Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Come on, man.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

In after Baud. Damn.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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Reader Interactions

111Comments

  1. 1.

    c u n d gulag

    No, Colbert will NEVER be topped!!!

    I wonder how the guys who booked him are doing at GITMO?

  3. 3.

    Elizabelle

    They’re not nerds.

    They’re suck-ups. The not-special kids who desperately wanted to be the Cool Kids.

    I’d say your average White House Correspondent does not have the brains to be a nerd.

    Which is why they’re grabbing the hashtag #nerdprom

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    If he’s looking for a career after he’s done with this politics thing, Barack Obama might want to have a go at standup comedy. He looks like a natural at it.

  6. 6.

    Brian R.

    @JPL:

    Yeah, McHale just eviscerated Christie. That was a thing of beauty.

    Though his comparison of CSPAN to the Paranormal Activity films was pretty good too.

  7. 7.

    WaterGirl

    “What if Obamacare gave Mitch McConnell a pulse?”

    I know it was kinda mean, but it’s McConnell, so I don’t care.

  8. 8.

    mai naem

    I am so glad Obama picked Biden as his Veep. He just looks like he’s having a good time and he’s been through enough in his life to appreciate how fortunate he is. I was listening to a piece on the background of WH support of gay marriage. Apparently, Joe Biden spent the weekend at a gay couple a week before the MTP appearance and played with their kids, observed the family etc. and that’s when the decision became internal not just a legal and political thing.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    @Amir Khalid: I love it when the president is having so much fun that he laughs at his own jokes. I really think there is nothing he is not good at.

  14. 14.

    PsiFighter37

    I’m watching McHale’s routine right now…definitely going for more laughs from the crowd out here (i.e. us), as opposed to the crowd in the room. I think it’s pretty funny so far, but agreed that Colbert will never, ever be topped. Watching that live in 2006 was amazing.

  15. 15.

    elftx

    Colbert is King!! but it was interesting how the audience was not so sure it should laugh at some of McHale’s quips.

    I am amazed at how loose and cool Obama really is. He is something else!!

    The Biden and Dreyfus bit was the best.

  16. 16.

    PsiFighter37

    @WaterGirl: At these kind of media suck-up events, the kind of jokes I like best are the ones that are tinged with a bit of insulting truth.

    ETA: And yes, the Biden/JLD bit was the best out of all three. That said, I think this season of Veep struggles a bit more because they have Selina running for President – it gets away from the really weird, fucked-up dynamic that reeked from the VP office previously that made it so funny. It’s still phenomenal, though…watching ‘Silicon Valley’ and ‘Veep’ after the overbearing seriousness of GoT is a smart programming decision by HBO.

  17. 17.

    shelley

    The Biden and Dreyfus bit was the best.

    Phew. When Julia got in front of the car to climb that fence at the end, I was afraid we were going to have a ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” scene.

    But damn, Biden looks good.

  18. 18.

    Geoduck

    As a long-time Seattle area resident, it’s always slightly weird to see McHale on national TV; he got his start way back when on a locally-produced comedy-sketch program called Almost Live. Here’s one sketch he participated in which spoofed the film Independence Day. (The same program served as the launchpad for Bill Nye the Science Guy’s career as well.)

  21. 21.

    Cermet

    Watch a highlight of the comedian’s funniest jokes (eight and I only made it through six) – boy, did that fucker suck; if those are his best, I’d have really hated to hear that loser’s entire routine … just painful listening to him. This guy makes a living sucking that bad?

  22. 22.

    Xantar

    I don’t think it was Obama’s best comedy routine, but that’s because I think he hit last year’s out of the park.

    The Orange is the New Black line slew me, though.

  23. 23.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    My wife and I watched last night. Obama rules. “Orange is the new black” was the best line of the bunch. Joel McHale did just fine, too.
    D’oh! Xantar beat me to it.

  26. 26.

    RaflW

    @Elizabelle:

    why they’re grabbing the hashtag #nerdprom

    What you say, and that the idea of a prom is more dignified than a sycophantic circlejerk of Village idiots.

