Humor

Sometimes when you're surfing through the web or watching TV, you come across a story that's so ridiculous it makes you wonder if the reporter who filed it even bothered for a second to think how stupid they sound.

That's definitely the case with this piece from Los Angeles Times reporter Tina Daunt:

Ronald Reagan became president even though he worked with chimps in B movies.

Arnold Schwarzenegger played a murderous robot, and that didn't keep him from becoming governor.

So can "Law & Order" actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) become the first presidential candidate with this credit? Thompson played a white supremacist, spewing anti-Semitic comments and fondling an autographed copy of "Mein Kampf" on a television drama 19 years ago.

Yes, apparently you can fondle a book. Daunt continues:

Or call it the liberal wince of the day. From Laurie David, wife of someone and producer of the Academy Award-winning mockumentary An Inconvenient Spoof Truth.

2 What was it like to work with Al Gore?

By the time I was done working with him, I was begging him to adopt me. He's like a father figure to me, one of my heroes. He's so charming and lovely and smart and funny. He makes fun of himself; he's got a great sense of humor. He's dry and he laughs at other people's jokes.

And you wonder why liberals want a nanny state.

The New York Times' quest for social justice knows no out-of-bounds, judging by the front-page placement Wednesday of "Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls" by sportswriter Alan Schwarz. Years after failing to secure Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor the right to golf at Augusta National Golf Club, the Times has now turned to the plight of multimillionaire NBA players who get bad foul calls.

"An academic study of the National Basketball Association, whose playoffs continue tonight, suggests that a racial bias found in other parts of American society has existed on the basketball court as well.

"A coming paper by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell University graduate student says that, during the 13 seasons from 1991 through 2004, white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players.

Update (12:13 EDT): Video and audio links below.

CBS’s Bob Schieffer offered commentary on Senator and presidential candidate Joe Biden, but one would think he was describing former President Bill Clinton. On the May 2 edition of "The Early Show" host Harry Smith and Schieffer were ironically discussing a recent gaffe by Senator Biden, when Schieffer stated the Delaware Senator "has a habit of making these boners." Presumably Schieffer meant to say "blunders." For the record, Senator Biden’s gaffe was video of him telling a prospective voter that Democrats were "going to shove [the president’s veto] down his throat."

On Tuesday, well known Bush hater Frank Rich appeared on liberal Stephanie Miller radio show. (Miller is being given a test run this week on MSNBC in the departed Don Imus’ spot.) Proving that there’s nothing the New York Times columnist can’t use to slam the President, Rich attacked Bush for not telling jokes at the White House Correspondents Dinner and members of the media for not rebelling against it:

Frank Rich: "The, uh, the general play where Bush stand up and says he is not going to do his usual comedy routine because of Virginia Tech, that’s outrageous and the press sits there and applauds."

The Federal Communications Commission defined broadcast indecency in 1987 as "language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities."

Brent Bozell’s culture column this week reports that ABC’s "According to Jim" had an entire plot revolve around the gag (and "gag" is probably the right word) that the Jim Belushi character ate his wedding ring and his wife waited to catch him in the act of pooping it out. It apparently lands with a "clank." His wife and her siblings then pop out of the shower with an a-ha. Brent writes: "This is certainly a plot based on (implied) excretory activities, but it’s certainly not what the regulators had in mind. I suspect that when these rules were written there wasn’t a soul at the FCC who believed ‘humor’ would ever come to this."

Does "Dilbert" creator Scott Adams keep tabs on Katie Couric?

The mini-scandal got buried by the Imus flap, but a few weeks ago CBS fired a Couric producer for plagiarizing from a Wall Street Journal column. The offending item was the vlog script she wrote for Couric's April 4 "Notebook," wherein Couric waxed nostalgic for childhood and worried that today's kids aren't as enamored with the public library as she was.

I was reminded of Katie's ghostwritten blog when I saw the April 26 edition of "Dilbert." In it, Dilbert's buffoonish pointy-haired boss announced to his long-suffering secretary that he was starting his own blog. Of course, he expected her to write it up herself by noon, cooing that he "can't wait to see what I'm thinking."

(see strip below, also linked here):

TV Newser has a post this morning featuring a funny little gaffe involving NBC's Tim Russert. He misspells "Iraq" as "I-R-A-K" on last night's "Nightly News."

