Rob Riggle vs. Glenn Beck

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Hard not to watch in morbid fascination the media freak show that is Glenn Beck, even from a distance, via the blogs or the youtube clips or the "analyses" of folks like Matt Taibbi and Don Imus this morning.

As the anecdotes about the show pile up—the tears streaming, the guest fainting, the phony gasoline pouring—you have to wonder where this is all headed. The Alamo for teabagging time. I mean, really. Symbolism, much? This is not going to end well.

Meanwhile, you have the Daily Show. And last night's guest, Elizabeth Warren, Congress' watchdog on the TARP program. Who did more to explain and clarify and contextualize where we are in the economic universe and how we got there and how we may be able to pull ourselves out...if we stay on track and don't keep pulling out the threads of regulation...than all the ranters and pontificaters seen anywhere in teeveeland. That segment alone justifies Daily Show's existence for the millennium.

I am not exaggerating. From kindergarten to Congress, everyone, including the clueless Pensacola teabaggers, should be sat down and forced to pay attention.

And then there was the discrete Zen Moment:

"I'm the King. You're Nothing...."

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This is a pure, unabashed love letter to the geniuses at The Daily Show.

Last night, we saw firsthand more actual in-depth investigative journalism and news analysis through their comedy prism than the rest of the cable and network newsbots have given us for months.

Which brings me to Ralph Kramden. If you've never seen the Golden Age comedy genius of The Honeymooners, you've missed iconic television.

Ralph, the forever dreaming bus driver, was always brought back down to earth by his wife, Alice. There's a whole lotta Ralphs in the country these days, easily beguiled by schemes--like oh, say, trickle-down Reaganomics. One wishes a lot more of the Joe-the-Plumbers these days would have Alices in their lives.

Among the classic moments of the scarce 39 episodes was one where Ralph revs himself up and blusters at his wife, Alice:

I'm the king...you're nothing. The king. You're nothing....
He paces around their tiny flat, arms flailing. Building himself up more and more.

Alice watches him with long suffering patience.

Well, then, that would make you the king of nothing.

We see a whole lotta Ralphitude out of the Republicans these days. But unlike Gleason's character, this isn't a role for them. A few Alice types have emerged. Colin Powell among them.

Rumor is there are a bunch of other Republicans sharing Powell's views, but not willing to speak out. Shame on them.

McCain and his campaign are going out of their way to appeal to the Inner Ralph Kramden these days. Divisive, distorting, and attacking. Because what he has to offer is same ol' same ol'.

And when we can't count on the traditional news media to cut through the political spin with facts rather than endlessly playing over and over the same distorted attacks from McCain [yes, I am listening to McCain on CNN as I type, why do you ask...]....

Then we do, yes, turn to the comedians. Like Jon Stewart's smackdown of the Photeny Palin Truth Squadders Nancy Pfotenhauer, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann.

And speaking of Sarah Palin... did you see Jason Jones' on the scene reporting from Wasilla? The interview with the current mayor of the community that provides no city services... No education services... No...

Well, see it for yourself. 'cause Sarah Palin... and John McCain... Now there's the king of nothing.
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(crossposted at Firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette)

"Last" President

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Last night on The Daily Show, John Oliver spun out for Jon Stewart why George W. Bush could go down in history not as our worst president...but as our last....

The thing about stampedes to action...as is this hoo-rah taking place right now in Washington over the $700 Billion billionaire bailout...for all the trail dust and shouting...we need to not only deal with the crisis but also, in the words of Jim Lehrer this morning on Imus, "walk this cat back" and figure out what went wrong.

Which frankly gives me more hope for substance when Lehrer moderates the first Obama-McCain debate Friday at Ole Miss than for later tonight when Audio-animatronic Bush appears on television soberly slowly sin-cerely reciting "catastrophe" over and over to the teevee camera.

When the former majority leader of the House, Dick Armey says BushCo bald-faced lied to him in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, why would any rational thinking human being believe anything being churned out of this White House?

Across the spectrum, politicians and ordinary citizens of all stripes are coming together to reject this Bush-push package politely called a bailout...when we folks on Main Street know it's the financial elites trying one last grab at America's resources. Even Congressional Republicans are tellin' Cheney hell no.

Bush once told us he was a uniter not a divider. Finally, we're seeing that. "Last" president, jokes the Daily Show.

Not a joke, just sad, sad, sad this pathetic excuse for a man and an administration. Is it too much to hope tonight is the last clusterfuck contrivance of incoherence packaged as a speech to the nation?

We all want Bush gone.

Repairing the Brand?

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George Dubya Bush tells Martha Raddatz in a soft-focus interview on ABC Nightly News that he plans to go back to Crawford and write a book... How 'bout you read one first, George?

All's just soft and soothing and so very, very.... ah, b.s. The crap detector alarm is blaring off the scale these days when it comes to anything connected to George Dubya Bush. Unless, of course, you're Fox News' Ministry of Propaganda oh-so-ably deconstructed by the little Brit from The Daily Show. Michael Moore must be beaming.

The House of Bush Cards is tumbling down and the propaganda efforts to reinvent his history via the cocktail wienie media isn't going to put it back up again.

The ditch is far too deep and wide that he has driven US into. Truth will out.

Culling the Heard

Decisions are being made today, undecideds are finally deciding on someone. The first vote tallies are in from Dixville Notch, and Obama scores as many votes single-handedly as all the Republicans combined.

As the day unfolds, exit polls, pundits — the “experts” — will tell us what it all means. Or not.

We’re seeing a paradigm shift these days. There are all kinds of metaphors for what’s happening.

My personal favorite just because of the divine justice of it, post-Katrina, is that the Republican party is quaking and shuddering and slumping away like a levee hit by the rising Democratic tide. Their feats of clay aren’t made for walkin’ any more…

So maybe Tsunami Tuesday coming up on February 5 takes on a whole ’nother meaning.

There are some other decisions being made in the culture as well.

Last night we tuned in the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Not before trying to find out whether they were right with the WGA. And you know, there’s been about as much of a clampdown on that conversation as the mainstream media’s clampdown on coverage of presidential candidate John Edwards. Whazzup with that?

We ran across one little dustup over at Crooks and Liars down in a Huckabee thread…check it out for yourself, starting at comment 56. Some hot feelings. Where’s there’s fire, there’s smoke?

So today, New Hampshire gets its moment in the spotlight and then the swarm moves on to Nevada and South Carolina. Around here, we’ve already decided. For Edwards Before Iowa.

And Comedy Central’s stars and soon Bill Maher and already Letterman and Leno and Ferguson and Kimmel and…well, the vote’s not totally in. But in our household, by bedtime last night, regarding the Stewart/Colbert return, we’d decided we’re “ambivalent.”