I Don't Like You Either

Wonkette's Top 10 Political Vids for 2008....

They start with Sean Hannity being chased by angry Republicans.....so you know you're going to enjoy this Very Special New Year's collection.

It's Still an Option: "C'mon, Move to Canada!"

Progressives who are disappointed with Obama still have the option! Personally, we're on a "wait and see" basis!

Department of Valedictions: Lefty Bloggers Reflect on W

Did you know that Bush is still president?  It's true.  BUT NOT FOR VERY MUCH LONGER.

Bloggenfreude at Agitprop mourns W's passing.  "We will never see his like again."

As a lefty blogger, I will miss him. Sure he’s a dangerous sociopath, a pathological liar, and a national embarrassment.  But he’s also The Decider, The Commander Guy, and Commander Codpiece.  Think about that as January 20, 2009 approaches....

The photographic tributes are particularly choice.  We recommend clicking.

Britblogs React to British Culture Minister's Plans for Making the Internets Safe for *the Children*

(Sir Baz says this story is "days old", but we liked it too much to delete it.)

British Culture Secretary (Hey, why don't we have one of those?  We should get one of those ASAP!) Andy Burnham, worried about the effect of the internets on children---good; good; we like children too--- has a solution!

Ratings for websites!

Okay, scratch what we just said about getting one of those.  According to the BBC,

Film-style age ratings could be applied to websites to protect children from harmful and offensive material, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has said.

Snark O' the Day: Betty Cracker on Camille Paglia

by Damozel | I read Sexual Personae Vol. 1 in---what was it? 1992?  A LONG time ago, anyway---and I really enjoyed it.  I love reading other people's literary hallucinations, even when I don't buy into them, and Paglia's hypnotic hyper-visual prose style is exceedingly well suited to the discussion of painting and literature. 

Though I couldn't agree less with her fundamental premises, I enjoyed reading her strange and wondrous reframings of my favorite works of art and literature.  It was like looking at them...um, through a glass, and darkly. Some of her eerier interpretations (on Sade, on Blake, on Baudelaire, on Coleridge on Swinburne) are forever seared upon my memory, not necessarily in a good way or in accordance with my wishes.

So I wish she hadn't ruined it all for me by trying to get herself positioned as some sort of cultural (including popular culture) arbiter.  Not satisfied with being a critic and commentator, she wanted to be Ye Supreme Arbiter of American Popular Culture. 

A Wingnut Marital Aid: Dennis Prager Gives Holiday Sex Tips to Ladies Married to (A Seasonal Snarkfest!)

Yes, it was four days ago that we first tried to ignore this piece by Dennis Prager  [When a Woman Isn't in the Mood: Part I] because we have our own sex lives to think of and we can't afford to have Prager get all mixed up in those thoughts, but at last we decided we had a duty to ourselves to round up the best of the snark generated from Prager's cornucopia. 

It is, after all, a cornucopia filled with highly mockable phallacies (though we have our own thoughts about the "copia" part of the "cornu" in question).

Sadly, many of our favorite cruel bloggers didn't cover this because it came out on December 23.  (We can't WAIT for When a Woman Isn't in the Mood:  Part 2.)   Everyone can play!

InstaSnark: The Media & the Wingnuts Play: Connect! the!! Blago-Obama Dots!!!...

...which are, of course, in completely different coloring books. Meanwhile, the Left just laughs the bitter laughter of adults who have seen it all before because OF COURSE everyone knew it was coming, even though it is all so stupid, so stupid and transparent, so stupid and transparent and bogus, and yet full of wingnutty media-fuelled portentousness and pomposity.

Whiskey Fire: BREAKING: The Untold Story of the Blagojevich Corruption Scandal! (Did Anyone Say... WILLIAM AYERS!?)

Edroso: Times Pretends to Believe Blago is Trouble for Obama

Sadly, No!: They’ll Get To That Part Later

Sadly, No!: Blago Bung¹ [another shorter Michelle Malkin]

The Poor Man: Blagwater

Attackerman:  Oh, My.  He's So Gangster

Lawyers, Guns, & Money:  Gangster - The Rod Blagojevich Story

Rising Hegemon:  Lincoln Isn't Spinning, He's Snickering

Balloon Juice: Make It Stop

Balloon Juice: Sometimes Doing the Right Thing Pays Off

The Rude Pundit:  Note to Republicans and the Media: We Don't Care About Obama and Blagojevich

The Heretik:  I Swear

The Daily Show: Blagojevich--What Isn't He Being Charged With?