    Speaking of which, Maureen has penned another in her 437 part series on how bored she is with Obama. One commenter nailed her job description: to trivialize the momentous and glamorize the trivial.

    In other words, the correspondents dinner.

  27. 27.

    MomSense

    @Elizabelle:

    They’re not nerds.

    They’re suck-ups. The not-special kids who desperately wanted to be the Cool Kids.

    I’d say your average White House Correspondent does not have the brains to be a nerd.

    QFT

    I can verify this from first hand experience dealing with them for a whole month four summers in a row.

  28. 28.

    geg6

    I love me some Handsome Joe. He really is a handsome man with a great sense of humor, which makes him all the more attractive.

    I don’t care how old he is, though my dear departed mom was officially in love with him back in the 80s and 90s. Thought he was a real hottie. And my mom didn’t often remark on how attractive she found other men to be.

  29. 29.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Sorry, but the Villager filth of the WHCA do not deserve a prom, unless it’s one where they’re danced into the Potomac and held under water.

    Wipe them out. All of them.

  30. 30.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl:

    In our house, the kids only refer to him as “Joe Fucking Biden” and they mean it with the utmost respect.

  31. 31.

    MomSense

    @PsiFighter37:

    definitely going for more laughs from the crowd out here (i.e. us), as opposed to the crowd in the room.

    My take as well which I appreciated. I thought he was funny and appropriately insulting but I think that it was not well received in the room–is what has created the impression it wasn’t funny. I did notice that the President was really enjoying the jokes. It was cathartic for those of us who find the villagers to be tumbrel worthy.

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Geoduck: Almost Live had some absolutely brilliant stuff.

    But taking out Dick’s….well, yes, that crossed the line…

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MomSense: I’m sure Richard Cohen did not find McHale funny at all.

    Which means he was a roaring success to anyone who is not Village vermin.

  36. 36.

    ruemara

    Loved Almost Live. And I loved the Comedian in Chief. My face looks like I’ve been slugged on one side, but, fuck it, I have got to get out of this house. But I’m taking some vicodin so should work.

  37. 37.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    Especially! Gotta start them young!

    (don’t have a three year old–which is good cuz I’m too old for that kind of chasing now. That is a busy, busy year!)

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    JLD drawing a moustache on Chuck Todd and wanting to David Gregory crying in a corner? I think it’s official, NBC is the CNN of the old networks.

  40. 40.

    newwave

    glorified dkos commenter muckmux is unimpressed but always willing to do another one of his 80% cut/paste posts on it.

  41. 41.

    gogol's wife

    @RaflW:

    I’m so glad to come here and find like-minded people, after glancing at the New York Times oped page. Long editorial about how Obama’s foreign policy isn’t as bad as EVERYONE is saying, but it’s “not good enough.” Not enough aluminum tubes? Then the same from Friedman, and I had no stomach to see what tripe MoDo was churning out. They use every Sunday’s paper to bash Obama. I’m so sick of them.

    I will never forget them cheerleading us into war in Iraq. They have no right to say anything about foreign policy after that.

  46. 46.

    Frankensteinbeck

    The crowd booed McHale’s comparing Cliven Bundy to the KKK. It’s as if the national media is dominated by rich old white racist men whose only problem with Bundy was the indelicate way he phrased their feelings! But surely that can’t be true.

  48. 48.

    Patrick

    @gogol’s wife:

    When Obama took over, we were hated around the world. That hatred is for the most part now gone. Obama caught bin Laden and got us out of Iraq. It is beyond me how the same idiots that cheer-leaded us into the Iraq war have the gall to criticize anybody’s foreign policy, let alone somebody’s successful as President Obama. And how can Mr “the next 6 months will be critical” Friedman have any credibility after all his failed predictions on the Iraq war?

  49. 49.

    MomSense

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I loved McHale’s response to that. Something about ‘oh you like Bundy’.

    ETA I found McHale’s jokes and the responses to them very revealing.

    Also, too I am loving your book even though it is keeping me away from chores I am supposed to do.

  50. 50.

