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Roger Ebert reviews the debate!

In a surprise move, Roger Ebert sort-of reviewed the first presidential debate. But as is often done with movie reviews, I can sum it up by just quoting two lines (the first and the last):

I do not like you, John McCain.

I have instructed my wife to exclude you from any future dinner parties.

Ebert’s main was that McCain would not look at Obama, even while shaking his hand:

If you came to dinner at my house and refused to look at or speak with one of my guests, that would be bad manners and I would be offended. Same thing if I went to your house. During the debate, you were America’s guest. … What was your problem?

Ebert also didn’t like that McCain ran an attack ad showing three moments from the debate where Obama agreed with McCain:

What is the better leadership quality: (1) Willingness to listen to your opponent, and keep an open mind? (2) Rigidly ignoring him? Which of the two of you better demonstrated the bipartisan spirit you say you represent? Was there anything he said that you agreed with? Could you have brought yourself to say so?

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Why do people laugh at creationists? – Sarah Palin edition

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Snarky McCain-Palin Automatic Haiku Poetry Generator

Click here to generate another haiku

If you create any particularly good ones, leave them in the comments, please. You can also enter them in the PFAW McPalin Haiku Hysteria contest — three winners will be published in The Nation.

UPDATE: Susanna Speier’s blog has a nice collection of Sarah Palin haikus (albeit written by humans).

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The Scream


© Dick Locher

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Sarah Palin Fictional Quote Generator

From the Sarah Palin Fictional Quote Generator v1.0

Click here to generate another fictional quote

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Palintology


© Tom Toles

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Tina Fey is almost as funny as the real Sarah Palin

Compare Fey’s performance to the actual interview between Palin and Couric. Can you decide which one is funnier?

UPDATE: Or just watch where CNN puts Fey and Palin back to back, to show that Tina Fey doesn’t need to change a single word in order to parody Sarah Palin.

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Late Night Political Humor

“Senator John McCain got personally involved in the bailout yesterday. Did you hear about this? Oh, it was unbelievable. John McCain was supposed to be a guest on David Letterman’s show last night. And an hour before he was supposed to be on, he called Dave. Now, you never cancel an hour before. But he called and said, ‘I got to get back to Washington. I’m on my way to the airport right now.’ And Letterman was very gracious about it. So the guest dropped out at the last minute. I thought Letterman was very gracious. Then during Dave’s show, they noticed on the feed McCain is in another building across the street doing an interview with Katie Couric when he’s supposed to be with Letterman. Let me tell you, lying to the American people, that’s one thing. But when you lie to a talk show host, there is no more heinous crime in this country.” -Jay Leno

“You’re here on a good night. So far, none of our guests have cancelled. By the way, if you had a chance to get to Central Park today, did you see that David Blaine, you know what I’m talking about, the street magician. Here was a guy who was hanging for 60 hours in Central Park. And overnight, they left him. He was just hanging there. … It’s the same thing McCain did to me last night.” -David Letterman

“I felt bad about this. Because we were all ready to go with John McCain and with an hour to go, he cancels. I felt bad about it. I was thinking about this, John, John, here’s how it works. You don’t come to see me? Well, we might not see you on Inauguration Day.” -David Letterman

“That’s how it works. Yeah, McCain got out of last night’s show. I wasn’t so lucky. But McCain wants the presidential debate postponed until after the big government bailout, you know. Sarah Palin wants the vice presidential debate postponed until after the election. But that’s a different deal.” -David Letterman

“And you know, John McCain wants to suspend his debate with Barack Obama until the economic crisis is over. And Sarah Palin now wants to suspend her debate with Joe Biden until she can find Europe on a map. So we’ll see what happens there.” -Jay Leno

