occuring at town hall meetings across the country. The network’s hosts have taken a superior tone in talking down to both those who have disrupted the meetings and, more specifically, the Fox News hosts whom they accuse of causing the tone and tenure of debate in this country to become damn-near riotous.

Hypocritical much, MSNBC?

For months, Keith Olbermann used COUNTDOWN to bash the journalistic integrity of THE O’REILLY FACTOR’s host, accusing him of ambushing, attacking and generally disrespecting guests (all of which O’Reilly regularly does). But doesn’t MSNBC lose the ability to sit atop a high horse if it continues to allow its own hosts to mimic the antics of those it spends so much time taking to task?

More importantly, if the newsmen who are responsible for informing the public and the politicians elected to represent us allow their conversations to devolve into shouting matches, how, exactly, does that help the people of this country make informed decisions? For that matter, how does it do anything but bring down the national intelligence level, not to mention muddy the already murky waters of political discourse?

MSNBC has dubbed itself “The Place For Politics.” If tonight’s episode of HARDBALL was an indication of the level of integrity and intelligence we can expect in the future, they might want to consider rebranding themselves as “The Place For Obfuscation.”