TW3 — and KO #3

October 9th, 2008

Well, another debate down — and this one, Mac’s projected “hit job” and last real chance to put a hitch in Obama’s spiraling trajectory, turned out to be a dud. It appears, dearhearts, that unless a new war shimmers on our horizon in the next weeks, this is a pretty much in the can. And that’s a whole NEW earth-shaking possibility to deal with … admit it; you never actually thought it would happen. You’ve been too busy hoping and praying!

Last night, John McCain was going to clean Obama’s clock for having “run the dirtiest campaign in history,” according to his wife. Cindy was apparently speaking from Neverland, that place where John lives, and thinks saying “my friend” [19 times] isn’t creepy; where his ability [telling us "I know how to ..." a total of seven times] sounds bloviated and makes people wonder, if he’s so smart and knows how to catch Osama … why he hasn’t already.

On Johns majik island, all the world knows who “That one,” is … and understands why he can’t bring himself to treat him with respect. They feel free to wallow in the worst of human miscreation, as they’re doing in Palin’s rallies now. Murder is not forbidden in Neverland, and speaking of it encouraged.

And in this strange, dark place of make-believe, Johnny Mac always wins the debates thanks to his bevy of FOX cheerleaders, even as he avoids substance and mumbles incoherently over telescopes [last time it was bear DNA.] In Johnny’s world, a Pub candidate can even propose the biggest government give-away imaginable, and still expect his party to rush to the polls for him.

So, here in reality where we all live, it is with great pride and pleasure, not to mention sincere relief, that I announce to you — America ain’t buyin’ it.

Obama expanded his lead to 11 today, as the New York Times editorial board called the McCain/Palin campaign “appalling.” And, says Andrew Sullivan, in his post The Debate Mattered:

A report from a Stanley Greenberg focus group that should terrify the GOP:

Before the debate, McCain had a 48/46 favorability rating; that improved to 56/36 by the end. But that’s about where Obama started the evening—54/36. After an hour and a half, Obama’s favorability numbers were 80/14. As Joe Biden would say, let me repeat that: 80% of the undecided voters had favorable views of Obama and only 14% saw him negatively for a net rating of +66. Not even Bill Clinton got such a warm response in town hall formats.

The Times is also tracking illegal voting purges — there should be a resounding response to that. Say what you want about MSM, nobody ignores the Times — and that leaves a few weeks to get on top of it.

Meanwhile, That Was The Week That Was … an illustration of societal breakdown. Chicken Little was right, Fannie Mae found its heart TOO FRIKKEN LATE and somebody needs to take a look at the Aussie kids brain-scan. I’m going to protest chaos by voting for Kung Fu Fatty.

The bonus reads today are just pleasurable — we could all use a break, yes?

Jude

HARPER’S WEEKLY
Oct 7, 2008

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed the
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. The
legislation, which originated as a three-page proposal by
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and grew to 451 pages
after House and Senate negotiations, established the
Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to grant the
Secretary of the Treasury up to $700 billion to buy
troubled assets owned by financial institutions, to allow
the Treasury to limit executive compensation and “golden
parachutes” at those institutions, and to establish an
oversight board to monitor the Treasury. The act also
provides wooden arrow manufacturers an exemption from
excise tax. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rushed the
legislation to President George W. Bush, who signed it and
promised that the United States would maintain “a leading
role in the global economy.” “If I were dictator,” said
Senator John McCain, who voted for the act, “which I
always aspire to be, I would write it a little bit
differently.” McCain also suggested the act be vetoed
because it included so much pork. “No matter what the
stakes are,” he said, “you’ve got to stop this.”
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger emailed Paulson
to say that he may need a $7 billion loan for the state,
and in Akron, Ohio, a 90-year-old woman named Adele Polk
shot herself in the chest as police tried to evict her
from her foreclosed home. “I saw that blood,” said a
neighbor, “and I said, ‘Oh, no. Miss Polk musta done shot
herself.’” Responding to public outcry, Fannie Mae forgave
Polk’s mortgage, which will allow her to return home if
she recovers from her wounds. After the bailout was signed
into law, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below
10,000 for the first time in five years. “Today,” said an
income strategist, “is watching the sky fall.”