“Saying that ‘desperate times call for desperate measures,’ GOP presidential nominee John McCain announced today that he would personally bail out of Friday’s scheduled presidential debate. ‘As of today, I am officially bailing out of the debate,’ Sen. McCain told reporters in Washington today. ‘And I invite Sen. Obama to join me in this bailout effort.’ Sen. McCain said he would be putting together what he called ‘a comprehensive debate bailout package,’ which could include bailing out of the other two scheduled debates as well.” -Andy Borowitz

“When asked what motivated his dramatic bailout proposal, Sen. McCain said, ‘When I woke up this morning and I saw those terrible numbers, I knew that a bailout was necessary to keep those numbers from getting worse.’ Mr. McCain refused to answer a reporter’s question about whether he was talking about economic numbers or poll numbers, saying, ‘I am bailing out of any response to that question.’ GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said that she would join in her running mate’s bailout effort by bailing out of her debate with Delaware senator Joseph Biden.” -Andy Borowitz

“Palin has been all over the news recently. Yesterday, she was in New York at the U.N. General Assembly to meet with leaders from other countries. Previously, her world experience had been limited to a visit to the Epcot Center in Orlando.” -Jimmy Kimmel

“The president of Pakistan actually told Palin that she was gorgeous. But you know, he said the same thing to Joe Biden.” -David Letterman

“Hey, you probably heard John McCain suspended his presidential campaign yesterday to focus on the financial crisis. Well, you had to kind of expect this might happen. For a man his age, it’s difficult to maintain an election.” -Jimmy Kimmel

“Today it seemed like Congress might have agreed on the $700 billion bailout bill for the banks, but then later on, it turned out that they haven’t. For those of you who don’t understand what is happening here, think of Wall Street as a no-good brother-in-law who borrows $500 from you and then shows up with a new jet ski.” -Jimmy Kimmel

“As far as this $700 billion bailout is concerned, they keep saying ‘we have to act now, we have to act now.’ It’s like a bad TV offer. Just ten easy payments of $70 billion each, operators are standing by, but you have to act now!” –Jay Leno

“I was watching the news on television earlier, and George Bush says the economy is in danger. Nothing gets past this guy! Wow! Like a steel trap.” -David Letterman

“As you know, President Bush addressed the nation last night. … How many thought they were watching an episode of ‘Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?'” -Jay Leno

“I listened to President Bush’s speech. I think I understand this whole economic crisis. See, rich people on Wall Street made a big mess. And they’re too rich to clean it up. So the rest of America, you know, their maids and butlers, they have to clean it up for them. You see how easy it is?” -Jay Leno

“And today President Bush met with John McCain and Barack Obama. He did take a moment to show them the best place in the Oval Office to hide porn. But McCain showed up without his running mate, Sarah Palin, which is a shame because she has a lot of experience with banking and financial matters. You know, she lives right next to a bank.” -Jimmy Kimmel

“I’ll tell you, to give you an idea how bad the economy is, Wall Street investors are now clinging to their guns and religion.” -Jay Leno

SPECIAL BONUS: Late night political humor on video:

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Greeted as Liberators


© Nick Anderson

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Obama is not ready to lead because he agrees with McCain? (when McCain doesn’t lie)

From the McCain campaign comes this bizarre ad, trying to say that Obama is not ready to lead this country because he agrees with McCain. I guess this means that even McCain doesn’t believe his own lies.

Interestingly, the third quote in the ad concerns McCain’s assertion that corporate taxes are higher in the US than in some other countries. But what the ad leaves out is that Obama was actually disagreeing with McCain. On paper, our corporate tax rates might appear to be higher, but because of all the loopholes in our tax code, corporations in the US actually pay less taxes.

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Why does McCain hate America?

While pundits argue about who won the debate, one thing is clear. Or rather, one of these people is clearly missing something. Can you spot what it is?


From Crooks and Liars

I’m waiting for the press to flag this as a flip-flop on McCain’s part.

My favorite summary of the debate comes inadvertently from the National Review: “McCain towered over McCain on every issue of substance”. A close second from the same article is the inexplicable “Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4”.