    PsiFighter37

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I loved that. Those two have to be the most worthless political correspondents on NBC, if not all of the basic network media (I think Tapper works on CNN now, but the cable news guys get an entire section for themselves). The revelation that NBC hired an outside psychologist to figure out why Gregory’s Press the Meat has been getting such low ratings tickled me so much I nearly LOL’ed at work.

    Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy…except perhaps for Chuckles, who is so awful I want to take him out back and give him the treatment the fax machine got in Office Space.

  51. 51.

    PsiFighter37

    @MomSense: If there is something that revealed the id of the Village and the idiots who occupy said Village, it was their response to that. I’m sure McHale was a little bit WTF after the response that line got.

  53. 53.

    Hawes

    Best nerdprom performance was when Obama was busting on Trump while simultaneously killing Bin Laden.

  54. 54.

    Citizen_X

    @ruemara:

    My face looks like I’ve been slugged on one side

    What, did you get subjected to oral surgery or something? My sympathies. I’ve been there.

  55. 55.

    Suzanne

    I want Louis C. K. to host next year. Can someone with a bit more energy than me start #draftlouisfornerdprom ?

  56. 56.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @MomSense:
    WOO! If it’s ‘your book’ it must be Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m A Supervillain. That book just took off. I went from my publisher’s worst selling author to best selling author in a week. It IS a fun book, and I’m very happy people love it.

    @schrodinger’s cat: and @Patrick:
    I believe the sentiment is ‘Obama is black and does not act like a bully. I miss the tingle that ran up my leg listening to fake cowboys posture. I will assume that the rest of the world is just like me, because it would be too much work to find out.’

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    I wish Richard Pryor were still alive. He’d be a great host for the last one of these Obama has to attend.

  60. 60.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    Off the top o’ the noggin, Cedric the Entertainer and Wanda Sykes. Not meant to be a complete roster.

  61. 61.

    hilts

    @Suzanne:

    I agree with you about Louis CK, but I don’t think it will happen

    “Louis C.K. has pulled out as host of the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Assn. Dinner following conservative complaints about the comedian’s past comments about Sarah Palin”

    latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2012/03/louis-ck-radio-television-correspondents-dinner.html

    I thought Joel McHale was very good. In the future, I’d like to see John Oliver and Ricky Gervais get their turns at this gig.

  62. 62.

    MomSense

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    My son is reading it to me–after so many years of reading to him it is such a joy to be read to!! So thank you for the enjoyable mother/son experience as well.

  63. 63.

    PsiFighter37

    @hilts: After all the complaints from Hollywood about how their fee-fees were hurt by Ricky Gervais, I don’t think he’ll ever get another gig hosting some kind of comic roast. Usually the hosts of those glammed-up LA awards shows are unbearably unfunny and out of touch, but Gervais was fucking classic. You knew it’d be good when he was bringing booze to the stage to start his monologue.

  64. 64.

    Suzanne

    @hilts: It is a minor sin compared to everything else they have wrought, but it really is a shame that conservatives are Just. Not. Funny.

  65. 65.

    Suffern ACE

    @schrodinger’s cat: lol. Maybe we’d be in a better position in the world if our economic policy wasn’t “manufacture in China” and “as many jobs in India as possible”.

    Anyway, I think the lack of patience is a New York thing and our upper classes are basically incapable of delayed gratification. My god. The Ukraine crisis hasn’t been solved and it’s already May! It may effect 2nd quarter results! It’s been almost 90 days!

    We are ruled by putzes and the sooner we are rid of them, the better.

  66. 66.

    Villago Delenda Est

    OK, McHale wasn’t bad at all, and yes, the reactions were telling. Particularly the carved on Mt. Rushmore face of that supreme idiot, Leslie Blitzer.

    But, it’s true…it will be very, very difficult to ever top Colbert’s performance, which caused that vile sack of shit Cohen to go public. Which in many ways just drove home Colbert’s entire point. With a sledgehammer.

  69. 69.

    Chris

    @MomSense:

    Agreed. The Village is easily the most worthless pack of rich idiots since the court of Versailles, increasingly irrelevant, living in a bubble, and talking only to themselves. I for one am delighted when they’re slapped over the head with the fact.

  71. 71.

    hilts

    @PsiFighter37:

    Sadly, you’re probably right about Gervais.

