Jack Cafferty is sort of a national political version of the late Mike Royko. He's a curmudgeon who doesn't like anybody very much. How can you not love a guy who thinks that "We need great leadership now. ... Bush is the worst president I can remember."

You may not agree with everything Cafferty says, but he is an all too rare throwback in the mainstream media of a cynical reporter who cuts through the B.S. and gets right down to calling it as he sees it.

He's one of the few people left in the corporate press who denounces phonies and doesn't suffer fools gladly.

If someone told him to pull his punches or be fired, he'd probably kick them in the nuts.

No, they don't allow many like Cafferty anymore.

But BuzzFlash readers should be aware that he'll just as gladly and gruffly takes on Democratic fools and hypocrites. He's an equal opportunity gadfly; it just so happens that there are so many, many more corrupt Republicans to take on, beginning with the occupants of the White House, that he's most regularly found making his jaded "take no prisoners" commentaries on the fools in the White House.

Cafferty's the last of an age. We don't know if he smokes cigars or drinks, but you can imagine him with a stogie, a shot of bourbon, and a full house as he prepares to sweep the winnings from an all night poker game.

We're sure he gets paid well from CNN, but that's not his thing.

He's one of the cantankerous, loveable dinosaurs that still thinks journalism is about trying to approximate the truth.

That's what makes him such a refreshing presence on a glitzy, attention deficit disorder network like CNN.