Employment decreased for the ninth consecutive month, with
the U.S. economy losing 159,000 jobs in September; between
April and July, nearly one million people enrolled in the
federal food-stamp program. Newt Gingrich, the former
speaker of the House, suggested the United States solve
its economic crisis by creating a website where people
could post their ideas, and vice-presidential candidates
Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin debated in
St. Louis. Commentators noted that during the debate Palin
was successful in repeating Republican talking points,
despite having appeared incoherent and ignorant of the
basic principles of American government during interviews
earlier in the week. “Oh, man,” said Palin, “it’s so
obvious I’m a Washington outsider, and someone just not
used to the way you guys operate.” NASA discovered that
snow falls on Mars. Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev
and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev teamed up to
form a new political party that will promote democracy,
and in Brazil, where politicians often adopt new names for
elections, six candidates had taken the name Barack
Obama. Other candidates called themselves Cattle Ana, Jeep
Johnny, Big Charlie Knives, Jorge Bushi, Chico Bin Laden,
DJ Saddam, King of the Cuckolds, and Kung Fu Fatty.

One hundred sixty-eight people were killed in a stampede
when someone screamed “There’s a bomb!” at a crowded
religious celebration in Jodhpur, India, and a Baghdad
suicide bomber killed 14 people who had been celebrating
the end of Ramadan. “Nobody expects anything like this,”
said Jamal Tawfiq, a 28-year-old Iraqi who gathered body
parts in a plastic bag. Mr. Clean died. The U.S. State
Department issued a security alert warning Americans to
avoid visiting Bulgarian strip clubs; geneticists
determined that the AIDS virus is about a century old; and
Mexican police recovered the stolen “condom mobile,” a
truck used to promote the government’s HIV-AIDS awareness
program. Thieves made off with the vehicle’s sound system,
5,000 condoms, and a motor used to inflate a 23-foot-long
condom balloon. Archaeologists unearthed a ceramic cup
that may bear the first-ever written reference to Jesus:
“Christ the magician.” Parents were taking advantage of
Nebraska’s new safe-haven law–enacted in July to prevent
“Dumpster babies” but also protecting children as old as
eighteen–to get rid of unruly teenagers. “The appropriate
response is to reach out to family, friends, and community
resources,” said Todd Landry, the state director of
children and family services. “What is not appropriate is
just to say, ‘I’m tired of dealing with this,’ and drop
the child off at a hospital.” A seven-year-old boy broke
into an Australian zoo, used a rock to bludgeon to death
several lizards, and fed them and many still-living
reptiles to Terry, the zoo’s crocodile. “By all accounts,”
said the zoo’s director, “he’s quite a nasty
seven-year-old.”

– Claire Gutierrez
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/10/WeeklyReview2008-10-07

bonus

Donna Brazile Is Not Going To The Back Of The Bus
Jezebel
10/07/09

[open link for video]

We’ve been waiting three days for this moment. This morning, the New Yorker finally posted video from “If I Were Running This Campaign,” the Saturday morning panel featuring NY’er staff writer/moderator Jeffrey Toobin (swoon), and a bevy of his CNN colleagues, including Ed Rollins, Alex Castellanos, and Donna Brazile.

Topics discussed: The GOP leadership, Bill Clinton, and Sarah Palin. As the 80-minute discussion wound down, Toobin raised the specter of race in the campaign, and Brazile, 48, let loose with an impassioned, ad-libbed exhortation that could be seen as a prescient, preemptive strike to the race-and-religion baiting tactics (”strategies”?) employed by the increasingly-ugly McCain-Palin campaign. Donna’s remarks above; you can watch the entire video here [open link.] ++

Planet Obama
What would happen if the entire world could vote in our election? One guess
Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The entire world is, apparently, full of whiny no-good commie liberals.

It’s true. This is the only logical conclusion, the only way you can possibly parse the piles of (largely unscientific, but still pretty damn convincing) numbers and data and full-blown emotional consciousness now pouring in from all over the world, pumping our little presidential election full of all sorts of cosmic meaning and profundity and oh-my-God-can-it-be-true.

