Some correspondents reported on the real reason why Republicans have gathered in Minnesota, and as it turns out, it's just to check out Larry Craig's old Minnesota airport stall. I think most audience members missed John Oliver's sneaky tweaking of the word "clockwork", unfortunately. However, the audience didn't miss any of Jason Jones' stall activities, which were especially disturbing, whereas Aasif Mandvi's handicap stall antics were just fabulous. I wonder if those dancers were just hapless interns roped into a scene. Also, the dancing reminded me of a beautiful moment from one of Stephen Colbert's old Daily Show reports, forever immortalized in this hypnotizing GIF. In other news, The Daily Show must be the only reason why Jimmy Dean Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick is still in existence."John McCain: The Person He Is": The other night, I talked about how exhausted the TDS gang must be, covering both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention on-location. Man, Jon's enthusiasm and energy during the Fred "Foghorn Leghorn" Thompson and Joe "Droopy Dog" Lieberman piece certainly convinced me otherwise. That guy is either covering up his tiredness super well or he did a line of Pixi Stix before the cameras turned on.
Karl Rove makes things super-easy, doesn't he? I think he purposely moved to Fox News just to get more face time on TDS. The combination of him and Bill O'Reilly just make for beautiful fodder, and we were once again reminded of the power that the show has in just cleverly cutting clips. Who needs to write commentary when these people can mock themselves? It's another way to save energy. And truly, honestly, I would love for the right to do something as well as this with the liberal media instead of wasting airtime with nonsense like The 1/2 Hour News Hour. There's got to be at least one Republican out there with good soundbite memory and a decent understanding of editing software.
The night's guest was former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. This interview was... interesting. The two of them mainly talked about Sarah Palin and the right, naturally. Shame that it had to end just as Jon and Mr. Gingrich were getting warmed up, though, because it was just getting really good. Also, the audience was enthusiastic but not too much like trained seals for once, so that was lovely. Now if only we could get the Minnesota crowd to teach the normal audience members...
Moment of Zen: Who is Sarah Pawlenty and does Sarah Palin know that she's about to lose her spot?
Mike Henry and Daryl Hall on a Cleveland Show Thanksgiving
The TV Squad Podcast: The Prisoner, '80s TV, soap news and more
Let's talk about spoilers ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-04-2008 @ 10:16AM
VP said...
That part on the republican inconsistencies was the single best segment ever done by TDS. I can't remember the last time i laughed so hard.
Reply
9-04-2008 @ 12:00PM
ChrisG said...
Yeah, I LOVED it too. But shouldn't the "real" news programmes be exposing the double standard of these goons, or how does this work in America? It's a sad state of affairs, when a comedy show does the hard journalistic work while the "real" "journalists", instead of investigating, doing research or asking the 'hard' questions, are often simply spouting talking points or babbling about unimportant nonsense...
9-06-2008 @ 7:00PM
JOHN RIZOLI said...
"It doesn't matter how big a ranch ya' own, or how many cows ya' brand, the size of your funeral is still gonna to depend on the weather."
-- Harry Truman.
When President Truman retired from office in 1952, his income was substantially a U.S. Army pension, reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an "allowance" and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year.
When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, "You don't want me. You want the office of the president, and that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale."
Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, "I don't consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise."
We now see that other past presidents, have found a new level of success in cashing in on the presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale. Was good old Harry Truman correct when he observed, "My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference. I, for one, believe the piano player job to be much more honorable than current politicians."
Imagine what he'd think of todays politicians....
Reply
9-06-2008 @ 10:59PM
StillBash said...
The whole problem is that 25,000 US$ today equals about 130,000 US$ when you factor in an inflation of 3%. At 5% you get roughly 385,000 US$ a year.
If you ask me, that's not a small salary. You should _expect_ someone who gets paid that kind of money to decline further payment.
Which the current presidents don't do. They get millions in book deals and others, like our (germany's) last chancellor, take up a job with Gazprom, the russian gas conglomerate run by a pal of Vladimir Putin.
Politicians are indeed for sale these days. And every time they up the amount of money they are paid each month, there's an outcry in the media, while nobody takes offense in them pickup up jobs in industries they were supposed to be regulating.
Totally ridiculous. I mean seriously... Cheney worked in the administration, switched to Enron, and when he came back he invaded an oil producing country with his handpuppet W. How f***ed up is that?