george bush-related stories
Last week's Colbert Report in seven minutes
Last week was a really special week for late night comedy shows. No, I'm not talking about a certain feud between a host and a politician. I'm talking about the four shows that The Colbert Report did from Iraq. There was a lot of great stuff, and if you missed any of it, here's a quick recap. (Video also here.)
Barack Obama's Presidential addresses ... who loves ya, baby?
The networks have been getting their collective panties in a bunch over Barack Obama's need to go on television every time gravity starts to effect the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
They claim it not only screws up their schedule, but it also costs them millions in advertising revenue. Normally, I'd say that anything that keeps more advertising from pouring out of my TV and infecting my eyeballs with its sludge of persuasion (brought to you by the makers of the Gelatin of Ignorance and the Gas of Shame) is a good thing, but they do have a point.
And unlike most TV talking heads, past and current White House Chiefs of Staff or people who donated half of their brain to science (that last one may be a redundancy), there are two sides to every story. So here's a breakdown of the lovers and the haters of the Barack Obama TV brewhaha.
Continue reading Barack Obama's Presidential addresses ... who loves ya, baby?
Will Ferrell's Broadway Bush - VIDEO
Who knew this was George W. Bush in reflection week? I must have missed the memo. But when I tuned in to watch the HBO debut of Will Ferrell: You're Welcome, America, his take on President Bush since the end of this presidency, I couldn't help but recall that just a couple of days ago on Hard Ball, MSNBC's Chris Matthews was going at Bush's former press secretary Ari Fleischer hammer and tongs as Fleischer defended his old boss. Don't these post-mortems usually take a few years to take place? But this post isn't about politics. It's about Will Ferrell, and my thoughts are mainly about Ferrell's show, which has a certain raunchy charm, which apparently offended quite a few people when it played on Broadway. All the raunch is still in place in the HBO version, so if you're curious about Bush's little George (allegedly), check it out.
Continue reading Will Ferrell's Broadway Bush - VIDEO
The Daily Show: May 10, 2007
"Mess O' Potomac": Bush delivered an interesting little speech to the Associated General Contractors of America, and it raised a few eyebrows. Baghdad Bureau Chief Aasif Mandvi talked about Bush's views and expectations of Iraq. That Baltimore line was brilliant. It's funny because it's true!... and really scary! I recently moved to Baltimore, so I've looked up all the crazy statistics. Did you know that the city's murder rate is five times that of New York City? Yeah. Cue "The More You Know" star.Continue reading The Daily Show: May 10, 2007
John McCain announces candidacy on Letterman
Tonight, John McCain announced that he is running for president... on the Late Show with David Letterman. McCain reminded Letterman that he had invited the Senator back to the show to announce his candidacy, so that's what he did. Although, McCain also pointed out that it's not his "formal" announcement, which he says he will make in April.I was a little surprised McCain did it this way, instead of the old-fashioned way, but hey! It worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger (but not John Edwards). I can't help but wonder if he did it on Letterman to avoid questions from the press, just like many of the Democratic candidates did when they announced their candidacy on their webpages.
Interesting factoid: John McCain is now 70 years old. If he wins, he will be the oldest president ever sworn in for a first term. Reagan was 73 when he was sworn in for his second term.
Video is here.
The Daily Show: January 22, 2006
With the aid of Roget's monosaurus (ha!), Bush has prepared yet another stirring State of the Union! That montage of the president's past addresses was amazing. And by "amazing", I mean "kind of depressing".Senior Political Analyst Jason Jones talked about what Bush meant about the average American's sacrifice: peace of mind. When that robot unexpectedly turned around and started talking, I was surprised that Jones didn't know what to do. The Daily Show should hold improv workshopping for all of their correspondents, heh.
Continue reading The Daily Show: January 22, 2006
Wear your love for Lost on a t-shirt
The designers who brought us the Colbert Has Stones t-shirt after Stephen Colbert's marvelous performance at the White House Correpondents Assoc. dinner, also have a couple of shirts for Lost fanatics. They're simple. One of them just has the numbers: 4 8 15 16 23 42. With #23 circled. Or, you can show your allegiance with the evil overlord Hanso Foundation with this t-shirt.The company that designs the t-shirts is called Mule, and it's actually a web design company. They just happen to be really cool, too (Hey! They're also celebrating Festivus!) They also made a t-shirt and bumper sticker that says: George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People. It's quoting Kanye West, of course, from when he hijacked the Katrina telethon on NBC.