Check that: Maybe it’s not the only way to parse it. But if you’re a hard-core McCainite and/or are under some sort of unfortunate, chemically-induced delusion that Sarah Palin is just exactly the sort of dangerously harebrained, folksy, winking, nonsensical political confection we all really need right now, well, you might be more than a bit peeved to learn that the entire world has already cast its vote for our next president.

And of course, the world wants Obama.

Overwhelmingly. Crushingly. Rather staggeringly. By quite possibly the largest margin you will see anywhere except maybe Hawaii and D.C. and, well, San Francisco.

Did you already suspect? Could you not already guess? Because despite how here at home Obama is pulling nicely ahead by anywhere from five to 10 points almost across the board, we still call that a relatively close race. It’s still “anybody’s game,” with both candidates currently whipping the battleground states into a frenzy and spending millions in a mad-dash sprint to an extraordinary finish.

The rest of the world? Not quite so divided. Not by a long shot.

Just look. Over at The Economist, they put together a rather ingenious tool, this Global Electoral College tracker thing, wherein we can ask, well, exactly that: What would happen if the nations of the world were divvied up in a way similar to our electoral college, with each nation getting a certain number of votes based on population? How might the world choose? Whom would they pick?

You might think the answer fairly obvious, given how many nations have been so violently insulted and ignored for the past eight solid years, and that the world’s current shocking fiscal meltdown can, at least in part, be traced directly to Bush administration incompetence. It’s no stretch at all to see McCain as merely a clone, more of the toxic, poisonous same, if not worse.

But come on, it can’t be that much of a global landslide, right? Surely there must be some stiff, stoic nations out there who’d want a grumpy, tempestuous military man to lead the U.S., if only to have someone to play with in the grand sandbox of war and intolerance and oily greed?

Is there really no military junta, no dictator, no incensed bomb-gathering nation that really wants McCain, if only for the joy of mutual saber-rattling and for refreezing the Cold War? Putin fanatics? Tories? Papal knaves? Anyone?

Nope.

McCain gets Georgia (of course). And maybe Macedonia. Slovakia is relatively close, but leaning Obama. And, well, that’s about it. At last tally, of the 9,875 available global electoral votes (195 participating nations, including the U.S.), Obama has 8,482.

McCain has 16.

It is not even a contest. It is not a question. The world sentiment is so devastatingly in favor of the calm, stable, intellectual Harvard-trained senator over the cantankerous Bush-loving war hawk that, well, it can only make you wonder.

Is the planet simply turning into one giant blue state, more tolerant and fluid and less combative overall, more eager to work together to solve the myriad problems facing humanity, as opposed to fracturing off into bitter, fear-promoting rogue nations? Or was the world leaning that way already, and we’ve had these blinders on for so long we forgot how to see it?

Or maybe the conservative political parties in these nations, the ones you’d expect to support McCain’s style of isolationist, military-first governance, have become just as splintered and out-of-touch as our own, and therefore can’t muster enough unity to cast a vote for a fellow old-school war hawk?

Or is it merely because all those educated international readers of The Economist — not to mention all the other international newspapers of note, nearly all of whom see Obama as a historic, positive step, a true world-changer — are really just a bunch of namby-pamby gay-loving tofu heads who should put down the pot pipe and pick up a Bible and a gun?

Wait: Perhaps it’s something even more frightening and nefarious. Maybe the world wants Obama simply because they see him as weak and conciliatory, as easy prey, and so of course the perverted, terrorist-choked world wants him, because then they can more easily bomb our cities and steal our women and drink our oil and force us to marry gay people and enjoy universal health care and drive girly little hybrid Eurocars to the soccer game.

Whoops. Channeling Rush Limbaugh for a horrible second there. Sorry.

I realize, at first glance, this entire question might be just ridiculously lopsided, a bit loaded, sort of like asking the world if they would like another presidential term for, say, Iran’s Ahmadinejad, an extremist demagogue widely ignored and scoffed at by his own citizenry, but who makes headlines by catering to his militant, fundamentalist base. Hmm. How oddly familiar that sounds.