To be fair, "Irak" is the correct spelling in Spanish. Maybe Russert could pull double duty on NBC Universal's Telemundo.

On his HBO show that aired over the last week, Bill Maher joked that last Friday, "President Bush spoke at a Catholic prayer breakfast, and you could tell this was a Catholic prayer breakfast because [Maher laughs] it was in the morning and he said 'I'm dying for a little joe' and they brought him an altar boy." The crowd laughed and applauded, and Maher said, "See, I'm not afraid!"

Aside from the fact there are craven bishops who still deserve this joke, isn't this show supposed to be "topical"? Isn't this a little like cracking jokes about that wacky Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle?

A week after we heard endless lectures about how hard-working ethical heroes like the Rutgers women in no way deserve the humor Don Imus dished out, can't we also suggest that hard-working ethical heroes like the nation's Catholic priests in no way deserve Maher's line of "ho" humor?

Mother Nature must have a wicked sense of humor. She forced ABC's Sam Champion to report on anti-global warming initiative . . . . while standing in a field of snow in late April.

Champion was there as part of Good Morning America's "Planet Earth 2007" segment, in which reporters chimed in from around the globe on various environmental initiatives. Diane Sawyer [badly alarmed by a warm spell in January] introduced the segment with a little bit of enviro-alarmist cheerleading, declaring it was "good news" that as per a recent Stanford poll 94% are ready to make a change to help the planet and that 73% are already taking steps to reduce energy consumption.

Here's a little lighthearted item to punctuate the serious news of the past day.

"The View" co-host Joy Behar appeared on today's "Martha Stewart Show" to help the program's host make piñatas from scratch. The final product: a piñata emblazoned with Rosie O'Donnell's photographic image.

For what it's worth, Behar insisted in a Q&A session with the audience that the heated discussion on-set doesn't translate to off-camera animosity.

Tucked in the back of Sunday's Washington Post Magazine was the usual humor column by Gene Weingarten, devoted this week to allegedly feeling sorry for George W. Bush's low standing in public opinion, then relishing the idea of anti-Bush feeling in every single area of the newspaper, such as the horoscope:

Cancer (June 22-July 22)

Hold your head high. It is not your fault that you share an astrological sign with the president of the United States, who is, appropriately enough, a malignancy.

It's a satire, but there are days when it almost matches the bias of The Washington Post in weird sections like Food or Travel. Weingarten also borrowed from CBS's Charles Osgood in using Dr. Seuss as a model for conservative-bashing, as he imagined a Bush-bashing children's book:

UPDATE with video link below jump.

On the April 10 "Tonight Show," host Jay Leno joked about Democrats boycotting the Fox News Channel/Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate. Wondered Leno, "How are you going to stand up to terrorists when you're afraid of Fox News?"

Maybe Jay should ask Time magazine's Joe Klein, who called the Fox News debate a "sordid event" that was a clever ploy to "pander" to a Democratic interest group.

Here's the setup and punchline:

Johnny Hart, the wildly successful comic-strip artist of "B.C." and "The Wizard of Id" has died at his drawing board at 76. (We should add the tiny footnote that Hart was a three-time judge of the MRC’s "Best of Notable Quotables" in the mid-1990s.) In his Monday obituary in the Washington Post, Adam Bernstein noted Hart’s success, but focused like a laser beam on how Hart’s religion-themed strips were sometimes censored by the Post and other newspapers with "insensitive and at times offensive themes."

The Post story did not note that often liberal editors perceived the mere expression of Hart's Christianity as offensive, that somehow religion didn't belong in cartoons, even as liberal newspapers used Christian themes against Christians. In 1996, we noted how Hart's strips were pulled for "religious overtones," and how that compared to other images of Christianity in those papers:

It appears that “Doonesbury” isn’t the only political comic strip in America. Now, cartoonist Brian Basset has begun spreading the word of man-made global warming to the funny pages via his "Adam@Home” series.

Below is his most recent installment as offered by Go Comics:

According to NB reader Steve Edwards:

Today's joke:

A man walked into a bar one day, walked up to the bartender and said, "Bartender, I'd like to buy the house a round of drinks."

The bartender said, "That's fine but I'll need to see some money first."

The guy pulled out a huge wad of bills and set them on the bar. The bartender couldn't believe what he's seeing. "Where did you get all that money?" asked the bartender.