Jon Stewart:  "Rod Blagojevich is quickly going from being a sleazy politician to something out of a 19th century German children's fable."  

Corruption:  an Illinois tradition!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

(D-IL) Weed

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Dept of Valedictions (the Present Day): President Goofus & President Gallant

Obama unveils a stimulus package.

Bush unveils his self-portrait and says something (intentionally) funny.  Jon Stewart: "Is it possible that his entire administration was a set-up for that joke?"

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Clusterf#@k to the Poor House - President Goofus and President Gallant

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Rove & O'Reilly: The Dire Economy is Just a Media Ploy to Make Obama Look Better Than Bush

So...we can all stop worrying.  Santa Claus WILL come down your chimney as usual with his bag full of toys for your kids and a new job and a new mortgage for you!  There WILL be presents under your tree and a turkey dinner (with razzleberry dressing) on your table! 

Would Papa Bear or Karl Rove misrepresent the facts?

Think Progress has thoughtfully published a transcript:

Blago-gate!

Obama's first "scandal"---and he's not even in office!  Things move faster than they used to and not always in a good way.

 Marc Ambinder points out that Obama has long considered Blagojevich a tumor on the Democratic party's behind (Ambinder put it a bit differently).  UPDATE:  This article suggests that maybe he hasn't thought so for that long.   And a Chicago reporter thinks Rahm Emanuel might have tipped off the feds to Blago's "Pay to Play" gambit. 

But the fall of the Illinois Democrat---while pleasing to those of us who like our government corruption free--does its part to wilt the petals in our winner's bouquet and we haven't even had the inaugural ball yet.

Snark O' the Day: Neocons Want Barry O. to Fix Everything Bush Broke

Suddenly, it's our problem and only our problem.  They'll just stand on the sidelines and jeer.  If they had any constructive ideas, or anything like a solution, we'd have heard them back when it mattered.

From Father Tyme at  BlondeSense:

Ain’t it just curious now with the NeoCon and Republican roaches braving the light of day, that all of a sudden they profess concern about, oh, food quality, health items, housing, jobs...ethics...etc.?

Dept of Valedictions: Bush and the Plutocrats ("There Goes the Neighborhood")

As Bush prepares to move into his exclusive new neighborhood his neighbors are worried that his presence might disrupt their Way of Life.  Those neighbors include "former presidential candidate Ross Perot and Mark Cuban, the billionaire businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner" and some guy next door who just installed a "trout-filled lake" on his property.  (Raw Story)

Will Bush turn their American dream into a Bush administration-style nightmare?

The Department of Valedictions Daily Show Threefer (Dec. 2006): When Bush Was in "Listening Mode" About Iraq

In celebration of Gen. Shinseki's selection, let us ride the Wayback Pony to that later time when everyone knew he was right.  Rumsfeld wanted to take his hand off the bicycle seat; Bush wanted to hear "from as many ideas and opinions as possible." And he wasn't going to stop fighting and put diplomats on the ground till all violent means were utterly exhausted!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mess O'Potamac - Listen, Bush Will

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Dept of Valedictions: Rove Plans to Call Out Bush Haters in His New Book; PLUS!! Bonus Harry Shearer Music Video ("Rove" Sings "Turd Blossom Special")

We've been trying very hard not to think about the "Bush legacy project," since its very existence defies common sense, decency, geometry, and reality.  We're afraid of getting sucked into some GOP black hole of revisionism and coming out on the other side in a world like Camazotz in A Wrinkle in Time where everything is controlled by "Bush's Brain" and all the moms stay home, the dads all go to work, and everyone does everything in exactly the same way and at the same time, all the time. And (channeling Berke Breathed now) is compelled every Sunday to attend the Christianist Church of his or her choice (no Quakers on Bush World).

Attack of the Blue Meanies (Mean Progressive Blogger Round-Up)

So mean.  No wonder the wingnuts moan, rage, and clutch their pearls.

Imagining (& Reimagining) Hillary: Also: The Favreau Facebook Incident

Our colleague at Buck Naked Politics wrote way back even before the primaries about the ever-evolving Hillary mythos, and it's true: no matter how she behaves or what she does "she thicks men's blood with cold." Equally chilled---so they claim---is the blood of certain well-known female pundits.  Why is that?  Hmmm?  Why?

Dept of Valedictions: Let's All Give Outgoing Bush Some Credit and Make Those Popularity Levels Soar!