Then again, the truth about this global sentiment might be even more obvious, compelling, simple. It’s a truth in two parts:

One: No matter where you live, no matter which nation you hail from or to which political ideology you tend to adhere, the Bush/McCain approach to leadership — belligerent, militaristic, religiously closed-minded, culturally stagnant, environmentally reckless, fiscally irresponsible — has resulted in one of the most epic collapses of a world power in modern history, which in turn has made the rest of the world a more volatile, hostile place for all.

Two: Maybe it’s the Impossible Thing. Maybe Barack Obama himself, while still only a politician, still flawed and human and not, in fact, a demigod, maybe this man really is capable of inspiring not just intelligent progressives, not merely normally apathetic youth, not merely women and minorities and academics and moderates and a jaded, wary media, but the entire unpredictable, contorted, diverse planet.

In other words, maybe he really does have something profoundly important, something rare and exceptional, to offer the world, and the world — like the majority of us here at home — recognizes a once-in-a-lifetime shot at enriching its destiny when it sees one. ++

McCain/Palin rally in Anchorage
AKMuckraker, HuffPo
October 5, 2008

Once again, there were dueling rallies here in Anchorage. The McCain-Palin rally was held in the just-completed Dena’ina Convention Center in downtown Anchorage. The Obama rally was held outside, just a couple blocks away, at the Delaney Park Strip.

One would think that a Republican rally celebrating the hometown girl, in her very very red state would have drawn a huge crowd, and that the Obama rally would be nothing more than a few brave intrepid souls with a couple signs shivering by the side of the road. One would be wrong.

The Obama rally was all set up and running when I arrived — tents, face painting, t-shirt sales, voter registration, postcard writing to swing states, a huge stage and sound system. By 1:00, there were more than a thousand people milling around with signs, kids, dogs and huge smiles. This was definitely a feel-good place. Hundreds lined the roadside waving signs to appreciative honking motorists, and hundreds more milled around the tent area. Anchorage mayoral candidate and former legislator Eric Croft got up and spoke, so did Kat Pustay who’s heading up the Obama campaign in the state. Then came Ethan Berkowitz, Democratic candidate for the U.S. House seat currently held by Don Young. Ethan welcomed his “fellow revolutionaries.” The crowd went wild.

I looked at my watch. I had decided to take a stroll down the block and check out what was happening with the other rally. It was after 1:30 and I knew if I didn’t get to the McCain Palin rally soon, I’d never go. So I ripped myself away from all the positive energy, and hurried over to the Dana’ina Center. Three people stood outside waving signs. I figured I had to smile, so I did. “Come on in, we’re having a rally!” one of them effused. I took a big cleansing breath, and in I went.

I just had a feeling this rally wasn’t going to have as big a crowd as the Obama rally, because the rally that was held for Palin herself, when she was in Anchorage a few weeks ago only had about 500 people. But I walked into the room, and I really was stunned. I felt like I had just entered an empty chair convention. It was really bad. I actually felt sorry for the organizers for a minute, before I snapped myself out of it. A head count yielded about 250-300 people. Clearly they had been hoping for more.

Jack Frost, local commercial voice-over guy and conservative Republican who got trounced by Mark Begich in the last Anchorage mayoral race, was the emcee. Literally right as I sat down he was announcing the “special guest”….a phone call from Sarah Palin! Her voice was piped in over the loudspeakers, and there was a slide up on a screen showing her photo-op with Henry Kissinger. I have to say, it was a bit jarring sitting there hearing the ‘giant voice’ of Sarah Palin filling the room. She didn’t say much. It was a bunch of “Gee, I miss you guys… I heard there were a few flakes today. I miss that weather. It’s been so amazeen travelin’ across this great country and meetin’ people, and even Alaskans down here also as we travel across the country also meetin’ people and shakin’ hands… I miss you guys SOOO much.”

A lady scooted up to me and said, “We’d really like everyone to be up at the front and towards the center, not all spread out.” Ah…can’t have the news cameras getting all those chairs. I scooted up but way over to the outer edge so I wouldn’t get on film.

