John Oliver's clever piece about vigilant Clinton supporters. (There is mild profanity.) Below: Van Halen's music rocked the introduction of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate. Copyrighted Associated Press photo by Stephan Savoia.
Here was the problem keeping up with The Daily Show this week: With most of the Democratic National Convention speeches ending after 11 p.m., and then analysis coming immediately after, it was pretty much impossible to catch the 11 p.m. showing. But, Comedy Central does rerun The Daily Show numerous times, including a Saturday morning marathon of last week's convention shows, and the show is available online. There were a bunch of funny bits, including Jon Stewart, aping Barack Obama imploring people to get to Mile High Stadium early because, "Hope don't park the (bleeping) car!" The part where he had the Stones, Hendrix and Mozart playing before Obama's speech was great, too.
The two best bits were Monday's Healing Clinton Supporters (embed above), in which John Oliver brought in a child psychologist to help the PUMA's and their ilk, and the faux campaign video, Barack Obama: He Completes Us.
Stewart and crew will be in St. Paul/Minneapolis next week, again broadcasting from Tuesday to Friday, like last week.
Surprise!: Credit John McCain for a masterpiece of thunder theft, announcing his historic pick for vice-presidential running mate just 13 hours after Obama's stadium speech Thursday that was reportedly watched by 38 million viewers.
The punditry, like Thursday night, was fairly predictable with folks like Sean Hannity hailing the choice of Palin as brilliant and Olbermann and Maddow dissecting it on MSNBC -- though they did allow that the probe into Palin's firing of an Alaska state official probably won't amount to much. To me, the potential masterstroke of the pick was evidenced in a Good Morning America promo Saturday that billed Palin as the Hockey Mom who could be the next vice-president. Forget the political junkies, appealing to the People magazine-morning chat show crowd with Palin's human interest story -- mooseburgers, half-eskimo husband -- may be the way this ticket attracts swing voters.
A little pop culture connection was explained to me in this morning's paper. John McCain and Sarah Palin's first appearance was preceeded and followed by Van Halen's Right Now, which is a pretty good choice for a campaign theme. Turns out, Palin and her husband Todd are big VH fans, going so far as to name their son Trig Paxson Van Palin in tribute to the band. Of course, considering Right Now is from the Sammy Haggar era for Van Halen, maybe Sam would have been the appropriate third name.
On the Copious Notes Twitter, we endorsed Kristen Wiig to play Palin on Saturday Night Live, though sources as dispirate as The Daily Show and The New York Times have noted the striking resemblance between Palin and former SNL Weekend Update host and head writer Tina Fey. Maybe some guest appearances will be in order this season.
The Mother Tongue weighs in on the Palin choice calling comparison's between Palin and former Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton "apples and oranges in pantyhose."