Man oh man -- Bill Ayers must be one happy cat. Even when he was trying to spark a Prairie Fire, his cocksure pose on FBI wanted lists, Ayers didn't get this kind of national attention. For a guy who believes that the Weather experience was more right than wrong,...

Sarah Palin has helped push Tina Fey a few more rungs up the celebrity ladder. The moment Palin was unveiled as McCain's sidekick, Fey's name was mentioned across the spectrum, for obvious, physical reasons. Always happy to give the audience what it wants, SNL predictably featured its former head writer...

Me included.

There are few hells more tormenting than hanging with other writers. We are an insecure, egocentric, petty, envious breed who enjoy spreading pain, hoping to maximize it for ourselves. At least that's how I see it, based on my experience. There are exceptions, of course, and I've known...

Obama supporters and blissed-out Barry-heads everywhere: Are you ready for some righteous war? Are you prepared to step up and get fucking medieval in Afghanistan, and perhaps in Pakistan as well? You'd better be, for the man whose feet you're currently kissing has big plans to expand the War On...

With each presidential run, Ralph Nader further marginalizes his message, much of which remains accurate and on point. The problem with saying what he does as a declared candidate is that the candidacy itself becomes the media hook; and since Nader has no real chance to alter November's outcome (based...

Another angry prophet is gone. Perhaps the last one, as far as my generation goes, anyway. Not that I'm as old as George Carlin -- don't rush me. But when I became comedically aware in my early teens, Carlin was laying it down, sporting long hair,...

It's one thing to be told that you're living in historic times. It's another to be told that not only must you happily appreciate this, you should enthusiastically applaud the fact, regardless of personal doubts or criticisms.

Since Obama secured the Dem nomination, we've been buried in applause lines...

A salient feature of the Scott McClellan media spasm is how, after being shown yet another corrupt aspect of the political system, liberals cling even more firmly to this very system. The concept of breaking away and attacking this corruption from an independent, or dare I say it, radical angle,...

Observe American politics long enough, and not only will you get a series of brain-splintering migraines and endure several phases of depression and despair, you'll notice how little reality changes.

Now that Obama has the nomination all but locked up, and is drawing Springsteen-sized crowds where followers shriek and...

Barack Obama tries and largely succeeds in convincing his followers and hangers-on that we are living in a post-racial time; that it's all about ideals, values, and common interests, not grievances nor negative feelings from the long dead past. It's a soothing, effective narrative, especially for race-challenged white liberals seeking...

"'Hitler is alive in Burma' reads the words scrawled on a cardboard sign, held aloft by a sweet-faced Ellen Page, the Juno star, in a 90-second human-rights public awareness message that began showing on video-sharing Web sites last week."

So began a recent New York Times piece about yet another...

"Reverend Wright -- may I call you J-Wry?"

"If you wish. But why that?"

"It's looser, more casual. Puts people at ease."

"I see."

"And trust me, J, you of all people must put others at ease."

"Like who?"

"You know, those Senator Obama needs to win the presidency."

"Ah....

The Dalai Lama spent last weekend just down the street from my house, drawing crowds of blissed-out followers and seekers of Truth and Tranquility. I toyed with the idea of trekking to the Lama's feet myself, just to soak in, at close range, the whole Tibetan Buddhist vibe. Plus, the...

"The liberation of Iraq -- in other words, the decision that we had to move the Iraqi people and the region into a post-Saddam era -- will stand, I'm convinced, as one of the greatest decisions of American statecraft, as one of the things that American soldiers, male and female,...

"Fuck the president!"

So blurts Staff Sgt. Brandon King, played by Ryan Phillippe, after learning he's being sent back to Iraq for yet another tour of madness in Stop-Loss.

It's hard not to like a film where an Iraqi combat vet, Bronze Star and Purple Heart barely warm on...

Amid all the righteous noise made about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it was David Gergen, on Anderson Cooper's show, who made the most pertinent observation. The veteran GOP operative with bipartisan ties informed the audience that black America is having a different conversation than white America, so one cannot apply the...

I try to enjoy most evenings at home, a Rockwellian domestic scene with Lynchian mood lighting set to an early Scorcese pace. Or maybe some deep Ashby focus with a Von Sternberg score and Sturges slapstick thrown in for laughs. Depends on the night, mood, bank balance, and mental temperature.

"Oh Bill, you're so extraordinary."

So quipped Gore Vidal, after being told by William F. Buckley, Jr. that if he didn't stop calling the effete reactionary a crypto-Nazi, the "queer" would get socked "in the goddamned face." Vidal's response was lost in the din caused by ABC...

Having completed a little tome about the gallons of blood guzzled by Democrats over numerous decades, I was stopped by an AP headline this morning that read, "Anti-war Democrats ponder next step."

Hmm. Must be about Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel anticipating more shit storms...

The hubbub over David Shuster's "pimped out" crack about Chelsea Clinton confirms that this election cycle remains free of real political analysis. Shuster's a dope, of which there's no shortage at MSNBC and the other cable nets, and his comment that Hillary's pimping her daughter into campaign service was guaranteed...