"I'm a professional gambler," replied the man.

On Monday, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) got a "town hall" meeting with a hand-picked audience on "Good Morning America."

But the royal treatment Clinton receives in the mainstream media isn't shared by even some staunch liberals who make ink in the nation's newspapers everyday. Including at least one who pays the bills with the cartoonist's pen, generally liberal artist and blogger Darrin Bell, creator of "Candorville."

It's not the first time Bell has lampooned Clinton, but check out the March 30 installment, where he makes fun of Hillary's penchant for trying to be all things to all constituents, envisioning Clinton trying to pander to a Palestinian-American and an Israeli-American at the same time.

Bell's cartoon follows two days after the March 28 "'South Park," in which Clinton was portrayed unflatteringly, sporting rather large hips (calling to mind radio host Mark Levin's label "Her Thighness" ) and speaking in a faux Southern drawl.

Paging Dr. Freud . . .

On this morning's "Today," NBC's Pete Williams engaged in slip that would have made Sigmund proud, so let's bring in the father of modern psychotherapy to analyze it. After all, he's only been dead for 68 years, plenty fresh enough for purposes of punditry.

Williams had scored quite a journalistic coup, an exclusive sit-down with embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Later, Williams chatted live from DC with Matt Lauer back in the New York studio. Discussing the decision by a senior aide to Gonzales to invoke the Fifth Amendment should she be called to testify before congress regarding the firing of the U.S. attorneys, Williams said:

"Congress could try to force Monica Lewinsky -- uh, Monica Goodling, rather, to testify by giving her immunity. But it's more likely they'll simply use her reluctance to testify as another reason to wonder what really happened. Matt."

Matt managed to control his mirth, as did Williams in signing off, but you sensed a nervous chuckle was just below the surface on both ends of the conversation.

View video here.

Hillary Clinton finally meets Cartman! South Park Studios and Comedy Central announced that the March 28 episode of the culturally satirical cartoon "South Park" is called "The Snuke" and involves a "24" parody where Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton visits the cartoon town of South Park, Colo., for a campaign rally. Ubiquitous entertainment reporter Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood describes the ep:

Mixing it up with those foul-mouthed brats this Wednesday, Hillary is in town for a big campaign rally. But Cartman suspects the new Muslim student is behind a terrorist threat. The clock is ticking as the citizens of South Park prepare for the Clinton rally. Every minute counts as Cartman uses his own methods to interrogate the suspect. But could the plan to target Clinton be just the tip of the iceberg? Comedy Central's website messsage board had this to say about upcoming episode: "Is there nowhere she won't campaign?"

UPDATE with video at bottom of post.

Conservatives aren't the only ones having trouble taking Gore seriously, even liberal Jon Stewart mocks him.

After Al Gore told Congress about the planet's fever and explained that when a baby has a fever you take the child to the doctor, Stewart asked if this metaphor could be carried too far:

"If the crib's on fire you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant," continued Gore.

"So ignoring Gore's powerful message is like leaving a baby on fire. It's kind of a tough image to counter Missouri's Kit Bond -- whaddya got?" Stewart asked.

What does it take to be a liberal in Eric Alterman's book? In his current column at The Nation, The Many Man-Crushes of Chris Matthews, Altermann labels Chris Matthews a "centrist" that MSNBC sandwiches between the "right-wing" Tucker Carlson and "taken-for-a-liberal Keith Olbermann."

"Taken-for-a-liberal Keith Olbermann"? Sounds like Keith hasn't quite earned his lefty wings in Eric's estimation. I mean, after all, Olbermann has only called for President Bush's impeachment, accused the Bush administration of representing a new form of fascism, and generally chewed the leftist curtains in his overwrought "Special Comments."

If Keith's liberal street cred is suspect, I wonder how Eric might view the credentials of others on the left? Let's imagine:

If soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore’s testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday wasn’t funny enough for you, Conan O’Brien’s satirical cast of a new NBC, made for television movie about problems facing the White House is sure to give you a chuckle.

The video is here courtesy of YouTube (h/t Allah at Hot Air), and a list of the cast follows after the break for those of you who prefer your comedy in writing.

