The Presidential Candidates of Comedy

(Image by Digi^3)

Yesterday, John McCain spoke to members of a VFW Hall in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. Being a veteran and POW, this seems like a good audience for McCain, basically his “base,” so the speech wasn’t surprising. But who knew he was going to break out his stand-up routine. Another candidate who wants to be a comedian. Here's an idea, leave the jokes to comedians ... or racist radio personalities. More after the jump.

According to this story in the Georgetown Times, McCain was asked by a member of the crowd of over 500 people when America is going to “send an air mail message to Tehran,” in reference to the talk of war with Iran. Of course, the proper answer to that question is something like "We're watching the Iran situation closely, blah blah blah." But, McCain, with the comic timing he has gained from years in Congress began his answer with, "That old Beach Boys song, 'Bomb Iran,' Bomb bomb bomb,” sung to the Beach Boys tune “Barbara Ann." Here's the clip.

I'm just waiting for the next comic tour to come to my town. I can see it now, McCain and his song parodies, John Kerry doing his "get stuck in Iraq" routine, Rudy Giuliani bringing back his Italian-American "youze guys" impressions and Joe Biden with his Indians at the 7-11 sketch.

Plus they can use McCain’s tour bus, the “Straight Talk Express” … Comedy genius!

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Ritual De Lo Habitual (thats the best Spanish I can do for now)

We've all heard of "Jumping the Shark." It's that moment when something begins to go downhill, and usually really fast. Now, I'm not really ready to say YouTube has donned a leather coat with water skis just yet, but when Newt Gingrich posts an "apology" in English AND Spanish, I think the luster is gone. OMG! Or as Newt (why would you use that name at age 63?) would say, Dios Mio!

First of all, I'm sick of people calling something like this an apology. Whether Newt (what a name) needed to apologize in the first place isn't the point. Here's what he said, you decide.

But I always thought that you had to actually say "I'm sorry" for something to be considered and apology. Although Newt (really how do you get elected to anything using that name) does say that he realizes his comments "caused a bad feeling in the Latino community" he doesn't say I'm sorry. In fact, no where does he even say apology, instead he says he hopes people "accept this message in the manner it's conveyed." Message. Not apology. Message.

But take a look at both videos, here and here. Newt (it's short for Newton btw) must really have a hard time with the Espanol. It looks like they had to stop and restart taping at least three times. So either Newt (but I mean go with Newton then) had a tough time with the cue cards, or he kept laughing after saying he had a "sincere heart."

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Karl Rove get The Gas Face

So last night in Washington, they held the Radio and TV Correspondents' Dinner where apparently the administration feels the need to make fools of themselves. Well, intentionally make fools of themselves, as opposed to the normal day-to-day tomfoolery. This is of course, not to be confused with the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner where Stephen Colbert roasted Bush last year. The whole thing begs the question, don't these people know this is being taped?

Someone apparently thought it would be good to bring the "stars" of ABC's "hit show" Who's Line is it Anyway to the dinner to wow the crowd. They brought various movers and shakers from the political and journalistic world onto the stage, no doubt to allow them to humiliate themselves. One of the lucky ones was Karl Rove, who will no doubt be a contestant on the next season of VH1's "The White Rapper Show."

According to the Washington Post's Mary Ann Akers, when asked by the improvers about what he does in his spare time, Rove answered, "Tear the tops off of small animals." Wow, wonder if that's in his eHarmony profile?

Also, check out the JibJab "What We Call News" video that they showed. It's just about spot on.

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My prediction

For the past few years, I've been predicting (to the few people who actually listen to me), that Dick Cheney would step down from VP (for health reasons was always my guess) and allow someone else to step in, thereby jumping to the front of the pack for the 2008 GOP nomination.

So, everytime I hear of some health condition effecting him (like deep vein thrombosis), I always think, "here we go, time to insert the 'man who would be president.'"

With all his health conditions and now the fallout of the Libby trial, I think things are shaping up for a Cheney withdrawl. In my daily read of The Huffington Post, I see that Ari Emanuel shares my feelings. But he's thinking that Cheney's replacement will be Condoleezza Rice. Now, I think that's a stretch.