And finally, here’s a website devoted to answering the question everyone is asking: http://DoesMcCainWearADiaper.com/.

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An Uphill Climb


© Barry Deutsch

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Late Night Political Humor

“John McCain wants to postpone Friday night’s presidential debate. And he has temporarily suspended his campaign. Yeah, so, apparently, this news about Clay Aiken being gay has affected him more than anybody thought.” -Jay Leno

“Today, John McCain made a big announcement. He said he wants to postpone Friday’s presidential debate, but not because of the economic crisis. It turns out TV Land is airing a ‘Golden Girls’ marathon.” -Conan O’Brien

“No, no, he said he’d like to postpone the presidential debate until he’s, you know, ahead in the polls.” -Jay Leno

“In fact, right after he announced that, Sarah Palin said, ‘That’s okay, I don’t really need him anyway.'” -Jay Leno

“Senator John McCain has announced — this is a big deal — he’s putting his campaign for president on hold to focus on the economy. And he wants to postpone his first debate with Barack Obama on Friday. Which seems a little bit like the old ‘my grandmother died’ excuse the night before a final exam.” -Jimmy Kimmel

“I say if McCain can’t make it to the debates, send a substitute. Send Chuck Norris in. I’d watch that.” -Jimmy Kimmel

“No, actually, the real reason he says he’s postponing the debate is to concentrate on the economic crisis. In fact, President Bush spoke to the nation earlier tonight, addressing the financial crisis. He spoke live from the White House panic room.” -Jay Leno

“In fact, his speech was a special episode of ‘The Biggest Loser.’ Yeah, it was good.” -Jay Leno

“Earlier tonight, President Bush gave a speech about the Wall Street financial crisis. The title of Bush’s speech was ‘Two More Months and It Ain’t My Problem.'” -Conan O’Brien

“Do you even understand this Bush economic plan? Do you understand how it works? See, here’s how it works. When you screw up, you pay. When they screw up, you pay! Yeah, actually very simple.” -Jay Leno

“Some financial analysts are saying we’re bailing out institutions with money we don’t have, which makes the dollar even more worthless. In fact, today, God said, ‘Could you take my name off the bill?” -Jay Leno

And yesterday, Senator Chris Dodd said that the bailout plan would put the Constitution at risk, to which Bush said, ‘Oh, please, we haven’t used that old thing in years.'” -Jay Leno

“And yesterday, the Iranian president, Mahmoud I’m-a-nut-job … was at the U.N. And he blamed the United States for the collapse of the global markets. The Iranian president blamed the United States for the collapse of global markets. Well, that just goes to show you, in a crisis, you really find out who your friends are, huh? Yeah, I guess we can write that guy off.” -Jay Leno

“And all this week, the McCain campaign is trying to prevent Sarah Palin from talking to reporters covering the news, you know? They said, ‘you can take her picture, but you can’t ask her any questions.’ What is she running for, vice president or ‘America’s Next Top Model’?” -Jay Leno

“Sarah Palin was in New York City this week. While she was here, her family took the ferry to visit the Statue of Liberty. When she saw the ferry, Palin said: ‘Can’t we build a bridge to that thing? It would be easier to get there.'” -Conan O’Brien

“Sarah Palin was in New York City this week. She met with some world leaders yesterday and went to the Central Park Zoo, yeah. Took her five hours to get through the zoo, ’cause she had to keep stopping to reload.” -Jay Leno

“John McCain has been trying to look younger on the campaign trail by using a makeup artist named Tiffany who works on ‘American Idol.’ True story, yeah. Tiffany says, ‘Making John McCain look younger is easy, but what is really hard is making Paula Abdul look sober.'” -Conan O’Brien

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The Bottomless Bailout

Read about how foreign banks will get bailed out too.


From BuckFush.com

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Quote of the Century

A Treasury spokeswoman explains why they picked $700 Billion for the Wall Street bailout:

It’s not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number.

From Forbes.

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