However, please be forewarned that some degree of liberal bias is in this casting, as O’Brien clearly took stronger swings at Republicans. Yet, all in all, it’s pretty funny:

Original caption: Meredith Vieira, co-host of the NBC 'Today' television program, appears with her dog Jasper during a segment of the program, Friday morning March 16, 2007, about a dog's learning abilities and vocabulary recognition.

This Friday's joke: A blonde and a lawyer were seated next to each other on a long flight. To pass the time, the lawyer suggested that they try to stump one another with trivia.

"If I ask you something that you don't know, you owe me $5. The same goes if you ask me something I don't know." The blonde refused.

"Okay. If you don't know an answer, you pay me $5, but if I don’t know an answer, I pay you $50." The blonde accepted.

From a March 14 Washington Post live chat with Post associate editor Robert Kaiser (h/t Howard Mortman of extrememortman.com). Portions in bold are my emphasis:

Washington: How is the lobbying system not legalized bribery, and wouldn't ending lobbying by the rich empower the rest of us and revitalize our democracy?

Robert G. Kaiser: How would you end it? Isn't lobbying a form of speech? Isn't speech protected by the First Amendment?

And keep in mind, though many lobbyists do represent rich corporations, there are also many representing labor unions, teachers, non-profits, environmental groups, civil liberties advocates and so on. Even newspapers have lobbyists.

Over at TVNewser, Brian Stelter has posted an MP3 of a song that is apparently being played today on WPLJ in New York City, ridiculing the poor ratings performance of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, with lyrics offering several suggestions for Ms. Couric and her producers. Safe to say it's a bit on the cruel side, especially the line about "if you want big success....find Dan Rather's home address."

Here’s a link to the audio file, and what follows is my transcription of the song’s lyrics (although you need to hear the tune to get the full effect):

Notes the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

When she began taking antidepressants, O'Donnell, 44, said she began yoga and "inversion therapy," in which she hangs upside down by a swing for 15 to 30 minutes a day. She demonstrates it on "The View."

That doesn't explain Joy Behar, though.

UPDATE (3/8/2007| 10:06 EST): NewsBusters regular Jack Bauer has his take here. And while we're at it, I was hoping Fox News Channel "Red Eye" host Greg Gutfeld would have something snarky about this on his Daily Gut blog along the lines of what he said about Rosie on "The Big Story" yesterday. But alas, he hasn't. Even so, Daily Gut is a good read.

NBC Nightly News anchor, Brian Williams graces the cover of Men's Vogue this month and is profiled by Deputy Editor Ned Martel as being an anchor who, because of "today's debunking culture" (Wink Wink Newsbusters.org), is both "in the know and in on the joke."

Martel panders to Williams as an anchor who is "affable", "witty", and even "an unapologetic throwback to the era of Cronkite".

Martel says that viewers can relate to Williams because he, "has a vast interest in so many of their passions." He further says that Williams "embraces his regular-guy status" and "trumpets his middlebrow tastes".

Williams apparently considers his "instinctive understanding of Middle America" to be a payoff for Nightly News. That understanding must be a tall order for someone who wears a "black-faced Rolex and Supreme Court cufflinks" and splits his time between a "pied-a-terre in a new Upper East Side tower" and a "restored farmhouse in Connecticut".

I meant to post this yesterday but didn't have time to get to it at CPAC. A lot of people have noticed that profanity on conservative blogs is a lot scarcer than it is on the left-leaning ones. Believing this to be a correct hypothesis, I did a few Google searches and discovered that profanity is far more common on the left.

Lucky for my weekend, this information has already been distilled by Patrick Ishmael at the News Buckit blog. He went to Google looking up George Carlin's "seven dirty words" on many of the most-read right- and left-wing blogs. The results are unsurprising to anyone who's observed resident lefties here at NewsBusters.

His study isn't completely "scientific" since it is only a partial survey (leaving off NewsBusters and our count of 822 for instance), however, it is fairly comprehensive.

Anyway, the results are as follows: 1,537,788 instances in left-wing blogs compared to 38,107 (including NB) on right-wing blogs.

That's a pretty amazing disparity there. I'd say it's mainly due to the fact that 1) liberals are less "old-fashioned" when it comes to profanity than righties, 2) partisan anger seems higher when the opposite party is in power, 3) many of the non-deranged left work in the MSM, whereas the the non-deranged right is relegated to the blogosphere and 4) liberal bloggers' limited intelligence stops them from expressing themselves without profanity.