Sarah Palin will likely make a surprise (not anymore!) guest-appearance on SNL this weekend, to good-humorously combat Tina Fey's dead-on impression of the governor.
Well, this should be good: at least it can't be any worse than last season when Hillary "I'm a wooden dead fish" Clinton mocked Amy Poehler's impression of her. Saturday Night Live is a metaphysical can of worms you guys.
(Click image to enlarge)
JOSSIP REPORTS: See? You don't need to be some sort of genius 4chan hacker or son of a state Representative these days in order to obtain personal phone numbers. Sometimes, you just have to scour The New York Times a little harder than usual; when the Times ran a story about an anti-Iran rally yesterday, they included a shot of a protester holding up a sign reading "Sarah Palin: Call me" followed by his phone number.
And while your first instinct might be to feel bad for the poor kid and the inevitable prank calls he undoubtedly received today, we talked to the protester, 19-year old Eitan Levine, about his phone number being blasted all over the blogs today and he's not that upset about it:
CONTINUED »
In the speech which Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was to have delivered at a Monday rally protesting the UN appearance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, she was to have said that the Iranian president "dreams of being an agent in a 'Final Solution' - the elimination of the Jewish people."
Her appearance in the rally in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza was cancelled in a flap between protest organizers and Hillary Clinton, who had also been scheduled to speak. Clinton aides were quoted as saying that they had been "blindsided" by the decision to invite Palin, which they called a partisan move. In the ensuing controversy, Clinton withdrew her participation, and Palin's invitation was rescinded.
Bloggy Fuller's latest advice is for category leader Barack Obama, who she suggests should dump Joe Biden as his running mate and bring Hillary Clinton on the ticket. Also from the ill-advised tip jar: Run lots of ads against the McCain-Palin ticket. But also: "Be everywhere except a Hollywood bash. Barbra Streisand won't do anything for you but reinforce your 'elitist image.' Why aren't you in Galveston with the victims of Hurricane Ike?" Says Jossip fictional mascot Economist Joe: One cannot pay for television attack ads without raising money from glitzy fundraisers.
Lots of terrible things over the weekend. That train derailed in California, David Foster Wallace went up to that Infinite Jest in the sky, and Michael Phelps lived down to everyone's already low expectation for the Saturday Night Live season premiere. Silver lining?
Two of the funniest women SNL ever had, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, reuniting for an opening message about sexism in the election:
The Anchorage Daily is Alaska's biggest newspaper. And with a readership that large (probably not that large, it's still Alaska after all, and everyone there speaks Russian), and with so few home heroes to to celebrate, perhaps the daily would be kinder to their "hottest governor" and current VP candidate Sarah Palin.
Nope: CONTINUED »
The cable nets were fishing for a "buyer's remorse" story last night, and their hook caught something.
Leading up to Hillary Clinton's speech, anchors and pundits were wondering whether the ex-candidate was going to 1) heal and unite the Democratic party; 2) get fully behind Obama; 3) remind Democrats of what could've been. She accomplished all three, and CNN found this Hillary supporter to make the case that after seeing Clinton's speech, some Democrats still aren't behind Obama and wish it would be Clinton heading to the White House. An even better "get," of course, would've been an Obama supporter who listened to Clinton speak last night and suddenly turned to her side, casting off his Obama vote and wishing Clinton had been named the nominee. But we can't make ratings miracles, people.
Well, at least you know where MSNBC and NBC stand on this whole DNC "civil war" going on between the regular folks and the crazed Hillary fans — the stations are firmly planted on the side of sensationalist journalism. While Republicans and Democrats are expected to snipe at each other during election time, the media at this convention locked eyes with a contingent of Dems who believe Hillary Clinton should have won the nomination and are threatening to vote for McCain come election time. Even NBC's political director Chuck Todd spoke out against the station spending all its hard-earned Denver drinking money covering the PUMAs (that's Party Unity My Ass), the particular anti-Obama group composed mainly of middle-aged white women, who receive a disproportionate amount of coverage based on their small numbers.