Personally I think it's going to be hard for Hillary Clinton to even get the Democratic Nomination, but for Condoleezza, I think it would actually be even harder. That's not to say she's not qualified, in fact, she's probably more qualified than Bush was when he started running - ok, maybe that's a bad example.

Anyway, I say, in the next few months, look for Dick to step down and watch the rise of someone who has been very close to the Bush Administration. I don't think it will be any of the people that we see already running, so that means McCain, Romney and the rest are out of it. I guess that means Rice has a good shot. But if the Bush administration and the NeoCons want to maintain control, I think its safe to see them put one of their own in there.

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A "Dear Al" letter

Dear Al,

It’s been a crazy seven years, huh? Can you really believe it’s been that long? Well, we’ve been keeping busy. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but things with George haven’t gone that well.

We actually haven’t been doing too great since last time we saw each other back in 2000. For one thing, we got into some fights with these guys over in the middle-east – it’s kind of a long story.

So how have you been? We heard you’ve been keeping busy teaching and with that movie and everything – that’s great. And winning an Academy Award, we’re so impressed, Mr. Hollywood.
We saw you on TV at the Oscar’s and you look like you put on a little weight – it looks good on you. Well, maybe you should lose a few pounds, but we’re not judging. We always thought you looked good, especially compared to Bill (plus we are the fattest country on Earth, so I guess it’s expected).

Anyway, we just wanted to write and see if there was any way we could convince you to come back to us and run for president in 2008. We know it hurt in 2000 when you lost to George and we’re really sorry. But please, give us another chance. That whole thing was a fiasco and it really turned out wrong for both of us.

You know you’re the one we always wanted to be our president, Al. Sure, George was the guy we wanted to go have a beer with, but honestly he means nothing to us. You have to believe that now (his approval rating is around 30 percent after all).

Besides, that whole thing is really the Supreme Court’s fault, we really did pick you. If it wasn’t for that damn Electoral College we would have been together. After all, you did get about a half-million more votes than George in 2000. But if you just give us another chance we can prove that we really do belong together.

I know it looks like we’ve been flirting with Hillary and Newt and Barack and Rudy and the Johns and Mitt and … well, you get the point. But honestly Al we don’t really even like them that much, but they keep coming around. I mean what are we supposed to do, be rude and tell them to get lost? But, if you just tell us you’re running, we’ll forget about everyone else, we swear.

Remember when you would tell us about your plans to save social security with a lock box? Those were good times. George tried something like that but it didn’t work very well.

You’ve always been ahead of the curve Al. Even before you got all popular with your movie, you were trying to tell us all about global warming and how we could prevent it. OK, so maybe we took that whole “I invented the internet” quote out of context, but looking back on everything now, it looks like you’ve been a pioneer on a lot of issues.

You were even right about the Iraq war, all the way back in 2002. You were one of the few people to come out against it right away. After going through Kosovo and Bosnia with Bill, I’m sure you wouldn’t have wanted to put our troops in harms way at the drop of a hat. It took courage to speak out against the war when George and Dick had pretty much sold everyone on it. We could really use someone like that now.

Plus you’re one of the most qualified people for the job. George went around the world and tried to make friends with all our neighbors, but they really never liked him. They act all nice to his face, but you can just tell, behind his back they’re saying, “What an idiot!”

But you already have some great relationship[s with these people. It seemed like the whole world loved you and Bill (well, besides Newt Gingrich and his buddies). We really need someone who can mend the broken fences and let the neighborhood know that we’re really not that bad.

George once told us, “Fool me once, shame on, shame on you, fool me, can’t get fooled again.”

Well a lot of us did get fooled and we picked George again in 2004. But really, John never captured our heart that year. We really just couldn’t get behind him. I mean people called you stiff? Have they met John Kerry?

Some people have said that you’re doing more good for the country and the world by being in the private sector and doing things like the global warming movie. But come on, you know the real power to change things is when your sitting in the White House. And you have to admit, that presidential seal would look good on you.

So please Al, just give us another chance. We really need you now, and we promise, this time things will be different than 2000.

Love,
America

P.S.

This time, can you just stay away from that Lieberman guy, he kind of creeps us out.

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