Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

T R E 4 5 O N

The willow is too close to the house.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Everybody saw this coming.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Let there be snark.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

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Reader Interactions

77Comments

  1. 1.

    D0n Camillo

    Speaking of Linda Tripp, I’ve always been curious how you felt about the Clinton impeachment as it was happening.

  3. 3.

    DCLaw1

    Couldn’t agree more. That was the first SNL monologue I’ve ever seen that I actually enjoyed, rather than just endured. He basically just did a stand-up bit, and that was all it took.

    And the Lincoln bit was brilliant.

  5. 5.

    redshirt

    Are there any new comedy catch phrases? I get all the old ones (NOONAN!), but skipping the last 15 years of cinema has left me bereft of any new ones – that I’ve not heard here on this very blog, at the least.

  8. 8.

    RaflW

    Media press pool has a sad

    @Ari_Shapiro Romney staff has left the press corps on the tarmac in Des Moines. Luggage stuck on plane, we’re stuck on a bus. The 18 hour day ticks on…

    Boo hoo.

  9. 9.

    RaflW

    Ok, weekend update was sucking for a while there with the social media thing. But this new chick is perfect. I’ve known waaaay to many people like here, like for realz.

  10. 10.

    The Dangerman

    Haven’t watched SNL for years…

    …but Schweddy balls is the high water mark for non-repeat sketches (in a kinda repeat/ripoff, the Cork Soaker was good, too).

    For repeat characters, I’ll nominate Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood (with Jeopardy a close second).

  11. 11.

    Matthew Reid Krell

    No college football thread? Fine, I’ll say it here:

    RMFT, ladies and gentlemen (and Spatula). We didn’t deserve it (LSU outplayed us completely until the last drive, except for the second quarter), but by G-d, we will take it.

    Also, West Virginia LOL.

  14. 14.

    Maude

    Heard on the radio tonight that I can vote early tomorrow. I will go and vote. It is at the county clerk’s office. I will bring ID. At the precinct, no ID is needed. NJ.
    There’s a RW radio station(Home of Rush Limbaugh, they proudly say)And they were playing a lot of Reagan excerpts. How desperate. Reagan is dead. Someone should tell them.

  15. 15.

    Violet

    What? No love for Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton? Loved those two in 2008.

  16. 16.

    DCLaw1

    Now we’re in the late garbage portion of SNL where half-baked skits go to die and the host screws up his lines and timing. I call this the “stoner hour.”

  17. 17.

    Keith

    I tuned in while Seth Myers was talking to “Woman you don’t want to talk to at a party” or something like that. It was one of those skits The Simpsons made fun of 20 years ago or so where the initial premise is ho-hum, but they drag it out forever.
    EDIT: And now I am actually sitting through Louis CK itemizing a damn hotel bill. I think I’m going to have to wait for Hulu to filter out the crap.

  22. 22.

    WarMunchkin

    There is all fucking pandemonium here. No gasoline. Anywhere. Police closed off the working gas station near my house for some dumbfuck reason, and the gas stations down the street have no power.

    Also my tank is out.

    Also have not seen a single ConEd truck in the last week, even though we have poles that are half chopped off and live wires in the streets near my workplace.

    What gives.

  23. 23.

    Maude

    @Geoduck:
    They loved the illusion. He said what they wanted to hear and as they do live in denial, the myth of Ronnie lives on.
    I was afraid they would mummify Reagan and put him on public display. Like Lenin.

  25. 25.

    jharp

    “John Goodman as Linda Tripp.”

    Whatever happened to that clip?

    Hilarious and remember not being able to find it after hard searching some time ago.

    Anyone?

  26. 26.

    Poopyman

    We almost forgot, and it’s almost here!

    Remember, remember, the Fifth of November …

    (More appropriate for the Sixth this year, though.)

  31. 31.

    LD50

    @eemom: …AND, it also allows a certain type of Republican shill to claim that “formerly blue states like Minnesota and California are now in play! Romney landslide!”

    Not that anyone posting here talks like that.

  32. 32.

    Kane

    I went to vote Saturday morning. Standing in line, it felt like any other day of voting. And then it hit me when I saw Barack Obama’s name on the ballot. It was emotional and intense as I just sat there looking at his name and thinking about the past four years. I did not expect that.

  33. 33.

    Hill Dweller

    @WarMunchkin: Bloomberg initially refused Obama’s offer to send in FEMA. Consequently, there wasn’t the pre-staging that other states received.

    At some point Bloomberg realized he was in over his head, and started asking for FEMA’s help. But they’ve been playing catch up ever since.

  34. 34.