Then the emcee reminded us about how much Alaska would “get” if Palin was the VP, and also that our enemies hate us because of our way of life, and our freedoms, and “all they want to do is kill American soldiers.” Then he said the only thing the rally was missing was “an effigy of Katie Couric.”

(Felt pocket for Tums….left them home.)

Next up was a local Republican house candidate, Bob Lewis, who told the crowd he had driven past “that other rally” on his way in, and how the people there were just so full of hate, and anger and fear, and that “we” (the Palin rally) were the ones having a good time. “So,” he told us, “you need to decide which side you want to be on!”

That was it for me. Had to leave before all the joy was sucked out of my psyche. On the way out I noticed clip boards with the “support Palin” petition. Someone behind the table said that this was “against those people” (described as ‘Obama operatives’) who were smearing Palin and that “we just want to support her.” I didn’t sign….being an “operative” and all.

Back out into the fresh air, and down the street where Obama signs were still waving. There I was again, back at the rally of “hate, anger and fear” listening to a great local band, watching kids with painted faces dancing in the grass, smiling people registering voters, busy postcard-writers, cheering sign-wavers, and a community brought together by a shared desire to move the country in a new direction.

Clearly I was at the right rally.

Come to Mudflats for a photo gallery of both rallies. ++

Palin’s Base
Jon Stewart via Daily Dish

Colbert - And His Wife - Rock The New Yorker Fest
Rachel Sklar, HuffPo
October 6, 2008

This weekend’s New Yorker Festival featured a one-on-one interview with Stephen Colbert - the man, not the character - moderated by Ariel Levy, who once appeared on his show to discuss her book Female Chauvinist Pigs, which apparently gave him license to compliment her on her “hot little bod.”

That was within the first minute, and it got better from there.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Colbert is a mensch, through and through, and everything he said confirmed that he operates from a position of decency and inherent morality, even as he plays an obnoxious, self-aggrandizing blowhard who loves George Bush and reveres Bill O’Reilly.

The difference is, the man himself doesn’t quite share those opinions - but he shared more than a few others last night, and it was awesome. The most faithful rendering possible follows - I live-Twittered it on my Blackberry (start at the bottom and read upwards), so it’s only as complete as my horribly-cramped fingers could allow - but it was worth it, to share the magic with you.

Colbert On his Character:

Colbert was brought up to be polite - a gentlemanly South Carolina boy, who married his hometown sweetheart - so initially it was a challenge to overcome that: “It’s not in my nature to be a jerk - but I do enjoy it.”(He regrets having offended Barney Frank, who he thinks is still mad.)

How the character formed: Originally based on Geraldo Rivera and Stone Philips - “national reporters with a real sense of mission.” Then he looked around and realized that the real bombast was coming from commentators…like Bill O’Reilly. And it went from there.

His character, said Colbert, has “an unexamined life.” Levy asks him if he’s examined it; Colbert says, yes, they have a bio on the character that they are constantly adding to - he has a dog named Gipper, he went to Dartmouth, he dated Laura Ingraham. He says it on the show, it goes in the bio. But it’s been an evolving process, right from the start: “I did not intend for this character to take my name.” Oops.

Also of the screen Colbert: “Like everyone else, he wants to be loved, he just doesn’t value curiosity or knowledge” Also, a key point: “He’s a victim.” This, said Colbert, is what “amazing” about guys like Bill O”Reilly: “He trumpets his power while in the same breath declaring his victimhood.” (As evidence, he cited a long line of Presidents, gazillion Christian members of Congress.) On the victimhood point, he dings McCain for his recent bellyaching: “Life isn’t fair…it’s completely unfair that you’re unlikeable.” Ouch! (Earlier, he had acknowledged his liberal leanings and joked that he was a “pinko.”)

He tells his guests: “My character is an idiot. So come on an disabuse me of my ignorance.” He recalled the moment when he was about to say that to O’Reilly, and then pausing briefly as the irony sank in. Then he went ahead and gave his usual speech; O’Reilly didn’t seem to notice anything.

