TVSquad

When Jon mentioned that the night's guest was going to be Natalie Portman, the audience seemed really excited. She was here to promote her new movie, V for Vendetta, which, as Jon noted, is rarely seen in children's books. "V is for Vendetta! Billy carried out a 'vendetta' against all those that he thought had wronged him!"...  "V is for Vagina" is also surprisingly rare.

"Russell Mania '06": Senator Russell Feingold has called to censure President Bush for the wiretapping issue. Censuring? "It only happened once before to Andrew Jackson and he was never heard from again"... Cue the image of the $20 bill. The Democrats were strangely silent when it came to finding support for Feingold (only blank stares from Obama, Kerry, and Kennedy). No one seemed to be taking Feingold seriously, busying themselves by signing headshots or staring into space.

"Bye Bye Birdie": Nate Corddry filed a report about Dick Cheney's quail-hunting incident. Nate decided to try it for himself, showing the viewers just how manly the activity is. Once Nate reached the grounds, he had to pick what kind of birds he wanted to have released for shooting ("It's like regular hunting, but with a menu"). Pointing dogs were supplied for $75 and Nate was extremely interested in knowing whether or not he could shoot the dogs (answer: no). He also got to hold a "shooting thingy", which does not include unlimited ammo, even if you use "up, down, up down; left, right, left, right; A, B, A, B; select; start" as Nate previously thought. Once Nate got to the hunting part, he actually shot one of those birds! The audience (and I, at home) let out a collective gasp. It was terrible. Anyway, he said that he enjoyed it because it was like "an Easter egg hunt... of death" and he also liked that, since the birds have to be released from little twig traps before they can be shot, the final thought of the birds is, "Thanks for freeing me!". Nate flailed around after a while and shot a soundman in the face. This was a hilarious segment... Nate Corddry has yet to let me down.

Jon tuned into CNN and caught Rick Sanchez acting like a moron again (same guy that voluntarily got tasered for his news report). Sanchez filed a report from a school where policemen learn to drive cars for car chases. He demonstrated his newfound skills on Anderson Cooper 360 by driving a cruiser in a straight line at 55 miles an hour. Jon scoffed at this because TDS did the exact same thing last week (not really, but let's pretend) when Ed Helms did the same thing for on-foot chases. They ran a clip from Ed's report, where Ed demonstrated his own skill by running in a straight line past a couple of orange cones ("It's a lot like walking... but faster!"). Benny Hill music/fast running always makes me laugh more than it should, so I enjoyed it.

The interview with Natalie Portman was adorable. The V for Vendetta clip that they showed before she came on was just Portman shivering and whimpering and getting her head shaved. I hope that's not the high point of her role in the film... Anyway, Jon and Natalie seemed to have a good time during the interview, cracking a lot of jokes about The Matrix (Vendetta is made by several people from Matrix) and Germany (where some filming took place). Before Jon could close the interview, Natalie stopped him and asked him to give a shout-out to her Jon-fan relative, Bernice in Cincinnati. Jon happily obliged. Awww. Despite this being a fun interview, it only added to my long list of why I hate Natalie Portman. Under "She's able to rock a boy haircut and still look more beautiful than I ever could", I have scrawled "She's too cute". Damn you, Portman!

Jon checked in with Stephen Colbert, who offered Natalie the lead role of Lady Nocturne in the upcoming movie adaptation of his novel, Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure. Moment of Zen: If only Iran could hear what Bill Frist has been saying.