    For me, Gervais at the Golden Globes and Colbert at the WHCA Dinner set the standard. They both killed when given their shot, so of course neither of them can be allowed to ever host one of these gigs again.

  72. 72.

    lamh36

    Abdul-Jabbar: ‘More Whites Believe In Ghosts’ Than Think Racism Persists

    NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Sunday said that the release of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s racist comments points to just how much of an issue racism is today.

    “Well, this is a problem. I did a little bit of research, more whites believe in ghosts than believe in racism. That’s why we don’t have — that why we have shows like Ghostbusters and don’t have shows like Racistbuster,” Abdul-Jabbar said on ABC’s “This Week.” “You know, it’s something that’s still part of our culture and people hold on to some of these ideas and practices just out of habit and saying that well that’s the way it always was. But things have to change.”…

  74. 74.

    MazeDancer

    Both the President and the Vice-President are smooth operators. They have great timing and impeccable delivery. And they’re both so smart, clearly happy men, who love their country. They’re just a pleasure to watch.

    Thought Joel McHale didn’t seem happy to be there at all. Of course, Colbert owns the all-time, forever crown for brilliance at the venue. But McHale felt like NBC made him do it or something. His timing seemed off. I couldn’t even finish watching the vid. It was too uncomfortable. Though, guess I missed the better stuff on Christie. Don’t actually care.

  77. 77.

    PsiFighter37

    @hilts: Except they invited Gervais back twice, mainly because NBC got huge ratings, and given the shitty state of that sorry-ass network, they had to beg to have him come back.

    I just finished watching the entire Colbert segment from 2006 again…memories. Social media and networking is nowhere as big as it is now, but even back then, the Internet blew up after Colbert dropped that 25 minutes of awesome a few feet in front of Dubya.

  78. 78.

    Randy P

    @Baud:

    That’s so Biden!

    I would watch that. That would definitely get me back to being a regular TV watcher.

    They need some sort of premise where he could alternate between being Real Joe and Onion Joe. Like the Star Trek parallel universes or something.

  79. 79.

    Randy P

    @FlipYrWhig: And I don’t think they were so fond of the idea of McCain either. In summer 2008 I remember picking up a German-language Swiss magazine that had a big spread on Obama, and the photo that led off the article was captioned “The Next President of the US (probably)”.

  80. 80.

    PsiFighter37

    @Baud: Perhaps, but the problem is that, outside of Stewart and Colbert (and I guess you can throw John Oliver in there now, although I think he’s Jon Stewart with a bit more nervousness because he’s fresher to the scene, a British accent, and less of the faux-centrist bullshit Stewart pulls from time to time), most comedians almost go out of their way to stay out of any political or social commentary. Seriously – listen to standup from Aziz Ansari, Louis CK, heck even Gervais – and there’s very little (if any). Stewart and Colbert do it on a nearly daily basis, which is hugely impressive, but comics like Richard Pryor or George Carlin – who made their name off of this kind of thing – are hard to find.

    There’s a huge difference between ‘serious’ funny and ‘frivolous’ funny in my book, and I feel like there’s much more lacking on the former side. Or maybe I’m looking at the wrong place…

  81. 81.

    Kay

    @lamh36:

    “You the health inspector?” “Yes”

    I think they got her on that one. Wonder why she never got charged with impersonating a health inspector to gain entrance to an apartment?

    Does the lawsuit against the mistress really her “accuse her of preying on old, rich men”? Those words? the reporter sounds like he’s quoting.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: Nice! (You could teach them to say Joe F. Biden when they are in polite company. I worked with someone who taught me that, only he was not using it to convey respect.)

    While we’re on the subject of people being really, I loved hearing our president saying the words “pissed off” during his comedy routine last night.

    I watched Obama on TV last night and watch him again on video this morning. Damn fine comedy act, I would definitely pay money to see a comedian who made me laugh that much.

  83. 83.

    hilts

    @lamh36:

    Great to see someone nailing that asshole Rochelle Sterling. Hopefully, this video will get the wide circulation it deserves.

  84. 84.