Mick Arran at Fact-esque calls for a round of very slow clapping for Bush.

Snark O' the Day: Christmas Comes Early for the Constitution (The Talking Dog)

Yes, now that Bush doesn't need them anymore, the Supremes will finally take a look at the limits on the executive's powers in what The Talking Dog calls "the second most important case of our lives."

Peggy Noonan: "At Least Bush Kept Us Safe" (A Wall Street Christmas Carol)

Peggy Noonan hasn't seen any sign yet of this "recession" thing everyone keeps banging on about---her corner of the world looks pretty comfy and business-as-usual and full of affluent Christmas shoppers to her---and she and her ilk are feeling a bit nervous because now that Bush is going, some menace or threat might saw off the branch on which their designed-by-Hermes silk cocoons are suspended and crush their way of life under its collective heel.  

Snark O' the Day: The Supremes to Consider the Obama Birth Certificate "Controversy

Bark Bark Woof Woof woofs about this glorious waste of taxpayer dollars in the interests of settling once and for all a "worrying" "issue":

The United States Supreme Court is going to decide whether or not to hear a case claiming that Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible to serve as President of the United States...

Snark O' the Day: Hey! Bush Said He Was Sorry!

From Jurassicpork at Brilliant at Breakfast (Don't Say He's a Sociopath):

On ABC tonight, George W. Bush said he was "sorry" that Americans are losing their jobs and watching their 401(k) plans get fiendishly rear-ended into the next 12 dimensions thanks to the throbbing fiscal phallus of Friedman and Laffey, free marketeers to whose semen- and feces-slathered altar knelt Harvard MBA George "Fuck Everyone Including the Shareholders" Bush like a love-lorn acolyte.

Colbert: A Man Called Plaxico

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word - A Man Named Plaxico

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Dept of Valedictions: Bush Reflects on Intelligence Failure & For Once We Agree

A further nugget of fool's gold from the Charlie Gibson interview.

The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said, you know ... the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration, and um ... You know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

And so say all of us.

Dept of "And the Scales Fell from His Eyes": Townhall.com Lets Itself & Marc Ambinder Down

Marc Ambinder is clearly pained that Town Hall is "spot-lighting" a certain questionable fund-raising plea "from a foundation that wants to prove, in court, that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States and is therefore ineligible to be president and therefore wants to do a whole lot of bad things involving amnesty, illegal aliens and the United Nations. Obama'd be the "Usurper in Chief.""

Dept of Valedictions: Bloggers on Bush on Bush

As DaveNoon says,  "I suppose everyone has a punch-the-wall-with-your-face moment in this interview."    The transcript is here.

The Rude Pundit nailed perfectly its most remarkable aspect.

Ride the Wayback Pony: More Nixon Tapes! (Snark O' the Day)

Remember back in the day when we only got to hear the tapes with the expletives deleted? 

But we always knew there would be more and now they're here!  For the best round-up of Nixonian quotables for the aspiring Republican pol, see Amygdala. The thing about Nixon you have to like---if, that is, you subsequently lived through Reagan and Bush---is that he didn't bother to conceal his ruthlessness or cynicism under a genial mask or a crimp-browed chimp-like smirk of good-natured puzzlement. 

Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin Busy Stumping for Saxby Chambliss; Spokesman Says "State Business is Unaffected" by Her Absence

Man, Palin and her people don't give the political comics and satirists a chance, do they?  They're out there in the ring all the time, in clown make-up, orange wigs, and comical two-foot long shoes, falling off bitty little bicycles, sitting down on whoopee cushions, falling off the tight ropes, dancing with pink French poodles with ruffles round their necks, and using the safety net as their personal trampoline.   

Ride the Wayback Pony: Bush Being Briefed on the Potential Collapse of the New Orleans Levee (Daily Show 4-7-2006)

Remembering W as he was when it was his world and we just lived in it. 

Hurricane Katrina - Tape Delay

More Funny Videos
Comedians on Tour

Get Funny Ringtones
Stand-Up Comedy

Dept of Valedictions: When They Fight Reality, Reality Always Wins; or Why Conservatism and Bush have Failed

Pondering the relief expressed by military officials that Bush is finally on his way out, Dave at Orcinus reflects:

There's no better way to lose a war than to have your on-the-ground decisions be forced through an ideological prism. And it was obvious even to outsiders that this was how Bush was conducting the Iraq war -- indeed, it was the decisive factor behind the very decision to invade in the first place...