It looks like long-time TV critic Roger Ebert deserves two thumbs up for garnering the top punditry prize in the nation from Forbes magazine. What exactly does that mean? Well! It means that out of all the talking heads you see and read each day, he’s the best of the best. Apparently.

Ebert beat out some really loud people you might have thought to be shoe-ins in such a battle of brawn. Bill Maher was ranked second, followed by FOX News’ king Bill O’Reilly; Senate candidate Al Franken; TV “journalist” Geraldo Rivera; Rosie O’Donnell; film critic Leonard Maltin; legal commentator Greta Van Susteren; CNN news commentator Lou Dobbs; and basketball analyst Bill Walton.

Jesse Jackson, Sean Hannity and Keith Olbermann were among near misses for the top ten.

Interestingly, liberal Web pundits like Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos and Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo scored high “likability ratings” with certain population segments, but their awareness numbers, which are more important than appeal, according to the Forbes polling team, were “barely on the radar screen.”

The same is largely true of elite, but popular, newspaper columnists like Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, and Robert Novak.

So! What to take away from all this? Grab some popcorn, stow your politics and start watchin’ some movies.

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