    Suzanne

    @PsiFighter37: I would strongly disagree with your assertion that Louis C. K.’s comedy doesn’t contain social or political commentary.

  85. 85.

    WaterGirl

    @PsiFighter37: Does it make me a bad person that I don’t feel any sympathy for the humiliation Dancin’ Dave must feel now that the word is out?

  88. 88.

    Suzanne

    @WaterGirl: Yeah, I read it and loved it. She’s great. I’ve enjoyed her for years. Considering who her uncle is, having her perform at Nerd Prom would be amazing.

  89. 89.

    Brian R.

    If the WHCD is “nerd prom,” we need someone to go full Carrie on it.

  90. 90.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    I keep trying to catch you — if your face is swollen, you need to ice it. 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off (to avoid frostbite). Frozen peas work great, but you can’t eat them after using them as an icepack.

    When G had his wisdom teeth out, I made him ice his jaw almost constantly and he avoided the worst of the swelling (he only looked like jowly Richard Nixon for about 20 minutes total).

  91. 91.

    PsiFighter37

    @Suzanne: I’ve seen a few episodes of ‘Louie’, as well as his HBO special. My impression is that his main shtick is about middle-aged life, the dating scene post-divorce, and parenting.

    Shoot me, but if I’m interested in comedy about everyday life, Jerry Seinfeld is the fuckin’ master of it, and I can watch him in syndication every night. (I also saw him live at MSG last year, and, despite being hugely tied to the 90s in my mind, he was able to adapt his comedy very well)

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    @PsiFighter37:

    When he does politics, Louis CK does more stuff on racial politics than party politics. He’s worked with Chris Rock for years and is the writer/director of Pootie Tang (not a joke), so he’s kinda like the Eminem of comedy.

  93. 93.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    Prez was his usual self–him and his speech writers have a pretty good knack for delivering a blow with finesse. McHale was much more of a bludgeon. When he beat Christie over the head with his own words, it was pretty effective. When he was trying to be Joan Rivers, it was less so. Oh, and that Cliven Bundy joke was damn funny.

  96. 96.

    John

    I think a television show where actual Joe Biden plays the Onion version of Joe Biden could very well be the best television show ever made. But who will play “Worm“?

  97. 97.

    Jacel

    It would be interesting to see Colbert do this gig again sometime as the post-“Colbert Report” Stephen Colbert.

  99. 99.

    gogol's wife

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    God, it’s a good thing I have too much work to do to actually read the NYT today. He’s the one who promoted GWB during his first campaign as the guy you’d like to have a beer with.

  104. 104.

    jayjaybear

    Chuck Schumer is actually Amy Schumer’s dad’s cousin, so they’re first cousins, once removed.

  107. 107.

    NotMax

    @Suzanne

    I would strongly disagree with your assertion that Louis C. K.’s comedy doesn’t contain social or political commentary.

    Diff’rent strokes and all that, but I would strongly disagree with your assertion that anything Louis CK does is comedy.

  108. 108.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl:

    Is that the same thing as second cousins?

    No, it is not. First cousins are the children of siblings. Second cousins are children of first cousins. Third cousins are next and so on. These relationships are even across generations. Once you go cross-generational, you get into the once, twice, three times removed thing. A first cousin once removed status exists between a person and the child of their first cousin and vice versa. Twice removed is person and grandchild of first cousin. And so on.

  109. 109.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    A relative who is a distant cousin but a close friend is my third cousin once removed.

    I seem to be the only person in the family who understands the precision of the relationship. (That kind of knowledge was very important to my grandmother, so I absorbed the genealogical rules at her knee. Not that they’re all that challenging.)

  110. 110.

    KatalinX

    @Geoduck:
    McHale was part of a really great comedy show that knew how to do sketch comedy AND have punch lines. Green River Dance, High-Fivin’ White Guys — Almost Live had much great satire, parody and lots of silly Seattle stuff. Most weeks it was better than SNL. Loved McHale’s jokes at the WHCD and the transcript is at the Washington Post. It reads very well. I think people forget that the jester is supposed to poke the “King & Court” as well as the “little people” no matter whether there is a D or an R after their name.

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