"Crank?  What crank?"

"Yes, like my dad, I'm a crank.

But, unlike Michele Bachmann,

I'm not a marginal crank."

The GOP's Favorite Crank

When God created Bob Somerby, He threw
away the mold. (Not the spores, mind you,
just the mold.) The contrarian's contrarian,
Somerby was, once upon a time, the Harvard
roommate of both Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones.
Whereas they went on to fame and fortune, Bob
had to settle for being an elementary school
teacher, stand-up comic, blogger, and the
prime example cited by lexicographers
for the definitions of 'Crank', 'Eccentric',
and 'Nitpicking No-See-Um'.

"He is not a crank and curmudgeon; he is a great leader

for our time," says Grumpy's younger brother.