The Daily Show: November 2, 2006
As part of The Daily Show''s good-bye to Ohio State University, a few of the correspondents donned OSU gear and talked about how much fun they had during the past week. However, Rob Riggle put on some Michigan gear and pretty much made the entire crowd want to kill him. What a brave, brave man.John Hodgman, Daily Show Resident Expert and second busiest man alive (after Flavor Flav, because going through an intense book tour is just slightly less taxing than Flavor of Love), dropped by to talk about the new computerized voting methods. "These new voting machines are SHINY. They go beep and boop." This segment got me thinking... Which would be more awesome? The Diebold Transformer or the Diebold Accuclaw?
Continue reading The Daily Show: November 2, 2006
The Daily Show: October 5, 2006
Congress has $20 million for an Iraq victory party. I thought this was a joke. It's not. However, the ice sculpture of Saddam pissing freedom was a joke. Unfortunate."Operation: Just Clause": Holy crap. Bush quote on the Iraq War... "When this chapter of history will be written... it's going to be a comma -- the Iraqis voted, comma, and the United States of America understood that Iraq was a central front in the war on terror and helped this young democracy flourish." A comma? Jon was spot-on... The Spanish Inquisition can be summed up as just a tilde (~). The extended montage of Bush trying to explain what is job is... that was brilliant. Jon seemed genuinely pissed about it. Oh, and the part when he plugged the cord into an avocado was great.
Continue reading The Daily Show: October 5, 2006
The Daily Show: October 4, 2006
"Paged Heat": Groans for the "GOP BBQ and nude Cub Scout wrestling" joke. Well, actually, the reaction for all the Mark Foley coverage can probably just be summed up in one massive, disgusted groan. How could Jon have possibly been surprised when the audience got all grossed out from his joke about Foley finger-banging two sophomores from Model UN on the catwalk of the rotunda? Eww.Continue reading The Daily Show: October 4, 2006
The Daily Show: September 11, 2006
Jon Stewart and the gang returned after a two-week break (riding high from his two Emmy wins, I suppose). "We wanted to come back on a day that felt, y'know, funny." Of course, the first news was regarding the controversy over the inaccuracies of ABC's 9/11 mini-series, "because, as you know, nothing is typically more accurate than a made-for-television movie." I loved the montage of Bush's Stages of Grief (denial, anger, anger, anger, Hanukkah, acceptance, denial).Continue reading The Daily Show: September 11, 2006
The Daily Show: May 15, 2006
Jon Stewart attempted to summarize Bush's speech, despite taping The Daily Show a few hours before the speech even aired. Bush has decided to tap Mexicans' phones. Donning his ever-accurate Bush impression, Jon said, "Jose hasn't been using his phone... I think he might have made the move North."Continue reading The Daily Show: May 15, 2006
The Daily Show vs. The Colbert Report
The first stars a fake newsman with a wicked smirk, and the second stars a fake right-wing pundit with a vicious cocked eyebrow. They both skewer all the ridiculous aspects of America's take on democracy. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report share the late night 11 - midnight block on Comedy Central and have a tight-knit relationship (the segues alone are proof of this), so I'm always surprised by how so many people have extremely strong preferences over one or the other.
So, which one do you like better? Read about my personal choice after the jump.
Continue reading The Daily Show vs. The Colbert Report
The Daily Show: May 8, 2006
Jon started off with some coverage of weatherpeople on local news, specifically those from Terre Haute, Indiana's WTWO. They showed a couple of funny clips of WTWO bragging about their 45 years of combined weather experience, totally PWNing rival channel WTHI's puny 30 years. "Man! I bet they can't tell snow from dingleberries!"Continue reading The Daily Show: May 8, 2006
The Daily Show: April 17, 2006
Exxon's executive chief, Lee Raymond, is
going to receive a very nice retirement
package of $400 million. A package nice enough to outrage the public, suffering from rising gas prices. Jon also let
us take
a look at Mr. Raymond. Before we had a chance to judge, Jon insisted that Mr. Raymond's wicked jowls are not
"the embodiment of greed run amok", but a very important storage system for valuable items such as doubloons,
collectible baseball cards and Munch's "Scream".
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