For all the jokes about President Bush being borderline retarded that have been made in the last eight years, you would think that the man would leave well enough alone once he left the White House and stopped being the world's chief source of ridicule.
But no. Our 43rd commander-in-chief wants to publish his memoirs as soon as he gets out of office, despite the fact that no one is buying books in this bad economy, and no one wants to buy a book written by the guy who gave us this bad economy. So that's a double neg.
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So far this year between two extremely polar candidates, the choice is clear: David Letterman is far superior to Jay Leno. When was the last time you saw Leno with enough cojones to get angry at a political candidate? Or ask any sort of those uncomfortable, what everyone else is thinking sort of questions that David seems so adept at lately?
But give credit where credit is due: It is hilarious that there is a kid out there who a) Knows what Febreeze is, b) Knows the proper usage of Febreeze (to cover up mommy's wacky tobaccy smell when Child Social Services comes over) and, c) Thinks sending letters to Leno is an appropriate forum for their message.
Someone give this "kid" a blog. Unless he or she turns out to be 25 year old intern at NBC, in which case they already have several.
Does anyone else get the sense that these Weekend Update Thursdays only work because of YouTube and Hulu and the ilk? Because it's doubtful anyone watches this program on its own, but it is really convenient to have bite-size clips of it ready in the morning. Sort of like SNL itself? Discuss.
Anyway, Will Ferrell gave his promised cameo on the show last night, with a marked return of his President Bush character. It was funny! Especially when he referred to Sarah Palin and Barack Obama as "the hot lady and the Tiger Woods guy."
See for yourself, after the jump:
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The Daily Beast lived up to its name this week and shamed PBS's DC affiliate, WETA, into airing early a documentary about the ways the Bush administration condoned torturing the hell out of human beings, some of whom might very well have been guilty of nothing more than being Muslin. Why the hurry? What the Beast (and subsequently the New York Times) took issue with was WETA's assertion that Torturing Democracy, a film that supposedly "connects the dots in an investigation of interrogations of prisoners in U.S. custody that became 'at a minimum, cruel and inhuman treatment and, at worst, torture,'" would, for scheduling reasons, have to be shelved until January 21, 2009, the day after President Bush leaves office. Hmmmmmm.
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Was President Barack Obama secretly listening in to all our post-debate discussions and blog posts? Because how else could his camp come out with this ad so fast, making fun of John McCain's crazy blinky eyes and his statements refuting his alliance with President Bush? How did he know that we were all thinking the same thing after our eightieth shot of Jim Beam (because our bingo chart had a "reform" square on it?)
Hey guys, sorry we're late, did we miss anything with that whole Karl Rove interview with the New York Times? I know we were all looking forward to the day when the Fox News commentator and former Deputy Chief of Staff opened up to the world and revealed his true identity as a giant three-eyed snake with wings, but…what's that? Rove refused to answer most of the journalists questions, even over email?
Well, did he give any indication of why he would refuse to talk to the Times, other than the paper's blatant liberal bias?
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Need it be said, we're taking Thursday and Friday off for that holiday about feeling thankful. See you Monday.
• There's nothing we look forward to more than the annual tradition involving a presidential pardon and a turkey. And, come to think of it, a bird.
• We do not necessarily agree with all of Oprah's favorite things.
• With today's comic-strip recession, Caroline in the City would never have lasted a day. Sadly, those are four seasons of our life we'll never get back.
• Apparently, nobody ever told Catherine Zeta-Jones that "there's no 'I' in 'team.'" Or maybe somebody did and she laughed it off and said, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
• A humorless British Christian activist sues the producer and director of "Jerry Springer: The Opera" for blasphemy, reassures us that America does not have the monopoly on crazy Christians.
When asked by reporters about Dick Cheney's plans for Halloween, a jovial President Bush responded as follows: "This morning I was with the vice president," Bush joked. "I was asking him what costume he was planning. He said, 'Well I'm already wearing it,' and then he mumbled something about the dark side of the force." Who knew this year's frightfest would also come with a hefty dose of reality? [CNN]
Former Prime Minister of Britain Tony Blair has reportedly received something in the neighborhood of a $9 million advance from Random House on his upcoming memoirs.
That astounding figure places the polished Englishman just above former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who received $8.5 million for his bathtub inspired tome, and just beneath his old friend William Jefferson Clinton, who received $10 million (or, roughly, $1 million for each 100 pages) and will likely help to ease the pain of seeing a long, brilliant legacy irreparably tarnished by an ill-advised alliance with President George W. Bush.
• Jessica Simpson to co-host The View in November, presumably to take Elisabeth Hasselbeck's spot as "the dumb blond one" while Lizzy pops out a tiny, uber-conservative baby.
• A mysterious woman who makes giant cow-sculptures out of butter just might catapult Barack Obama to victory in the Iowa primaries.
• TMZ gets called out for resorting to Ebonics, refusing to "keep it real."
• Dan Abrams tackles the Dumbledore (a.k.a. "OMG, a fictional character is gay!" story with the requisite amount of tact and decorum.
• After that whole embarrassing "Hurricane Katrina" debacle, President Bush isn't taking any chances. He's already officially pronounced those scary California wildfires to be a "major disaster." Presumably, the over 1 million people who've already been displaced from their homes would agree.
