Andrew Malcolm, who used to work for Laura Bush, blogs politics at the Times and types up inanities with numbing regularity. Today he mocks the homeless -- or at least the very poor of Washington, D.C. -- while taking a swipe at Michelle Obama's volunteer work.

The point of his pointless item was that Obama put in some time at a soup kitchen not far from the White House, but that one of the men in line pulled out a cell phone to snap a photo of the first lady.

Malcolm, suddenly on the beat as a poverty cop, demands:

If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone? And if he is homeless, where do they send the cellphone bills?

Just pathetic.

And by the way, the soup kitchen Obama volunteered at is privately funded, which means it's nobody's business who it serves or doesn't serve. But media elite Malcolm, sitting in some comfortable office, demands answers about just how poor the poor people are who are lined up for free food in the nation's capital.

UPDATE: Right-wing bloggers think the item's funny: Ha-ha, poor people don't have phones!!

UPDATE: Writes Tbogg:

Later Malcolm will review older pictures from the last Republican Depression That FDR Was Responsible For and wonder why all the poor guys begging for bread were wearing such spiffy suits and nice hats.