Colbert On His Pre-”Daily Show” Experience:

Colbert aficionados will know that he was previously part of the “Strangers With Candy” team with Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello (he mentioned it to a smattering of applause - “That’s why we were canceled”). They showed a clip from the show involving the phrase “my vagina is on fire.” If that isn’t typical New Yorker fest material I don’t known what is. I think it also came up at the event with Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon.

He is also, awesomely, the voice of Ace of Ace + Gary, aka “The Ambiguously Gay Duo” from SNL’s TV Funhouse (with Steve Carell as Gary). He favored us with a sampling: “Good job, Friend of Friends!” “I’ll massage us out of here!”. Awesome. Apropos of nothing, I have always thought that Michael Chertoff looked like Big Head.

Prior to working at the Daily Show, he - randomly - worked briefly at “Good Morning America” doing funny news reports. When he applied at the Daily Show with SNL and ABC News on his resume, exec producer Madeline Smithberg said he has pretty much the perfect qualifications.

How he met Jon Stewart: Actually, he was hired but had yet to meet Jon, who had just been hired as host. There was a press conference with the head of Comedy Central to announce it, and Colbert, newly-minted correspondent, said, “Shouldn’t we be covering this?” So off he went, and asked a question, announcing himself as “Stephen Colbert, Daily Show” and asked something like, “It was my understanding that I was in the running to host the Daily Show, how does your appointment affect my chances?” Jon looked over at the head of Comedy Central and said, “I thought you said he wasn’t funny.”

Pretty auspicious beginning, I’d say.

On the White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

First of all, he didn’t know he’d bombed. At all. “What you don’t know at home is that there were 3,000 people in the room , and the thousand people in the front were all the most important,” he said - but the back of the room was laughing, and he heard that. “Maybe Antonin Scalia’s not laughing, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs Peter Pace isn’t laughing” - but otherwise he thought he was doing fine.

He ran through the entire WHCD routine for Helen Thomas during dinner (remember she did a funny bit with him). She kept grabbing his arm and saying, “Oh you’re not!” That came about because she pointed out that both he and Bush were going through their notes at the same time, and it made him feel weird, to have that commonality, so he turned to Helen, saying: “It’s gonna make it much harder for me to say what I’m about to say if I think he’s a human.”

During the Thomas video, after the first part of the speech, he looked over at Bush - who was looking right back at him. “He gave me his best Josh Brolin.” Ouch.

Afterward he came down from the stage and “no one would make eye contact.”

He saw Maureen Dowd with another woman, who looked at him and said, “Are you okay?” Said Colbert: “I thought, ‘It’s gonna be hard to get out of this room’ No, it was not.”

He actualy didn’t read much WHCD reaction because he thought it wouldn’t help him do his show.

(His wife Evie (short for Evelyn) has all the clippings though.)

Is he speakng truth to power? No. Why? “Because I don’t always say true things.” The priority is not to be a crusader, the priority is to be funny. Only by being successful in that will he achieve anything greater with his show.

“Do I like catching someone for being a hypocrite? Hell yeah!…I’m not saying truth to power, I’m saying ‘fuck you’ to power.” In the case of the WHCD, I’m pretty sure that power was saying ‘fuck you’ right back.

On Running for President:

Why did he run for pres? He refers back to Bill O’Reilly and the egotism of his character: “I couldn’t have the presidential election not be about me.”

He also modeled it on Fred Thompson - he watched the Thompson story build in the media after he’d done nothing other than float his name.

It was actually Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter who suggested that he run in South Carolina as a favorite son. And then they did, and the media went nuts, and voila! “We cast the show into the puddle of reality, and reported on our own ripples.”

Meanwhile, those ripples were actually having an effect - his poll numbers were…climbing. But when he started beating Dodd and Biden and Richardson, not so funny? “It was never not a joke.”

“I was approached by the DNC in South Carolina - ‘what’s it gonna take for you to drop out?’” And he was negotiating for a speaking slot at the DNC or something when they realized they didn’t need him to agree, and voila! Off the ballot.

And, he acknowledged - it hurt. Campaigning in SC, he understood how it felt to run, what you needed to do to constantly face crowds of people and implore them to believe in you. And he sort of believed his own hype. And so he felt bad when he got kicked off. For real!