• Apparently, we're the only ones who think bedsharing is old news. The Times article about parents who sleep in the same room as their well-adjusted eight year-olds is currently #2 on the "Most Emailed" list.
A wise man* once asked, "War, what is it good for?" then answered his own question with "Nothing." Almost, Edwin! The correct answer is actually $147 billion, and counting.
The Bush administration on Monday asked Congress for nearly $46 billion in additional war spending for 2008, calling on U.S. lawmakers to approve the money before adjourning for the holidays…The administration has already sought $147 billion for 2008. Most of that money goes to Iraq, which is currently costing the Pentagon an estimated $2 billion a week.
Looks like our country's not just learning about geography—we're also getting a much-needed lesson in arithmetic. And to think this morning we were bitching about how much we shell out each week on that NYSC membership…
*OK, fine, it was Edwin Starr
The New Yorker's Ben McGrath on first daughter Jenna Bush's new book:
She has a weakness for dubious ethnic analogies: "His eyes were wild, like those of the pumas that lived in the jungles," and "A nurse wrapped Beatriz in a blanket—like a burrito."
Fair enough, but then again, it's hard to really blame a girl whose father once said, "I heard somebody say, 'Where's (Nelson) Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead. Because Saddam killed all the Mandelas."*
*Spoiler: Nelson Mandela's still alive.
At Hardball's 10th anniversary party in D.C. last night, host Chris Matthews couldn't help getting a little bit nostalgic about the glory days. Which sounds normal enough until you realize that he was actually talking about the Clinton administration. Reports the DC Examiner:
"The Clinton camp, [Matthews] said, never put pressure on his bosses to silence him."
"'Not so this crowd,' he added, explaining that Bush White House officials — especially those from Vice President Cheney's office — called MSNBC brass to complain about the content of his show and attempted to influence its editorial content. 'They will not silence me!'" Matthews declared.
"'They've finally been caught in their criminality,' Matthews continued, although he did not specify the exact criminal behavior to which he referred."
It's not quite certain what Matthews means by "criminality," but it's nevertheless sad to to hear the angry philosopher inside him won't be silenced. Because if this guy keeps at it, he's going to start making Dan Rather look sane by comparison. [via TVNewser]
Although she's generally one of President Bush's biggest proponents, self-proclaimed writer Ann Coulter shows she's not above giving the president a few good-natured jabs to prove an important point.
"President George W. Bush is evidently the first mentally retarded person to get a Harvard M.B.A., graduate from the U.S. Air Force Flight School, be elected governor of Texas and then be elected President of the United States twice. I guess this is what they call 'mainstreaming,'" Coulter writes in her new book, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans."
"Admittedly," she adds, "it took Bush two weeks to learn how to pronounce 'Shiite,' but he had higher grades at Yale than John Kerry."
Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear that Coulter is not actually questioning the intelligence of George W. Bush (or, for that matter, John Kerry) so much as she's questioning the intelligence of the American people who so faithfully elected him.
Twice.
CNN takes a brief but informative look back at the six presidents nobody remembers. Sadly, none of those men happened to have been named "George W. Bush." [CNN]
"MSNBC's Keith Olbermann was still hospitalized Monday after undergoing an emergency appendectomy Friday," reports TVWeek.
Apparently, Olbermann's appendix actually ruptured on Wednesday, but at the time "he wrote it off as a stomach ailment and soldiered on," even showing up to work on Thursday "to anchor MSNBC's analysis of President Bush's prime-time address on the war in Iraq."
And while we're obviously pulling for Keith-O to make a full recovery, we can't help but point out that only Olbermann would mistake the excruciating pain of a burst appendix with the acute discomfort of sitting through another one of Dubya's infamous pep talks.
President Bush on Monday said he reluctantly accepted the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose "good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons," which is really just a diplomatic way of saying, "because Gonzales fired eight U.S. Attorneys and then lied about it…for political reasons."
From NYT: "Embattled Attorney General Resigns Gonzales Made Call to President Bush on Friday."
If true (and its already on Wikipedia so it just might be!) this means Gonzales will be joining the ranks of departing White House Press Secretary Tony Snow and the recently retired election winner/regime ruiner Karl Rove, a.k.a. co-founders of the "Let's get the hell out of here" club.
And while the official reason for Gonzalez's resignation is still unclear (unfortunately for Gonzales, Rove already invoked the "I'm leaving to spend more time with my son, and thereby ruin his freshman year of college" excuse) we're almost certain this has little or nothing at all to do with that whole "dismissal of U.S. attorneys" controversy Gonzales reportedly knows remembers nothing about.
One thing we do know? CNN is only just now picking up the story. Presumably from Wikipedia, who's had it up since approximately 8am.
One week after Karl Rove's resignation (and with Bush's approval ratings at an all time low) White House press secretary Tony Snow has announced his impending departure, citing his reasons as purely monetary.
"I'm not going to be able to go the distance, but that's primarily for financial reasons." Snow said. "I've told people when my money runs out, then I've got to go."
For the record, Snow was previously diagnosed with colon cancer in 2005, however he claims his health condition has since stabilized. Meanwhile, his reported annual salary is a paltry $168,000.
[CNN]
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