He's Coming!

It's the day after Easter, and you know what that means...

Al Franken Fan Club — Sign Me Up

Al Franken Is The Change We've Been Waiting For

Seriously. This guy is good.

I don't think there's another Senator in either party that can stand there and have that kind of discussion with a crowd—particularly a crowd of his political adversaries.

He's informed, he's engaged and engaging, he speaks clearly and directly and treats the people he's talking to like adults. He answered every question and treated each questioner with respect—and received it in kind.

Every one of those teabaggers will walk away from that conversation, at the very least, questioning what they thought they knew going in. Some might even walk away persuaded.

The GOP should be scared shitless of that guy—maybe they already are and that's why they stalled the election certification so long.

As for the rest of the Democrats—all the way up to Obama: Watch, and take fucking notes, you jackasses.

[h/t Balloon Juice]

Memorable Movie Quotes

This is a pretty good way to waste three minutes...



I'd swap out maybe ten percent of those. Notable ommissions?

"KKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHNN!!"

"We're on a mission from God." (or something from the Blues Brothers)

"On my signal, unleash hell."

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room." or "WAAAAHOOOO" as Slim Pickens rides the bomb in Dr Strangelove.

"It was beauty killed the beast."

"Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker." Is a much better Die Hard line...though I can understand why they didn't pick it.

"Well you're better than any player I ever had. And you're the best God damn hitter I ever saw. Suit up."

Easter's Over—Watch Your Back!

It's the day after Easter, and you know what that means...



Best. YouTube. Ever.

Much-Needed Levity

Medicatin' in the Minivan

I've seen this thing all over the place, labelled everything from cute to hilarious—I actually find it disturbing...



Sorry, but dads that are more worried about YouTubing their kids when they actually need to be held and comforted kinda piss me off.

Steady...steady...

Still gives me fucking goosebumps...that thing is awesome.

Best. YouTube. Ever.

Brilliant.



Thanks, I really needed that.

[h/t Sullivan]

Linkdump [continually updated]

BACK TO THE FUTURE
Ron Howard's Obama video at FunnyOrDie.

CONVENTIONAL “WISDOM”
Salon.com lists the seven biggest things the political punditry called wrong...I'm not even sure that list gets it right, but I can say I got all but one right (I had a brief period—measured in hours—of panic about Palin), but I was spot-on with 4,5 and 6—and, more importantly, so was Obama.

LESS AGITATING
In an OpEd that appeared at reason.com and FOXNews.com, Radley Balko makes the libertarian case for Obama. Good stuff, and I don't even take issue with his reservations about Obama. Forward to any center-right or true conservative you know.

EPIC PFAIL
Chris Matthews—perhaps making up for lost time and lack of effort—relentlessly pummels a McCain spokesperson on Palin's misunderstanding of the job of VP.

IRRELEVANT
I wouldn't give a shit what al-Qaeda had to say about President Barack Obama, or the price of figs—so I don't really care about this supposed "endorsement" of McCain, and bloggers who waste more pixels on it than I just did are being jackasses.

WHERE'S THE FIRE?
Unbelievable video from a red-light camera in St. Louis...



Nobody was seriously hurt, which seems almost impossible. But, I have to ask...how the hell did that happen? Were they going to two different fires or what? BTW, that could never happen in Asheville as both trucks would be hemmed in by a bunch of Outback-driving stoners.

Late Night Awesome 2: Geriatric Boogaloo

John McCain probably wishes he never rescheduled his Letterman appearance...



Letterman just hammers him—on Palin in particular. He uses disarming humor in many instances, but underneath it all he makes McCain try to defend the indefensible and McCain ends up looking like a fool, and all of his selling of Palin comes across like a watered down sales pitch for Obama. It's awesome television.

During the interview, McCain promises to have Palin appear on the show. Trust me when I say, there is no way in hell that actually happens. I would have put the chances of that at slim to none BEFORE Letterman ridiculed her selection to John McCain's face...After that? No fucking way.

GOTDV

Deb "tagged" me to spread the word on this...



It's a couple minutes longer than it needs to be, and it's probably too clever for the dopes it's aimed at, but it's pretty good.

Thirteen Minutes

...is all it takes to reduce John McCain' reputation of a Maverick™ and reformer to rubble.



How much would a thirteen minute ad cost?

Prediction: Look for some horrendously produced rip-off / response video from the McCain camp—only, unlike this one which is 100% true and skewers McCain with his own defense attorney—The GOP version will be complete fabrication about Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers rowing a boat out to Hawaii to indoctrinate an eight-year-old boy to be their Manchurian Black Panther candidate for President forty years later...

Re-run

I've posted this before, but I just got it in an email again, and it's worth re-posting in case you haven't seen it... After the erratic, unstable, desperate and increasingly bellicose behavior of McCain over the last month or so, this is even scarier...



Pass it on.

Late Night Awesome

Don't leave Dave Letterman holding the bag and expect him to cover for you...



John McCain gambles and loses AGAIN. He cancels on Letterman, telling him "he's needed immediately in Washington and the campaign is suspended"...then he goes down the street and tapes an interview with Katie Couric.

Bad move.

Letterman leads the show with five solid minutes of just wailing on McCain, and then brings in Keith Olbermann to fill the time!

Which video is going to be passed around the internet and watched by more people? Letterman's drubbing or Couric's foot massage?

I don't think that's even close...

UPDATE: This morning on ABC News radio: A wrap-up story on Letterman hammering McCain, including a clip; zero coverage of Couric interview.

Happy Birthday, Professor

"simplest possible stickings across it..." Indeed.

[h/t Space Cowboy]

UPDATE: I told you I could watch this shit all day night...There's a YouTube of ten of the best minutes of recorded music in history. "Xanadu" from "Exit: Stage Left"

"Live Mic" Murphy and Peggy "Noonan!"

This is awesome. During RNC coverage today, Republican strategist Mike Murphy and conservative WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan are busted during a break revealing their true opinions of the Palin pick...



Keep those comments in mind when these two bullshit artists give the polar opposite as their "analysis" later tonite.

(In case you can't see the video, or had trouble hearing it, here's the transcript.)

Chuck Todd: [...] Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she's the right woman for the job Up next, one man who's already convinced and he'll us why, Gov. Jon Huntsman.

(cut away)

Peggy Noonan: Yeah.

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

PN: It's over.

MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MM: They're all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.

UPDATE: Noonan explains herself. Some convincing, some not as much.

Chilling

Spread it far and wide.

Power Trio Solo

In the response threads to the Music Meme, Rush has been subjected to lots of love and inclusion and some derision. I can see the love/hate thing there with Geddy Lee's voice or if one suffers from a debilitating lack of appreciation for musicianship, but you just cannot deny the awesomeness of this...

Eleven-Year-Old Girl Plays Rush's YYZ



Via Bob Cesca's Goddamn Awesome Blog (which, btw, it is).

To Do List

Gotta start watching this show...

No.

I don't know if any of that is true. But it's coming from the Clinton camp for some reason—whether it's about an actual exit from the race or press-managing-gamesmanship is unclear. Either way, Obama needs to be giving her the Heisman. Big Time.

That this shit is going on—or if it's not, that she tolerates this tactic from her "inner circle"—is Exhibit A why she is undeserving of a VP nod from Obama or the office of President she seeks. To put it mildly, who the fuck does she think she is?

The always-excellent Hilzoy does a better job with this than I can, or have time to try [emphasis mine]:

I have been thinking about Clinton's conduct ever since she compared her efforts to get the Florida and Michigan votes counted to abolitionists, suffragists, and the current crisis in Zimbabwe. I agree with Josh Marshall that her attempts to gin up resentment and a sense that the nomination was stolen from her are toxic. Even Ezra Klein, who has been a lot more open to Clinton than many people, has concluded that she is trying to ensure that Obama loses. Since then, there have been a lot of stories wondering what on earth she is up to. And while I haven't heard what the NYPost describes as a "Groundswell Of Calls For O-Hill Union", there has definitely been a groundswell of stories about that alleged groundswell, much of which seems to be coming from the Clinton campaign itself. There have also been a lot of stories asking: what does Obama need to do to keep her on board?

Note what's missing here: any sense that Clinton herself is a responsible moral agent. People are writing about her as though she were a bomb that needed to be expertly defused, as opposed to a person who can govern her own life, and is responsible for her own choices.

I am aware that it must be hard to face the fact that you've lost. But it became clear that she was not going to win the nomination months ago -- I would say after Wisconsin, but certainly after Texas. Moreover, this is not unprecedented. People lose the nomination every four years. Most of the time, they do not stay on until it is mathematically impossible for them to win; they leave when it has become clear that they will not win. They do not complain about disenfranchising all the states with later primaries, they do not threaten to keep their supporters home, and they certainly do not threaten "open civil war" if they don't get nominated for Vice President. On those rare occasions when some candidate does this in the absence of some truly monumental issue, we normally think that that candidate is a narcissistic and unprincipled person who has just shown why s/he should never, ever be President.

There is absolutely no reason not to apply these same standards to Hillary Clinton. Right now, instead of floating demands in the press and comparing herself to abolitionists and suffragists, she could be telling her supporters that she lost fair and square; that while there was a lot of sexism in the campaign, there was racism as well, and that sexism does not explain why a candidate with literally every institutional advantage over her opponent lost the nomination. She could be reaching out to the voters who supported her in places where Obama has had trouble, and urging them to vote for him. She could, in a word, be doing the right thing: trying to earn that respect she seems to want.

Instead, she's throwing tantrums, making demands that she has no right to make, and threatening civil war.