    RaflW

    Oh, man, it’s been nearly non-stop anti-Obama PAC ads on SNL tonight in the Twin Cities. I suppose they think they’ll reach some low info voters, but I think DCLaw1 is right, they’re just reaching stoners … and boring people like me who made up our minds in 1986.

  35. 35.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @DCLaw1:

    Now we’re in the late garbage portion of SNL where half-baked skits go to die and the host screws up his lines and timing. I call this the “stoner hour.”

    I really wonder about the SNL writing room, and whether it saps most that is funny from the cast. Then again, I thought there was actually good material to be had for ‘Studio 60’, except that Sorkin never found it. Writing good comedy is fucking agony.

  36. 36.

    DCLaw1

    @pseudonymous in nc: I read a Salon interview of Chris Elliott, and he was describing the way the cast members would compete for their skits, offering strategic applause and silence during rehearsals, undercutting each other in passive-aggressive ways. Between that and the outsized influence each week’s host has on which skits make it through, seems that the system is not at all designed to produce the funniest material, and it shows.

  38. 38.

    guachi

    Clinton/Obama rally was fun! Met some nice people (i.e. two cute, young girls). Arriving 2.5 hours early was just early enough.

    Dave Matthews was good. The right kind of music to have while waiting for the main event. Clinton was losing his voice (“I have given my voice in service of my President”) but was, like always, Clinton.

    And the President rocked the house!

    I really think the good guys can win Virginia! Something I would not have said a week ago.

  40. 40.

    Warren

    The usual “Hey guys! The election has been moved to Wednesday!” robocalls have started in Massachusetts according to Patch. Looks like Scott Brown knows he’s losing. Don’t let them get away with it this time.

  42. 42.

    Maude

    @Hill Dweller:
    Oh, that’s why FEMA wasn’t in Staten Island right away. No wonder they felt abandoned.
    Has Bloomberg come out and said this? Obama gets blamed for this in NY.
    That’s two major mistakes the Mayor has made in this storm.
    The marathon was not only a bad decision, but he should have cancelled it a week ago Friday when he knew that Sandy was going to be a huge storm.

  45. 45.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Warren: Can’t find a way to post but maybe someone else can to explain that robocalls don’t end up on voicemail or answering machines unless they want to because they are using predictive dialers.

  49. 49.

    guachi

    Bah! I can’t see myself in the crowd shots. I was just on the front edge of the grass off to the side.

  50. 50.

    amk

    @LD50: The usual new yorker’s bluster of we got everything covered. The stupid part was that he advised Obama to use the fema resources elsewhere. Fucking idjit.

  51. 51.

    mdblanche

    @RaflW: Awww, does the help not like the way they’re being treated? Maybe a little violin music would cheer them up.

    @amk:

    My argument, rather, is this: we’ve about reached the point where if Mr. Romney wins, it can only be because the polls have been biased against him. Almost all of the chance that Mr. Romney has in the FiveThirtyEight forecast, about 16 percent to win the Electoral College, reflects this possibility… If the state polls are right, then Mr. Obama will win the Electoral College. If you can’t acknowledge that after a day when Mr. Obama leads 19 out of 20 swing-state polls, then you should abandon the pretense that your goal is to inform rather than entertain the public.

    I think Nate Silver is starting to get tired of trying to reason with you people.

  52. 52.

    eemom

    @RaflW:

    it’s been nearly non-stop anti-Obama PAC ads on SNL tonight in the Twin Cities.

    As I understand it, the explanation for the ad blitz in blue states is they have so many shit tons of money amassed that they have to spend SOMEWHERE. Which simultaneously makes sense and is sickening, but wtf-ever. They’re toast.

  54. 54.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @David Koch: The guy holding his camera framed by the two pol’s arms looks like he’s wearing a clown nose or Bob Dog makeup.

  55. 55.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @mdblanche: Yes but what’s the theory proving that polls held closer to the election should be given more weight than those held months ago? Is there any actual proof that polls matter more this close?

  56. 56.

    Hal

    @eemom:

    As I understand it, the explanation for the ad blitz in blue states is they have so many shit tons of money amassed that they have to spend SOMEWHERE.

    Do they have to spend the money, or are there rules in which a campaign could donate it, or perhaps use it for races in the future? I know if I donates money to Mitt Romney and he was wasting it running ads in states he knows he’s not going to win, I’d be pretty pissed off.

  57. 57.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @amk: Well to be honest, elsewhere may indeed have needed the resources more. And it is possible that the mayor has a more limited view of what he considers to be the city than we do.

  58. 58.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Hal: Well, John Edwards evaded prison for [a] less [relevant use of campaign monies], so what’s a donor to do?

  59. 59.

