Humor

          

MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell reporting the results of yesterday's Democratic gubernatorial primary in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Screenshot via FamousDC.com

It takes a big man to admit when he’s been bested. I have to say however, that after this one I had to walk away with my head hanging in shame.  You win this round, Mr Olbermann… You win this round. [video below page break]

In my defense however, I will say that Maddow came way out of left field with the double-teaming.  I personally found it to be distasteful… But well played on Maddow’s part.

'The Goode Family,' a new half-hour animated comedy show which spoofs the politically-correct and environmental do-good thinking of a liberal family which considers its lifestyle superior to “abstinence people” who “wear flag pins,” debuted this past Wednesday night on ABC. The opening scene showed a “Support Our Troops...And Their Opponents” bumper sticker on the family's hybrid.

When the 16-year-old son who the parents adopted from Africa and presumed he'd be black, but to their surprise was a white South African, wants to start driving, the father cautions: “With greater emissions, comes greater responsibility.” In another scene, the mother declares “nothing brings a mother and daughter closer together than shopping at a high-end, organic grocery store.” And inside the store an intercom announcement alerts shoppers: “Check out the big board to see how you can limit the impact of your existence.”

I won't give away all that's in the accompanying video in which I cobbled together a little under three minutes of what I thought were the funnier and most-damning parodies of liberal thinking .

When wind blew over a Teleprompter while he was addressing the commencement crowd at the Air Force Academy on May 27, 2009, VP Joe Biden joked: "What I am going to tell the president when I tell him his TelePrompTer is broken? What will he do then?'' (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

With Saturday Night Live now in re-runs until September, my offering for a little Saturday night -- media bias-based -- humor.

Nearly five years ago, when compliant journalists were touting then-vice presidential candidate John Edwards and admiring his supposed idyllic marriage to Elizabeth Edwards, Katie Couric celebrated the happy couple's annual wedding anniversary “romantic ritual” of eating at Wendy's, wondering as all three laughed together: “What do you say, 'One Frosty, two straws?'” Pretty ridiculous in retrospect.

In the taped interview aired on the Thursday, July 15, 2004 Today show, Couric cued up the couple: “I know you'll be celebrating your 27th wedding anniversary. And I understand you go through a romantic ritual every year to commemorate that date. Share it with us will you?” John Edwards answered that “we go to Wendy's for our anniversary” before his wife provided her take, prompting a delighted Couric to marvel: “So every year for 26 years so far?” As John Edwards quipped “you could question our sanity,” Couric jumped in: “I was gonna say, what do you say, 'One Frosty, two straws?'”

Audio: MP3 clip (48 seconds)

Pres. Barack Obama delivers his commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, Sunday, May 17, 2009. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast) 

Updated at bottom of post.

Did the former womanizer-in-chief pat The Nanny on the fanny? Numerous blogs and newspapers are asking that question thanks to a photo of former President Bill Clinton with his hand over actress Fran Drescher's posterior. 

Today's  "The Reliable Source" column in the Washington Post notes Bill Clinton's global jetsetting and charity fundraising, mentioning the appearance with Drescher at the Life Ball benefit. The column includes a photo of Clinton with his right arm around Drescher, his hand well above the waist, grasping her right shoulder.

Yet gossip columnists Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts failed to note another photo that has caused a stir. Belgian Web site 7sur7.be has the photo at its site (pictured at right). Here's a somewhat clunky English translation, courtesy of Google, from the original French:

The proudest moment in his career, Late Show writer Bill Scheft boasted at a Friday comedy writer panel held at Washington, DC's Newseum, was when he got David Letterman to try to undermine guest John McCain's Bill Ayers talking point by raising McCain's relationship with G. Gordon Liddy -- as if a political dirty trickster were the equivalent of a terrorist involved with bombings which killed people, could have killed hundreds more if his attempts worked and remains unrepentant. At the event, organized by the Writers Guild of America, East, and shown Saturday night on C-SPAN, Scheft declared of his effort to discredit an anti-Obama point: “I'm more proud of that than any single joke that I've written.” That earned applause from the audience.

Later, to a chorus of “yeah” from other writers on the stage representing The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Late Night, as well as another Late Show writer (Tom Ruprecht, who is in front of Scheft in the screen shot, the best I could get), Scheft insisted the only reason the comedy shows don't make fun of President Barack Obama is because he's “a little too damn competent and we ain't used to that.”

Earlier in the day, some of the participants delivered stand-up acts and DCRTV.com's “page 2" recounted this “joke” from Scheft: “Former Vice President Dick Cheney -- I actually don’t have a joke here, I just like to say former Vice President Dick Cheney.”

Barack Obama’s first White House Correspondents’ Dinner is tonight, and the comedian in the roasting job is Wanda Sykes. The burning question: will Sykes really make fun of the president, or go all gentle, since she is a big Obama fan?