This is the political equivalent of Elisabeth Hasselbeck making those statements about Jeffrey Dahmer and bologna sandwiches; not everyone who likes processed meats is also a serial killer, and only a small, small percentage of people who voted for Hillary Clinton are running around the convention like Star Wars fans at Comic-Con. But since PUMAs are the most, uh, colorful turnouts of the event so far, and since nothing actually happens at the national conventions except network in-fighting, you can bet there is going to be a disproportionate amount of coverage on the crazy cat ladies. CONTINUED »
During all that hoopla in the late 90s about our then-prez and his cigar-loving intern, did you ever stop and think, "Yes, that makes sense, Monica looked just like Bill's grandma?" Well, too bad you never tried to copyright your thought hombre, because someone just went ahead and made a biography on the bigger Clinton, and it focuses on some the more Freudian (read: salient) details of Bill's personal life. No wonder, the book was written by John Hopkin's (assistant) professor and psychologist John D. Gartner, who apparently delves into the Alpha-males brain for a living. Among the myriad of claims that In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography makes (all without support of the Clintons, since Gartner was never able to reach them for comment), there exists some of these gems:
CONTINUED »
The Atlantic's Joshua Green spits out his 6,000-word report on the Clinton campaign fall out, but only after sifting through hundreds of emails drenched in vitriol. [The Atlantic]
Things could get sticky at this month’s Democratic national convention!
Senator Hillary Clinton told supporters that she would not rule out having her pledged delegates heard at the nominating event, which should be all about Barack Obama.
During an ABC News interview in Liberia yesterday, Bill Clinton got "a little testy" with a reporter, as he is wont to do these days. She asked him if he had any regrets about anything he did while he was campaigning for Hillary Clinton. He said he does, but not the ones we think, which tells me he's probably still in denial about how he might have damaged his wife's campaign.
Perhaps rightfully so, John McCain is not happy with the way the media is going on about Barack Obama's overseas trip, while his domestic goings-on are covered as mere blips on the news cycle radar.
With all three evening news anchors in attendance, as well as the upper echelon of the press corps, Obama's trip is being chronicled endlessly in newspapers and on television, with pictures coming back to the U.S. of Obama meeting with senior military leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan. McCain, meanwhile, is shown palling around in a golf cart with George H.W. Bush.
The difference in treatment has "irked" the McCain camp. While McCain used to refer to the media as his "base," he's now sees a climate where the press is bending over backward for his opponent and leaving him in the proverbial dust. So what's a guy to do?
Complain.
Except, as we've seen before, that isn't the best strategy. CONTINUED »
"Unfortunately I have found out that many viewers are afraid of change. The glory days of TV news are over, and the media landscape has been dramatically changed. News is available now for everyone, everywhere, all the time, and everybody fights for the last pieces of the shrinking pie. The corporate pressure and the ratings terror are intensifying all the time, and the situation is not simple. I find myself in the last bastion of male dominance, and realizing what Hillary Clinton might have realized not long ago: that sexism in the American society is more common than racism, and certainly more acceptable or forgivable. In any case, I think my post and Hillary's race are important steps in the right direction." — Katie Couric, to Israeli paper Haaretz
CNBC has been having a one Howard Glaser on the air to talk about the mortgage meltdown, and how the federal government is stepping in to bank roll Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae so the entire nation's economy doesn't nose dive any farther. CNBC introduced him as a "mortgage industry consultant." CNBC did not introduce him as a paid consultant to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which he is. That type of thing is what some in this biz refer to as a "conflict of interest." (The network says it wasn't aware of the relationship. Glaser says his fee from the big banks doesn't influence his on-air analysis. Right.)
Add to MSNBC's focus today on Hillary Clinton's new hairdo — "they would never talk about a guy's haircut" we imagine someone screaming — and NBC's cable networks are ratcheting up a whole slew of sticking points for the conservative blogs to get their jazz hands on.
Editorial Director