    Mnemosyne

    @WarMunchkin:

    Depending on how many trees came down, it can take quite a while for the power to be turned back on, because they have to detangle all of the wires from the trees first. When we had a big windstorm in Pasadena a couple of years ago, I knew people who were without power for over a week because the power companies needed to be sure they’d found all of the wires that would be live as soon as the juice was turned back on.

  60. 60.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Or something like that.Suffern Ace: I’m past giving Bloomberg the benefit of the doubt. Why did he run for a third term? More like turd term. He needs to get over himself and pack it in. People died in Staten Island due to bad planning and not taking this storm seriously enough. Patients were put at risk in two hospitals. Way too much ego going around.

    You know, Christie surprised me, for someone who blusters so much, by how much he set his ego aside–and I don’t want to imply it’s not politics because it always is with him–but if you look at how destroyed his face looked. Wow. He saw what happened to the Jersey Shore. He felt it. It was real to him. Bloomberg even post-storm seemed to be in some sort of fucking bubble. “Oh no, we don’t need to cancel the marathon–why half the island still has power. We carry on, pip pip, tally ho.”

    Time for him to go.

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    Just got home from Obama/Bill Clinton rally in Bristow, VA (Prince William County).

    PBO speech on C-Span 1 now; just began.

    24,000 enthusiastic supporters on a cold night. Flawless event. Dave Matthews acoustic set; excellent.

    Audience sang along with Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” shortly before program began; very meaningful.

    Tim Kaine opened evening; relaxed, very natural before a huge crowd. He’s got to feel good about leading in his Senate race.

  64. 64.

    JustAnotherBob

    If the statisticians take away the media’s ability to fake a horse race in future elections might they turn to actual reporting? Got to write about something….

  65. 65.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @Another Halocene Human: I understand. I think there was a lot of “well it’s Irene” thinking. If your view of new York is limited to two boroughs, like Mr. Mayor, you might think that the city’s response was adequate to cover all five boroughs. At the same time, Long Island and the Shore probably do need FEMA resources more. That’s how Irene played out. It turned out that the city did have adequate response for that and FEMA was really needed upstate and in rural new England. Bloombergs a shit for leading people to believe that this would be a three day to one week process.

  66. 66.

    mdblanche

    @Or something like that.Suffern Ace: I think it’s a combination of things happening over time (real news, not just temporary bounces), plus the last polls are the only ones that get compared to the actual election results so everyone, even Rasmussen, makes sure to get the numbers they expect even if it’s not the ones they want.

  69. 69.

    Redshift

    @Or something like that.Suffern Ace:

    Yes but what’s the theory proving that polls held closer to the election should be given more weight than those held months ago? Is there any actual proof that polls matter more this close?

    Polls measure people’s views at the time when the poll is taken. If that time is near the election, it is more likely to match those views on Election Day than a poll taken months ago.

  70. 70.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @JustAnotherBob: I was thinking that if the pundits are shown to have little influence, it might be time to rethink their role. They are expensive and may be wrong. I’m thinking we could outsource their jobs to India along with the high priced news anchor and us some of the savings to hire less expensive junior reporters. Yes, Indian pundits are likely to also be wrong given cultural distance and other factors. But at least they will be cheap and wrong. Repetitive tasks in general can be outsourced rather easily, and nothing is more repetitive than electoral horse race coverage.

  74. 74.

    Hill Dweller

    @Narcissus:

    Why in the hell would you turn down FEMA aid?

    Bloomberg also turned down Obama’s request to visit.

    I think Bloomberg wanted all the credit for the cleanup, but soon realized he was in over his head.

    Bloomberg has actually been pretty awful since the hurricane hit. I’m not sure why some are praising him.

  75. 75.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @Hill Dweller: they are praising him for the sane reason they looked they other way when his education miracle went up in smoke. He is a very very wealthy man who owns a media company. He looks statesmanly and makes certain that manhattan and inner Brooklyn are secure. He looked confident before the storm and that set the narrative.

    The post and newsday appear to be savaging him, if that helps.

  76. 76.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @eemom: Yep, if they don’t do the ad buys, the political consultants don’t get their rakeoff. And there’s only a few more hours to do it.

    Pity they can’t run them in California and New York. With the cost of ad spots there, the grifters would get richer and the billionaires would get poorer.

  77. 77.

    MJ

    @Hill Dweller: Bloomberg was contacted by FEMA before storm and he turned down assistance.

    Mayor Bloomberg’s Hurricane Sandy storm update on October 27, 2012, delivered at the downtown Brooklyn outpost of the Office Of Emergency Management.

    President Obama asked Craig Fugate from FEMA to call me earlier in the day and offer any help. I assured him that we had, we think, everything under control but we appreciate the effort. What FEMA really can do is to help those parts of the country that don’t have all of the extensive facilities and agencies and practice that New York City does. But I did want to thank them for their offer.

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