I suspect she’ll do a few jokes in the usual accepted vein, some messiah jokes and some tax-evading nominee jokes, but nothing like Stephen Colbert’s 2006 Bush-trashing leftist routine, complete with Helen Thomas-like attacks on the media for being in Bush’s pocket. Here's some examples:

– To actually sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what? I'm a pretty sound sleeper -- that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face.

Chris Matthews just can't get it up. The Democratic Party label that is.

On the May 8 "Hardball", the MSNBC anchor noted in his Political Sideshow segment that  Reps. Jim Moran (Va.) and Bob Brady (Pa.), are up in arms about erectile dysfunction drug ads running on television and are sponsoring legislation before the House to ban television stations from running ads for drugs like Viagra and Cialis from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. The Democratic congressmen argue the ads are indecent for children. [get audio for download here]

While the legislation's premise seems prudish at worst and laughably silly at best, Matthews insisted that the congressmen, who are "regular guys" and "both friends of mine" were simply "looking out for the kids." All the same, he failed to give the Democratic Party credit for threatening the cold shower of government regulation on the drug commercials.

Mother's Day was invented by Anna Jarvis, a West Virginian who, from 1907 to 1914 devoted considerable energy to establishing state and national holidays marking Mother's Day. Jarvis's inspiration, of course, was her deep devotion to her late mother.

But don't tell Whoopi Goldberg that. [audio for download here]

"I feel like Mother's Day is a man's holiday. You know, because it was put together, a woman didn't put together Mother's Day. A woman put together several other holidays but Mother's Day was not one of them," the moderator of ABC's "The View"  insisted on the May 8 program.

The faulty assertion came during a chat with Alyse Myers, author of "Who Do You Think You Are?", which chronicles her strained relationship with her mother. 

For your TGIF viewing fun, NBC “Today” show co-host Meredith Vieira has lost control of her verbal filters again.

From Vieira’s Super Bowl week performance, in which she claimed that she and NBC weatherman Al Roker were “moist,” to the last unfortunate double-entendre involving speculation on the past tense of “Tweet,” the morning show hostess today wondered whether the Statue of Liberty was wearing undergarments beneath her robes.  

Once again, colleague Matt Lauer played the long-suffering professional, keeping a straight face.  Weatherman Al Roker, however, pounced.  Video of the latest gaffe is embedded at right.

Today's Los Angeles Times has a story about freelance comedy writers who get paid for their jokes submitted to late night comics that actually make the cut and air in a monologue. Times staffers Matea Gold and Richard Verrier report that "For some late-night hosts, the laughs come cheap."

But alas, it's actually a violation of labor contracts for late night shows to pay freelancers. What's more, with Conan O'Brien acceeding to Leno's throne in June, the practice is expected to stop altogether for NBC's "Tonight Show."

O'Brien is one of the few late-night hosts to refuse freelance jokes, and East Coast guild officials used his move to privately remind their California counterparts of the prohibition.

"Conan is one of the key players in this industry, and we knew he was pure on this issue," said Lowell Peterson, executive director of the WGA, East. "This was just an opportunity to let the West know that this was a culture that was moving west. We just want to encourage that culture."

With Saturday Night Live airing a re-run/compilation show, I thought I'd provide a flavor of the comedy stylings of former President George W. Bush -- made possible by a Vanity Fair article posted April 28 about Bush's post-presidential life. “George in Real Life: George W. Bush takes on his most daunting challenge yet: his own legacy,” by Nancy Jo Sales, is informative -- if you can overlook or get around the incessant and gratuitous belittling remarks from Sales who treated Bill Maher as an expert on Bush's legacy.

She did, however, helpfully relay three jokes Bush delivered during his first public appearance on March 17 in Calgary. So, conjure up a drum roll...

♦ The former President says that his first day home in Preston Hollow, the suburb of Dallas where he and his wife moved in January, he kicked back on the couch and hollered, “Baby, free at last!” To which Laura responded, “‘Yeah, you’re free to take out the trash. Consider it your new domestic policy agenda.’” Big laugh. A woman at my table mouths, “He’s so funny!”

On the Today show of April 30, 2009, VP Joe Biden tells Matt Lauer that in light of the swine flu epidemic, he would advise family members not to travel by plane or train.

No bias here, just some fun at White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs's expense.

"White House Press Secretary began his daily briefing, even though Pres. Obama was speaking at the U.Conn event. Considered a no-no," CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller noted via his Twitter account just shortly after 2:30 p.m. EDT.

Education journalist Dakarai I. Aarons asked Knoller:

@markknoller any precedent for holding a briefing while the president is speaking elsewhere?

To which the veteran journalist answered:

@d_aarons In 30 years of covering the White House - it's just not done. the press secretary waits till the Pres is done, before starting...