“They tell you when you’re a child that anyone can run for President. But apparently not you, Stephen Colbert.”

On the difference between The Colbert Report and The Daily Show:

“Jon deconstructs the news, I falsely construct the news.” (He repeats this a few times over the course of the interview.)

He thinks his audience, while skewing liberal, is a bit more centrist than Jon’s: “I think there may be some people who don’t know that I don’t believe what I’m saying.”

On His Wife’s Reaction To The Jane Fonda Episode

From my Twitter: “WE LOVE MRS COLBERT.”

Here’s the (awesome) story: Who remembers when Jane Fonda climbed into Colbert’s lap and stayed there for the entire interview? Oh and also she kissed him. Eeeyikes. It was an amazing television moment - very real, with Colbert shaken out of his hostly bombast and trying to deal with the vixen on his lap with grace and deference to both her and his wife.

Seeing him blush and stammer and not know where to put his hands was pretty awesome - for everyone but him and, well, his wife.

Backstory: Colbert copped to having had a thing for Fonda, and had had her on the show before (with Gloria Steinem). It had been a cooking segment, and both women had kissed him, and Evie, he said, wasn’t thrilled. (Yes, she’s of a certain age, but as Colbert said, “there’s a little Barbarella left.”).

Cut to the Fonda show. Said Colbert: “She brought a game…she was a virago, she was gonna out-character me.” And that is precisely what she did (see here) . She nibbled and blew in his ear, stroked his hair: “I was completely off my game…it was fun. And I was truly uncomfortable.” And after it was over he discoverd that one of thecrew members had run out and bought flowers for me to bring home. He said, “Hey, man, bring these home to your wife.”

And he walked in and she took one look at the flowers and said (sternly): “What happened?” And he said, “Well…Jane Fonda…” and she said “I don’t want them!”

At this point Mrs. Colbert piped up. “And what did I say to you after? I said, ‘Don’t ever let anybody take over your show again!’” Huge applause.

The best part is that he tried to argue the point on the merits, saying, “But honey, if I’d stayed in character I would have flipped her over and gone at it on the table!” Evie said, doesn’t matter, you gave her the higher status. Don’t do that. Stephen protested that she had watched it and said he looked adorable. Best of luck, buddy. The only one who’s allowed to take your status away is your awesome wife.

Final laugh-line from Colbert: “Remember Carson, and the squirrel monkey that climbed on his head? Jane Fonda was the squirrel monkey.”

Miscellany/Question Period:

Jokester guy asked about proximity to power at the WHCD, jokily asking if it’s hard to wash off. Said Stephen: “Yes, and it got on me again when I ran for president…It’s like a black tar and you can’t wash it off, and it gets on your loved ones.” What a thoughtful and insightful answer.”No one from Fox News will come on….because they’re…cowards?”

Also he teaches Sunday School, said kids are funny b/c they ask the questions you thought were so deep in college.

Is there a fine line between satire and being an asshole? Absolutely, and he used to worry about it. But they do it with joy, not malice.

But, a clip of him “defending” Tom DeLay, and DeLay’s legal team put it online in earnest.

Best and worst thing about the show? The hardest thing is doing 162 of them a year. And no break ’til the election. Best thing: “Working with people you just love.” They call it ‘The Joy Machine’ because without that “it’s just a machine, and it will eat you up.” But there is plenty of joy.

Advice for a young political satirist? “Go to Chicago” - The best improv community in the country, great place for learning and performing in a easygoing, comedy-friendly environment. “And it’s cheap! So go to Chicago - if you can’t make it there, you can’t make it anywhere.”

“Take classes, and find people who share your aesthetics, and love each other, and take care of each other” until someone gets a break. (Actually, he said until one of you has enough money to buy a chicken.)

He’s not worried about having to mock Obama - the mockery comes from the office, and from the exercise of power. There will ALWAYS be ways to mock politicians. And he’s not worried about being disappointed: “Put it this way: He could never be as good as I hope.”

Perhaps, but for the rest of us, Colbert definitely was. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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Entry Filed under: Political Waves