With NBC running a Saturday Night Live re-run, I thought I'd catch up with something I meant to post a couple of weekends ago: How the new conservative comic strip, “The Gentleman from Lickskillet,” by Allen and Tuma, devoted a week of strips to liberal media bias.

Check here for the April 6-11 strips featuring the 'Mouthful' TV show with guest Howland Fonebone of 'Group Think' magazine.

Hmm, who could they be ridiculing?

The Gentleman from Lickskillet is plugged as “a comic strip for everyone who can't help but laugh at the politicians in Washington.” And, sometimes, the Washington press corps.

CIA Director Leon Panetta and Pres. Obama at the Central Intelligence Agency, April 20, 2009.

Well, that's one vote for Meghan McCain for Republican Party chairman. Too bad it's from a radical feminist columnist and blogger who insists that abortion is a "good decision" in the midst of a recession.

That's right, US News & World Report contributing editor Bonnie Erbe hacked out a short blog yesterday -- appropriately on 4/20, as if to answer the question, "What exactly is she smoking?" -- in which she praises the Daily Beast columnist and daughter of the Arizona Sen. John McCain as the future of the GOP:

Although Meghan McCain can sometimes come off a bit, shall we say, different, she gave a speech at the Log Cabin Republicans meeting this weekend that shows she has a brain and represents the views of lots and lots of young people and young members of the GOP.

[...]

NBC News has had its over-the-top Green Week and ABC has seriously chronicled the ludicrous exploits of "No Impact Man" and a Los Angeles man who composts his own garbage in his basement.

But rarely if ever do the mainstream media present green enthusiasts as, to put this delicately, difficult people with whom to live under the same roof.

So on behalf of NewsBusters, here's kudos to the Washington Posts's David Fahrenthold, for today's front-pager, "D.C. Area Families Take Green to the Extreme," in which he documents, among others, a man who harangues his sister to bathe with a bucket to catch the shower water for reuse for laundry loads:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Well, shucks. Maybe Arizona State University should give Obama an honorary degree after all. After all, he can raise the Dead. The Grateful Dead, that is.

John Rogers of the Associated Press explains in his April 17 story, "How Barack Obama resurrected The Dead" (h/t e-mail tipster Sarah Anne Hoyt):

LOS ANGELES – He's still got a little work to do on the economy, but already President Barack Obama has accomplished at least one task that had appeared all but impossible just a year ago: He's put The Dead back on the road.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews, infamous for getting a “thrill” up his leg while drinking in a speech by Barack Obama and his ongoing adoration for the President (“He is the new us!”), became the punch line of a joke on NBC's own Saturday Night Live.

During the Weekend Update segment on the April 11 show, SNL's news anchor, Seth Myers, delivered this “news” item, illustrated by a creative matching graphic:

A new comic is being published this summer called 'Barack the Barbarian' which features the President in a loin cloth. Also featuring the President in a loin cloth: Chris Matthews' daydreams.

Not that much of a stretch. Or maybe no stretch at all.

President Barack Obama bows to Saudi King Abdullah at the G-20 conference in London.  Photo AFP.

Chris Matthews, on Wednesday's "Hardball," admitted Barack Obama, along with his wife Michelle this time, gave him yet another "thrill." The MSNBC host gleefully described his feelings at seeing the Obamas arrive in England for the G20 summit this way [audio available here]:

Well there is something cool when they were both - there's a nice ‘60s term. When they were both walking to the helicopter the other day, Marine One, there was something like, when he looked at her, you could just tell he said, "Isn't this something?" You know you could tell like they were experiencing the-, the, I'm getting old here. The grooviness, the excitement of being this First American Couple heading towards Marine One, which is cool in itself, heading from there to Air Force One, to a quick flight across the Atlantic, on your own plane. And to meet with the world leaders as like the centerpiece of the world. What? I get-, I'm saying it again, I'm getting a thrill.

Matthews, who invited the Washington Post's Lois Romano and the Independent Women's Forum Michelle Bernard to join in on the Obama-watching fun, also giddily admitted: "We girls agree. I don't mind saying that. I'm excited. I'm thrilled. Any way I like it all! I like the picture, I like the substance. "

The following is the full exchange Matthews had with his panelists on the April 1, edition of "Hardball":

PBS "To the Contrary" host, staunch feminist, and Pope-basher Bonnie Erbe has now taken to preaching vegetarianism on the Thomas Jefferson Street blog at US News & World Report. Fortunately for everyone, Erbe wouldn't dream of joining vegan supermodels in skin-bearing protest. All the same, she threw out this ridiculous claim to Christian readers in a March 27 post:

Even if you believe in the Christian god, there is ample evidence that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian.

Of course, the Bible records that the resurrected Jesus not only ate but on one occasion personally prepared a tasty breakfast of broiled fish for his disciples. Perhaps that's why Erbe hedged her bets by adding: