Samantha Bee on The Huffington Post

Jon Stewart Revels In Inane Election Coverage (VIDEO)

2009-11-04T08:59:57Z

The 2009 elections that have been dominating cable news coverage of late consisted of two gubernatorial races and two congressional seats. Of course, every race is important and deserves coverage but the hyperbole which reporters, anchors and pundits have employed claiming these races are referendums on the president and his policies, and predictors of the 2008, 2010 and 2012 elections caused Jon Stewart to take exception.

He focused specifically on New York's 23rd District race in which Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava was undermined by her own party mostly because she supports gay marriage, abortion rights and has a close relationships with leading labor officials. Sarah Palin, Dick Armey, Michele Bachmann, Fred Thompson, Steve Forbes, and more decided to support third party candidate Doug Hoffman who is much more conservative. The media took this race and ran with it, asking over and over again if this race will define the GOP for years and years to come, prompting Stewart to ask, "Might the media, with really very few other elections to cover, be stuffing one hundred thousand pounds of their bullshit into District 23's five-pound bag?"

He went on to skewer CNN for its inane panels, and convene his own group of pundits to speculate about what he might ask them tomorrow.

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The Daily Show On High-Frequency Trading: "Douchey Traders Are Being Replaced By Douchey Computers" (VIDEO)

2009-10-01T11:16:52Z

Samantha Bee of The Daily Show recently unearthed a new money-making scheme for some small scale investors: high-frequency trading. Up until now, Bee reports, high-frequency trading was only available to big-time investors and banks. Hence, this New York Times story from earlier this year.

Not quite sure how it works? Here's Bee's explanation.

"When they [computers] see that investors want to buy up all the stock, they buy up all the available shares and sell them at higher prices, most likely to other middlemen, who in turn sells those shares to investors.

"

Got that? Bee clarifies high-frequency trading with a question: "So Douchey Traders Are Being Replaced By Douchey Computers?"

For now, computers are getting away with this version of insider trading. That means that it's time to pull out your copy of Beginning Programming for Dummies, before regulators catch on.

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Jon Stewart Vs. Town Hall Crazies (VIDEO)

2009-08-11T08:03:08Z

If you're taking a break from crazy this August and refuse to watch cable news, you may have missed some town hall kerfuffles lead by the least-informed, yet loudest, sector of the Republican party. These town halls focus on explaining and answering questions about Obama's health care reform plan, but the people yelling and screaming at these events don't want answers, they want to yell and scream. The disruptions have even led to outbreaks of violence and death threats to groups participating in the events.

Of course, these folks are not acting out on their own, but getting their misinformation from leaders such as Sarah Palin who insists Obama's plan includes "death panels," and Rush Limbaugh who said that "Obama's health care logo" (which does not yet exist) looks like a swastika.

Jon Stewart took on these town hall uprisings and their leaders last night in two segments, the first focusing on the media hypocrisy over the coverage of these events, and the second mocking the "death panel" debate.

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Half-Baked Alaska: Samantha Bee Defends Palin's Choice To Resign As Mother Of Her Children (VIDEO)

2009-07-14T09:29:13Z

In an interview with Samantha Bee, the "Daily Show"'s senior Alaska correspondent, Jon Stewart got repeatedly shot down in his attempts to qualify what Sarah Palin did last week as "quitting." "That is such an in the box elitist way of framing it...leave her family alone they're off limits! What is wrong with you," Bee shouted. When Stewart tried another route, things really got heated...

BEE: She's a point guard dishing the ball for an open shot.

STEWART: That's one play, a point guard then has to defend and play the rest of the game. It's like leaving half way through the third quarter!

BEE: Yeah, maybe in Harvard main stream basketball.

STEWART: No, that's the rules of basketball.

BEE: Not maverick basketball.

STEWART: There's no such thing as maverick basketball. You're either playing basketball or you're not playing basketball.

Bee then went on to explain that she's not only stepping down as governor of Alaska, but as mother to her five children, handing the reins over to "some other lady."

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It's An Eat The Press Canada Day (And The Rest Of Your Scritti Politti)

2009-07-01T18:30:36Z

Hmm. It's July 1st! Somewhere, out in the recesses of memory, a strange, clarion call is sounding, reminding me of a hallowed Eat The Press tradition. But what can it be?

OMGZ, of course! It's CANADA DAY, and on this day, Eat The Press remembers and celebrates all things Canadian, in keeping with the rituals handed down by this blog's founder and blogmother, Rachel Sklar. She is Canadian and she walks among us, in plain sight, but do not be afraid! She probably has cookies for you!

As Rachel would remind you, the media is filled with Canadians, and no, not all of them are Conrad Black! My personal favorites include the Daily Show's Samantha Bee and Jason Jones, Slate's legal eagle Dahlia Lithwick, NY1's Zen-master Pat Kiernan, Rachel's platonic life-partner, Glynnis MacNicol, and Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow, who quaintly spells his name "C-O-R-Y," resisting the runaway-popular American variant, "C-H-O-I-R-E." Also, Catherine Collins, who has been offering spiritual advice to the Huffington Post's DC Office, is Canadian. She buys us beer on Fridays, in keeping with the traditions of a proud nation.

I would remind you that Canada has, for a long while, been a key source of fine rock music. Metric's new album, Fantasies, is likely to vie for my own personal Album of the Year this year. It's awesome and you should buy a million copies, for your friends. As always, I remind you that I think the best band in the world is an outfit from Montreal, called Stars. Here's their video for "Take Me To The Riot," off of their 2007 album In Our Bedroom After The War.

Canadians On Canadian Stuff: The New York Times had eleven Canadians weigh in on what they most miss about Canada. Breath mints, crosswalk etiquette, freezing to death in Winnipeg, Coffee Crisps, and "fugitive logs" rate pretty high. Oh, also, there's that whole universal health care stuff, that's pretty awesome.

Speaking Of: You know what conservative senators in Canada love? SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE! Love it to bits and bits! I tell you, it's like bizarro-land up there!

When Will Meghan McCain Hold An Encounter Group For Her Father's Advisers: And when will McCain campaign adviser Nicolle Wallace make s'mores with me? These are but a few of the questions raised by the aftermath of Todd Purdum's Sarah Palin profile, and answered by Megan Carpentier and I in a special Canada Day edition of Crappy Hour. (Did I mention that Crappy Hour is back? Because it is.)

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Let Long Island Secede: Samantha Bee Tackles New York Naysayers (VIDEO)

2009-06-16T14:36:01Z

After devoting the bulk of his show to Iran's elections, Jon Stewart tossed to a Samantha Bee segment on the Long Island secession movement. If you don't know what that is, don't worry, no one does.

Long Island, the body of land that extends from the end of Queens into the Atlantic Ocean, boasts suburbs and summer houses alike, along with people who hate New York State. Bee sat down with lawmakers and Italian guys who hang out in bars to ask probing questions with ridiculous answers. After a little light gay bashing from the bar boys and heavy nonsense from legislator Edward Romaine, one might start to think getting rid of this place isn't such a bad idea, but then where would we all get stuck in traffic on Friday afternoons?

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"Daily Show" Correspondents Answer Your Economic Questions (VIDEO)

2009-05-28T16:14:34Z

The "Daily Show"'s Samantha Bee, Larry Wilmore, John Oliver, Wyatt Cenac, Aasif Mandvi, and Jason Jones are on, even when their show is not. The late night correspondents are answering your questions this week while the "Daily Show" is on break.

In the first video they tell us their plans for the economic collapse. (SPOILER: Brown people should be very afraid of John Oliver.) We learn why this topic is such a bummer for Larry Wilmore in particular and where Wyatt Cenac plans to ride out the turmoil.

In the second video, the men and women of the "DS" school a questioner in the rules of grammar and propriety before letting him know that the economy is not as offensive as his lack of knowledge.

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Funny & Fine: Who's America's Sexiest Comedienne? You Decide! (SLIDESHOW) (POLL)

2009-05-26T18:41:28Z

We've selected 15 of the sexiest funny ladies we know for a HuffPost poll of ridiculous proportions. They're all hilarious, they're all more comedienne than actress, and they're all smarter than you. Think we're missing someone? Complain about it in the comments section! Want the guys list? Click here and vote for them too!

"Daily Show" Correspondents Answer Your Questions (VIDEO)

2009-05-26T11:12:23Z

The "Daily Show"'s Samantha Bee, Larry Wilmore, John Oliver, Wyatt Cenac, Aasif Mandvi, and Jason Jones are on, even when their show is not. The late night correspondents answered the question of one "ghostrider" this week while the "Daily Show" is on break. The question: "Just how totally mondo stoked were you when you found out you would be a featured member of the 'Daily Show' cast?"

Most them donned weird accents and funny voices, except for Oliver who sounds that way in general. He refused to answer the question because "this is not the 1970s and [ghostrider is] not a California surfer."

Cenac and Bee were in fact stoked, Mandvi veered off topic to discuss his depression, Jones gave a plug to Christian fundamentalism, and Wilmore said he was not a featured member of the cast.

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Samantha Bee Talks Torture On Take Your Child To Work Day (VIDEO)

2009-04-24T08:50:34Z

As many of you know, yesterday was Take Your Child to Work Day, and Samantha Bee did just that bringing her son "Track" on location to discuss torture techniques. (The boy used to be named "Jason, Jr" after her husband, but once she heard about Sarah Palin's child-naming practices she flipped the switch.) Things got a little heated when Bee started using the boy's comfort items to illustrate torture, but she explained they'd be going for cocktails shortly to calm everyone's nerves.

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What Comes After Twitter? Flutter

2009-04-04T17:03:54Z

Since its creation in 2006, Twitter has inspired millions of fans, but it has also inspired its fare share of parodies. First, Samantha Bee took on the microblogging site for the "Daily Show." She explained to Jon Stewart, who "has no f**king idea how Twitter works or why it is," that it offers insight into our most important news makers' least important thoughts and that young people love it according to old people.

Then Current's "SuperNews!" used their season premier to mock the Twittersphere, where all of the site's users float around talking about their mundane lives, communicating with "bit-sized yippidy yap," trying to become Twitterlebrities.

Now Slate has gotten in on the game with their bite-sized mockumentary about a company called Flutter that is one-upping Twitter by reducing their character count from 140 to 26. They are the leading (and only) company in the world of "nanoblogging."

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John Oliver Confuses St. Patrick's Day Parade For AIG Protest (VIDEO)

2009-03-18T08:08:49Z

When you send a Brit to cover the St. Patrick's Day, something bad is probably going to happen, but it doesn't usually involve the correspondent mistaking it for an economic protest.

That was the concept of John Oliver's hilarious look at how drunk people dressed in green reacted to AIG and job loss which included, "passing out in anger, throwing up in anger, pissing up against the side of buildings in anger."

The "Daily Show" has been focusing almost exclusively on the economy and the media's reactions to it. Last night, Stewart did segments on veteran's health insurance, AIG, and populist protests to the bailout. The night before, Samantha Bee took on short-selling, and of course, the week before Stewart took on Cramer.

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Samantha Bee Explains Short Selling (VIDEO)

2009-03-17T08:35:36Z

Since the economic downturn, everyone has been talking about short-selling, a practice that bets on the failure of American institutions. It has been of particular interest to those who blame it for devaluing companies and putting people out of their jobs. But how does it work?

Samantha Bee answered that question for us last night in her "Money Honey Bee" segment and ended up making this analogy about the practice to a short-seller:

"Just because you robbed the grave, doesn't mean you killed the guy."

Jon Stewart took on Jim Cramer last week in part for his video confession that he engaged in short-selling:

"I would encourage anyone in a hedge fund to do it because it's legal, uh a very quick way to make money and very satisfying. By the way, no one else in the world would ever admit that..."

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'The Daily Show' Takes On Twitter (VIDEO)

2009-03-03T08:41:18Z

In a segment called "Old Man Stewart Shakes His Fist At [Twitter]" Jon explored the world of tweeting last night with help from Samantha Bee, who is not only on Twitter, but Grunter and Stalker as well.

Stewart raised concerns that this trend further frays our already small attention spans, and admitted that he "has no f**king idea how Twitter works or why it is." But Bee assured him "it's awesome."

She went on to explain that it offers insight into our most important news makers' least important thoughts and that young people love it according to old people.

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Roombas Of Doom: How Vacuum Cleaners Will Kill Us All (VIDEO)

2009-02-11T11:29:59Z

For the latest installment of "Future Shock," Samantha Bee sat down with Colin Angle, the CEO of iRobot and creator of the Roomba, who received nearly $300M from the government to turn the tiny vacuum cleaner thingies into weapons.

Angle explained that our fears over a Terminator-like robot attack is unfounded because the future is going to be much stranger.

Bee also talked to an ethicist who has misgivings about the devices. She calmed his fears by proclaiming, "We don't want them getting married or anything, just defending out shores." She went on to advocate shooting stupid children.

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Nora Ephron: My New Play: Like the Vagina Monologues but Without the Vaginas

2009-01-29T12:13:24Z

Hey, HuffPosters, my sister Delia and I have written a play. It's called "Love, Loss and What I Wore" and it's based on the best-selling book by Ilene Beckerman, as well as on the stories of our friends and friends of friends. It's a series of pieces performed by five wonderful actresses, all about clothes we've loved and the memories they trigger: the powder blue strapless prom dress, the nightmare of the bra saleslady, the tragedy of the purse, our mothers, our mothers, our mothers and more. We're workshopping it in New York for six Monday nights, February 2, 9, 16, 23 and March 2, 9. It's a benefit for Dress for Success, at the DR2 Theater on E. 15th Street, and among the actresses taking part (there are five each night) are Joy Behar, Tyne Daly, Blythe Danner, Julie White, America Ferrara, Samantha Bee, Parker Posey, Sarah Jones, Rosie O'Donnell, Marlo Thomas, Casey Wilson, Debi Mazur, Marian Seldes, Kathy Najimy and others...It's sort of "The Vagina Monologues" but without the vaginas.

If you would like to come see it, go to www.LoveLossthebenefit.com for tickets, or call Telecharge at 212-239-6200. The show starts at 8. Tickets are $50 (for a great cause).

Click on the image below for full-size poster:

Steve Young: Obama Reveals Plans for a Department of Satire

2008-11-24T09:22:34Z

The Obama transition team has indicated the possibility of a dramatic, yet witty change from the status quo. There is serious talk of developing a Department of Satire to meant to deal with the growing amount of absurdities that affect the world today.

"It's an obvious move that's time has come," said National Lampoon creative director, Scott Rubin. "Different from the previous administration, if this one is going to be a laughing-stock they want to do it on purpose. The economy has been a joke. So has the response to it. The housing market, Wall Street, terrorism. They could all use some lightning up. Just handling Vice President Biden's gaffes alone will take a hefty writing team."

The plan is for the DOS to field all questions and issues, no matter the gravity, that demand a creative response.

"We'll be supplying our press secretaries with seeming ad-libs and playful comebacks," said DOS sidekick, Hank Kingsley. "Hey, now. We certainly don't expect for this to be an office that simply throws puns and double entendres at the difficulties we face. If we're going to utilize a joke - in the strictest sense - we would hope that it more favors Stephen Wright than it does Carrot Top. Otherwise it will all be irony and clever spoofs."

This wouldn't be the first time an administration has enlisted satire. Many consider the George H. Bush's term-long spoof that had many believing that Dan Quayle was actually the country's vice-president to be the best farce pulled off by an administration since Lincoln's bulls-eye-taped-to-his-back joke that went horribly awry.

"The decision to allow Lieberman to hold onto his Senate chairmanship is the first decision handed down by the DOS, but don't expect every response to be as absurd," said Kingsley. "We'll leave that up to Bill O'Reilly. We're just trying to lighten up the hard times ahead while at the same time, make some thoughtful observations that Will Rodgers or Britt Hume would be proud of."

"Satire isn't a joke," said one of Sacha Baron Cohen's characters. "It's more of a clever comment may or may not illicit a chuckle from revealing the absurdity of a person, place or thing."

"Regrettably, the explanation of what is satire is certainly not funny," he added.

As of yet, no Secretary of Satire has been named, but those rumored under consideration include Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee and William Kristol.

"Kristol is either a long shot or just a gag the Obama people threw in to screw with us," said web satirist, Andy Borowitz. "Either way, it's pretty funny."

Gloria Feldt: John McCain's Wrong Answers to Working Women's Questions--Now Give Him Your Answer at the Ballot Box

2008-11-03T10:13:21Z

By Carole Joffe and Gloria Feldt
Don't get excited. John McCain didn't respond directly to the questions about his positions on economic and reproductive justice we first put to him on Labor Day here at Huffington Post and have been asking him ever since.

Since then, he shocked even us with his over the top contempt for women during his third debate with Barack Obama. When Obama expressed concern over the Supreme Court's upholding a federal abortion ban because it didn't contain an exception for women's health, McCain made "air quotes"
around "health exception," and declared, " You know that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement to mean almost anything."

We could tell lots of stories about women whose lives and reproductive capacity have depended on their access to the banned abortion methods, but who could top Samantha Bee's
send up of McCain's insensitivity?

Turns out McCain's dismissal of the health issues facing real women in the real world is of a piece with his record on many other issues facing working women.

So now, as election day (finally!) looms tomorrow, and in the midst of an economic meltdown that disproportionately affects women , especially unmarried women, it's time to revisit the questions we asked John McCain on Labor Day and later expanded to include his running mate Sarah Palin. Below is the original post's questions with updates and additional links to the answers we found:

The frenzied media circus surrounding McCain's choice for running mate, Sarah Palin surfaced many questions, some of an unduly personal nature. But some of those personal matters, like her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ann-shoket/what-was-bristols-plan-a_b_123490.html , raise legitimate questions about McCain's policy agenda.

We take seriously Barack Obama's eloquent plea that candidates' families-and especially their children -- be allowed a zone of privacy. And we feel compassion for the two teenagers whose personal lives are being publicly dissected literally around the globe. But any candidate's positions on policy matters -- some of which in this case bear directly on the issues surrounding sex, pregnancy, childbearing, and family well-being-are most certainly fair game for discussion in this election. They affect every American, after all.

So while we agree that Bristol and Levi should be left in peace, John McCain's choice of Palin only intensifies our concerns about his responsiveness to serious issues facing most working women.

Yes, yes, we know that Sarah Palin is herself a working woman. A working woman on steroids, some might argue, given that she went back to work three days after giving birth to her son, Trig. We're an advocate and academic, respectively, with longstanding passions for economic and reproductive justice for women. We've come to understand the direct and profound interconnections between the two. There's good reason why the words "barefoot and pregnant" have been so frequently joined together historically.

It's positive news that Palin's candidacy has jettisoned these policy matters squarely into the public eye. For we haven't heard anyone question McCain from that intersection of women's lives during the hours of airtime, barrels of ink, and glut of blogposts that have been given over to the Palin family's predicament. So we are asking him these questions now, while the glare of voter interest shines light on them:

First, John McCain, do you think women belong in the paid labor force? This might seem facetious or rhetorical, but it's a very serious, core question. We know your wife, Cindy, chairs the board of her family's company. Until you asked Palin to be your running mate, which tells us you think it's right for women to hold the highest political offices, your most visible surrogate to women voters was Carly Fiorina, until recently a top corporate CEO. [Update: and now "until recently" a McCain surrogate, having too often spoken the truth.]

But surely you realize the overwhelming majority of women don't have the resources of these women. Teen moms in particular are more likely to live in poverty because of truncated educational opportunities. And many of these young mothers do not have a supportive family, with financial resources to help them, as Bristol Palin is fortunate enough to have. So they're going to have to enter the workforce to feed their children.

If you accept most women will spend some of their lives in the labor force, then, do you believe women should earn the same as men, for the same jobs? You have both opposed the equal pay measure stalled in Congress-the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act -- you say it's because it would "open us up to lawsuits". Open who up? And if you support equal pay for equal work, what would you do to guarantee it?

[Update: Just after you called your running mate the "direct counterpart to the liberal, feminist agenda", she made a speech in which she claimed to be a direct counterpart of McCain's view. Still, as Amie Newman reports:

Palin stood with McCain in support of the Supreme Court case that ruled there is a statute of limitations for bringing a suit against an employer for equal pay. It begs the question: why are women in the McCain campaign worthy of equal pay when the rest of American women are not?

Palin in fact proposed what seem to be concrete policy ideas that included "flexibility in labor laws so women could engage in more telecommuting and would push for a tax code "that doesn't penalize working families." She did not elaborate on how that relates to Senator McCain's overall economic plan that provides relief in the form of the largest tax cuts for the highest income generating families. In addition, in fact, McCain's plan allows for less tax relief for working families than does Senator Obama's.

Families where both partners are working for low wages, and especially families headed by single moms, deserve various kinds of support from a compassionate government. These families need access to affordable and high quality childcare. Most of all, they need affordable healthcare -- for themselves, but especially for their children.

But, Senator McCain, your voting history on children's issues is abysmal. Can you explain to us why you voted twice against a reauthorization of S-Chip, the immensely popular state children's health insurance program -- a program supported by many in your own party? Can you explain why your record on children's issues generally is so bad that the nonpartisan Children's Defense Fund in its 2007 Congressional scorecard on children's issues rated you the senator with the worst voting record?

In Palin's convention speech, she said that families with special needs would have a "friend in the White House". Why didn't you vote to increase funding for children with disabilities?

[Update: According to 9to5's former director Ellen Bravo, "Unfortunately, [Palin's] main proposal is more taxpayer money for private school vouchers, a program that has proven to be stunningly unaccountable and supports schools that exclude most special needs kids."]

And while we're at it, do you think it was right for Palin to slash funding for children with special needsin Alaska during her two years a governor, just as she also slashed funding for programs that help pregnant teens become self supporting. With friends like these...

But let's step back to where it all starts, or should start, with planning and prevention. To participate in the workplace, women must be able to plan and space their childbearing. A government study found that 98% of heterosexually active American women had used contraception at some point, and a Rand study found that five of six Americans support insurance coverage of family planning services. Access to contraception, clearly, is a deeply shared American family value.

[Update: Your running mate, Senator McCain, http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=ePBglj6_uQ4">told Katie Couric she does not support emergency contraception, which could prevent up to half of abortions. Do you?]

Your voting record reveals you've cast dozens of votes opposing contraceptive coverage for insured women and family planning funding for low income uninsured women. Yet when a reporter asked your position on contraception, you stammered you didn't remember and asked your aide to "find out how you had voted." On another occasion, you famously squirmed and mumbled "I'll get back to you" when asked to explain Carly Fiorina's perfectly logical statement that it's unfair for insurance companies to cover Viagra™ but not contraception. Did Ms. Fiorina fail to get your memo to that in order to curry favor with the Religious Right your campaign had to adopt a strict anti-birth control policy? Or perhaps the subject of sexuality is so uncomfortable for you that you think your votes for the discredited abstinence-only sex education program is a sufficient response?

If the stakes weren't so serious, your consistent stumbles -- whenever asked about family planning issues -- would be amusing. But it's no laughing matter that you would deny birth control access, quash comprehensive and medically accurate sex education and yet simultaneously move to outlaw abortion.

We've noticed your flip flops on abortion, by the way. You identify as "pro-life," as is your right. Still, why have you abandoned your once nuanced positions? In 1999, you were on record as not wanting Roe v Wade overturned, recognizing-correctly-that allowing criminalization of abortion would lead to many injuries, even deaths. Now, you've even picked a running mate who like you wants to see Roe overturned. Period.

In 2000, you challenged George W. Bush to justify how he could possibly support the Republican party platform that calls for outlawing abortion with no exceptions -- not for rape, incest, health, even life of the woman!

You were incredulous then that Bush refused to repudiate such extremism. And we are incredulous now, that in 2008, you don't push back against the extremists in your party who show such callous disregard for the lives of women.

[ Update: The nation was shocked to see you dismiss women's health with your "quotation" hand gesture http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=SGZOyxfiNoU in the third debate. Guess that's our answer.]

What's more You've chosen a running mate whose views on abortion are in line with those extremists.

[UPDATE: Since you've chosen a vice presidential running mate who affirms to the right-wing Focus on the Family's Rev. James Dobson that she supports the entire draconian anti-choice Republican platform, and so do you,] She's even said that if her own daughter were raped, she'd expect her to carry the pregnancy to term.

Senator McCain, where do you stand on these intersecting challenges facing women? Is it really your vision that women should be paid less than men, accept unsatisfactory childcare and healthcare for their children, yet have limited access to contraception and medically accurate, comprehensive sex education that could reduce unintended pregnancy and abortion, and risk possible injury or death, when -- if you are in a position to appoint Supreme Court justices --a bortion becomes once more illegal?

Because if that's your plan for women, you'll be taking "barefoot and pregnant" to a whole new level, and the women of America deserve to know that before they cast their votes.
It's time for real straight talk on how your policies affect real women, Senator McCain.

[Update: The best thing about such a protracted and visible campaign is that the answers have become unmistakably clear with or without your lack of direct response to our queries. Now it's up to the voters to give you their answer at the ballot box by pulling the lever for Barack Obama.]

Carole Joffe Is a Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. Gloria Feldt blogs at Heartfeldt Politics . She is author of The War on Choice and former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Jason Notte: Americans Still Undecided on How Much to Hate Undecided Voters

2008-10-24T11:00:52Z

Please don't be angry with Sarah Palin for excluding all those big, funny places with skyscrapers from "Real America" and its "Pro-America" borders. Nor should you blame John McCain's adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer for excluding Northern Virginia from the "Real Virginia," or Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann for looking under her Capitol co-workers' beds for sheet music to "The Internationale."

Reserving criticism for these politicians just increases voter bitterness and further divides the nation. Observers from both sides of the aisle should seize upon this opportunity and focus their collective rage at its source:

Undecided voters.

Without our dear friends the undecided, Bill Ayers' Weatherman helmet would still be collecting dust in the attic, Charles Keating's savings and loan misdeeds would be sandwiched between Gary Coleman and Kajagoogoo in a VH1 '80s special and Joe McCarthy wouldn't have to cheat on the woman who loves him most -- Ann Coulter. Instead, for three presidential debates and one vice presidential contest, the networks assembled their four-by-four lines groups of professional hedgers to see who had paid the least attention during the last 20 months.

The loser? Anyone unfortunate enough to be watching the whole, sad spectacle.

While it is nice to see fellow Americans giving their future leaders the same consideration they'd give a gym membership, one would think that the nation's faltering economy and perpetual state of war would merit more attention than Nautilus machines and a smoothie bar. Remember the primaries, the conventions and the debate process? Consider that your free trial.

When Jason Jones and Samantha Bee of The Daily Show laid into a group of undecided voters last week, at one point asking if Barack Obama had come to a voter's house and give him or her "a reach-around while he discusses his economic policy," they and their writers lived out every sensible person's fevered dream. They got to be the guy at the fast food place who shouts "Today, pal!" when someone who ample time to look at the menu orders as if they'd never seen a Big Mac before. They got to lay on the horn and startle the driver who couldn't decide when to get off of the highway and, instead, flipped on the hazard lights and sat in the triangle between the exit and the main road. Facing down our national nightmare, they lived the dream.

That they never came to understand why these people were undecided was fitting. Were they all from generations of undecided voters who had resorted to naming their children Joe-Jennifer just so they wouldn't have to make a decision? Were they happy with that given name because it as adequately described a bus-riding plumber as it did a stroller utility vehicle-pushing yuppie mom? Were they all from New Hampshire and just got a kick out of being contrary?

We may never know, or care. However, as millions of blogs, social networking pages and online videos prove each day, we are a nation of children who want mommy to watch us go off the diving board. Thus, the people who comprise undecided voter panels have no motivation to make up their mind, or to tell anyone if they've done so. So long as they remain uncommitted, they will continue to get air time, blather on for a stretch that would cost a Super Bowl advertiser at least $750,000 and go home and tell their friends that Katie Couric wasn't nearly as gross as her colon special had led them to believe.

In the meantime, the candidates will do everything short of carving an undecided voter's name into their arm to get his or her attention. It doesn't matter if said waffler is to dumb to work a doorknob, too lazy to have read about or watched at least a portion of this nearly two-year campaign or too apathetic to warrant a tree's ultimate sacrifice for the sake of their voter registration form. This moment belongs to the unswayed, uninformed and unloved 7 percent that Real Clear Politics poll numbers show as uncommitted.

For now, it's their "Real America." Everyone else just has to live here and put up with it.

"Daily Show" Correspondents Samantha Bee & Jason Jones To Write, Star In CBS Sitcom

2008-10-14T08:49:44Z

Married "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" correspondents Jason Jones and Samantha Bee are prepping a jump into the sitcom world.

Jones and Bee have signed on to co-create and co-write a script for themselves at CBS. The couple would also star in the as-yet-untitled comedy, which will revolve around the behind-the-scenes world of a celebrity chef (played by Jones) and the two women who run his cooking empire (one of whom will be played by Bee).

As part of the deal, they've sealed separate talent holding pacts with CBS and sister studio CBS Paramount Network TV. They're penning their project under the development component of their deals.

New Yorker Fest Political Humor Panel: Pro Sarah Palin Jokes, Against Another Holocaust

2008-10-09T09:36:16Z

I attended the Political Humor panel at last weekend's New Yorker festival, with the Daily Show's Samantha Bee, The Borowitz Report's Andy Borowitz, Colbert Report exec producer Allison Silverman, Onion head writer, SNL writing staff staple (and guy who made out with Jonah Hill last season) Jim Downey, and the New Yorker's articles editor (and Spy founding editor) Susan Morrison, who moderated. I live-Twittered it then, and have collected those bullet points here for posterity. (Keep in mind that they were typed on a blackberry with a 140-character limit, except where I've added/clarified.)

In a weekend of highlights this panel was a highlight, hearing this group of exceptionally sharp, funny people discuss the campaign and the coverage and the role of humor in shaping that. Never has there been an election where political humor played such a significant role. (Viewership for SNL, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report has surged.) My takeaways: Bee's behind-the-scenes of trying to get Republicans at the RNC to say the word "choice"; Silverman saying that she thinks the MSM is reluctant to call out racism for what it is; Downey saying that he thought the media actually did have it in for Hillary Clinton (funny how the actual media always begs to differ); Borowitz's excellent satirical headlines. Borowitz also had the best line of the entire panel, though, after Hanson had done a little rant against stupid people. Morrison noted that there didn't seem to be any of those stupid people in the audience. Said Borowitz: "They're at the New York Post festival."

The panels are slowly being put online at the New Yorker website, so check here for the full experience. Also here's a great write-up from Sharilyn Johnson at The Apiary.

Update: The entire panel is online here. Drop everything and watch.

At NYer Fest panel on political humor, warmed up w/ a Palin impression by 23/6's Sarah Palin impersonator Sarah Benincasa (with sidekick Dina).
"I have a message for Mr. Malcolm Gladwell: You might blink, but we don't." Also: "We just love your liberal rag, it's filled with so many hilarious untruths...we just hope you enjoy the entire panel, which is filled with many white people just like yourselves. It's good to know you liberals continue your devotion to diversity." Then she put on a tiara.
Morrison: We have to start with Sarah Palin - everything is being upstaged by this sitcom comedy mom. 03:16 PM
SamBee: Palin may be a comedy gift, but having great material isn't preferable to having a country that isn't going down the toilet. 03:18 PM
Borowitz: Agrees re: comedy gods - Bush has been like an 8 yr long YouTube clip, but wld rather have the country not be screwed. 03:19 PM
Jim Downey - diff btwn gold and fool's gold - the easy pickings are picked - and then you've got 4 years of a one-note caricature. 03:22 PM
Todd Hansen said season opener on SNL "may have saved the country" 03:26 PM
Silverman talking about how Palin said she was against the Holocaust; Borowitz: "She only said she was against ANOTHER holocaust." 03:27 PM
Borowitz: "I actually read about her in the Book of Revalations, right after the Four Horsemen"; Hanson, apologizing for his scratchy voice: "I've been debating Sarah Palin for the past week." (Per The Apiary.)
Silverman also loved Palin's mention of "The Castro Brothers" 03:28 PM
Clip from Colbert mocking McCain using POW diversion. In "The Word" - one of the most brilliant comedy devices ever. Truly. 03:30 PM
Morrison notes that Silverman + Colbert staff have a different approach b/c they are in character. So they disagree through extreme agreement. 03:33 PM
SamBee: I just don't think anyone would find our show FUNNY if they didn't get their news from somewhere else. They wouldn't get the jokes. 03:34 PM
Borowitz: Daily Show is not fake news. It's real news from a funny perspective; but "CNN is undeniably hilarious." 03:36 PM
Todd Hansen: Not getting news from comedy, they're getting their understanding of that news from comedy. 03:38 PM
Allison: "Real" news people are worried about access. We're not. 03:43 PM
Borowitz Report headline: "McCain Replaces Palin With Startled Deer." 03:44 PM
"McCain Vows To Campaign In All Thirteen Colonies" 03:45 PM
Borowitz: Plenty of Obama humor in the stuff around Obama (like super-lib blogs) 03:46 PM
"Market Tumbles on News That Bush Is Still President" 03:47 PM
Hilarious SamBee clip from the RNC trying to get Repubs to say the word "choice." 03:55 PM
SamBee: "It's such a personal decision for me and I feel very strongly about." 03:56 PM
"....and other people who feel strongly about other people not having that choice will have a LOT to say about it." 03:58 PM
She also said "it was like everybody at the convention got a memo or a text message to eradicate the word "choice" from their vocabulary." 04:00 PM
Hanson: It's not our fault that people are stupid. 04:02 PM
SamBee on CNN's panel of undecided voters, interviewed by Soledad O'Brien: "It was like she was interviewing 12 halibut." 04:04 PM
Morrison: "Why don't we have any of these stupid people in this audience?" Borowitz: "They're at the New York Post festival." 04:09 PM
SNL montage of mock presidential debates. Awesome. 04:10 PM

(if that is online anywhere, people, let me know! In the meantime, here is a video of people like Chris Farley, David Spade and Adam Sandler doing a Bill Clinton:)
Hanson talks more than I wish he would. 04:11 PM
Downey says Obama is hard to mock; Borowitz disagrees. 04:16 PM
(For the record, I've made jokes about Obama. Here's one.) 04:16 PM
Silverman: I can't believe how much protection racists get in this country, anchors like Brokaw using code words like "newness." (i.e. Voters may not know how to handle his "newness.") 04:18 PM
Downey: There was something about Hillary that the media just didn't like...it was more Bill, but he got a pass. They took it out on Hillary 04:20 PM
Downey: Also, the media love for Obama was almost "homoerotic." And there was a glee in savaging Hillary, "not just from the MSNBC guys." 04:22 PM
Borowitz: The idea of balance in satire is the opposite of satire. 04:22 PM
Borowitz: For example, if one candidate picks a VP who's qualified and the other picks one who's qualified to be behind the reception desk at the Doubletree Inn, it may be balanced - but it's not fair to equate the two. 04:26 PM
SamBee: When we mock Obama, a "paralysis" descends on the audience, like 'I don't really know if I can laugh at this.'" Sounds familiar. 04:28 PM
Hanson: It's finding the humor in the reality of the situation. 04:30 PM
Hanson: "Nothing is off limits. And I thought that New Yorker cover was great." Uncertain, scattered applause. 04:33 PM
Downey: "You shouldn't farm out your comedy to the art department." Ouch, but then he says that no, no he liked it. 04:37 PM (Update: My boyfriend, who was there with me, says that he did not get the impression that Downey actually liked it. But either way, the quote is legit.)
Question re: the tired old "are women funny?" trope a la Hitchens. Living proof was on that stage, but anyway.
Silverman says she rarely gets submissions from women. Morrison says that too. Go get 'em girls! 04:38 PM
Hanson on 9/11 issue - it was very hard to do, they were all crying: "Wasn't funny ha-ha, it was funny cry-cry." 04:41 PM
Question: There are reports that Daily Show etc. promotes apathy in young people. Borowitz: "I guess I don't really care about that." 04:43 PM
Borowitz actually thinks TDS/Colbert makes people more energized - and young people have told him that they now read up to get the jokes. 04:44 PM
Silverman: I think taking people to task for what they say is incredibly earnest, not apathetic at all. 04:45 PM
Downey: The part of the Palin-Couric interview sketch taken verbatim did NOT write itself, the jokes were built in around it (also was meta) 04:48 PM
Downey: When Palin came on scene, I thought of Tina not b/c of the glasses, but b/c of the voice. 04:49 PM

The Daily Show Sings Streisand

2008-09-18T10:59:14Z

The Daily Show must be reading ETP, because how else would they have thought to sing an entire medley of Streisand songs on the show last night? Er, okay, perhaps they figured it out on their own. (Or also once watched an old SNL!) But still! We are always thrilled to see Babs get her due, which in this case means Samantha Bee sending in the clowns, Rob Riggle making a Yentl joke (Papa watch me fly!) and John Oliver leaping across the Daily Show set defying anyone to rain on his parade. Purists among us may have recognized a possible "I Am The Beautiful Reflection Of My Love's Affection" joke about Bristol Palin in there, but that kind of Funny Girl literacy may be too much to ask. Even now, readers are probably saying, "Why is this person forcing me to read about about things I neither know nor care about before getting to the good stuff, which is namely the video which is already set up, so really, put a sock in it?" And to that I say, Feh! Everybody says don't, everybody says don't...eh, never mind. Here you go!

A note on super-special Daily Show musical numbers: Back in the summer of 2005, when embeddable video was just a gleam in the Internet's eye, I would eagerly write up the previous night's Daily Show the next day, replaying the best moments for those who had been unable to watch, and had no way to do so while pretending to look busy at work the next day. Oh how innocent we were then! Here's my write up from July 19, 2005 where I go apoplectic about what to this day is still one of the best segments I've seen on the show: A spoof on "The Telephone Hour" from Bye-Bye Birdy about Karl Rove, Joe Wilson, Matt Cooper and Plamegate. It's awesome. Read all about it here — lyrics lovingly transcribed! — or, you know, just be all boring and modern n' stuff and watch it below. Sigh.

Related:
Memories: McCain Sings Streisand [ETP]
Jon Stewart Is Not On The Fence [FishbowlNY]

Drew Westen: What Obama Needs to Do in the Final Sixty Days: Avoiding President Palin

2008-09-09T10:23:39Z

Democrats around the country have been growing increasingly anxious over the last week, and for good reason. If there was a clear message from Denver, it was reflected in the remarks of virtually every commentator on television after Obama's magnificent speech: "Wow, Obama can throw a punch." He needed to indict the Bush administration and the Republican Party for what they have done to the country, and he needed to show that he can be powerful, not just eloquent and inspiring. If there was another message, it was the power of narrative. Over and over we heard comments like, "Wow, what a great story"--referring both to the stories Michele and Barack Obama told about themselves and the stories Bo and Joe Biden told about Obama's vice presidential nominee, which drew a visible tear from the eyes of Michele--which itself addressed the story Republicans were trying to tell about her, that she is a cold, hard, angry black woman (the same story they told about Hillary Clinton when she was first lady, with the racial twist to make it more incendiary).

It was not just the "liberal media elite" who responded to a week in which Democrats finally told a sustained, coherent, narrative about how the Bush administration and the Republican Party had pillaged our economy and left the country increasingly alone and unsafe in the world (although they left out some crucial details Americans should have heard about, like the extraordinary rendition of innocent people to torture chambers in the Middle East), about how McCain represents the same failed ideology of the Bush years, and about who Barack Obama really is and how he intends to lead. By the end of the convention, Obama had opened up an 8-point lead in the Gallup Polls, a stark contrast to the two-point deficit with which he began the convention after three months of failing to offer any narrative at all and doggedly refusing to go after McCain while McCain was using him as a punching bag, hitting him with one narrative after another (Obama is a celebrity, an elitist, an uppity guy who is too big for his breeches, a tax and spend liberal, someone who doesn't put country first, someone who doesn't share "our" values, not one of "us").

But the political panorama can change rapidly, and this one did the moment the convention ended and the Obama campaign decided to resume shooting scenes from its sequel to the Kerry campaign, "President Palin's Revenge" (which itself was a bad remake of "Dukakis, Tanks but No Tanks"). They already had all the footage they needed from the summer: no real narrative about their candidate, no narrative about their opponent, refusal to answer attacks, weak performances in televised interviews, poor use of surrogates on television (if they were even present), changing positions in ways that undercut the candidate's narrative of authenticity, and an disquietingly poor performance on Rick Warren's pseudo-debate with McCain. This was stock Democratic footage.

So after a week of Republicans mocking the Democrats, deriding everyone who isn't one of them (especially the dark-skinned, exotic Obama) as un-American, anti-life, elitist, hostile to "small town values," and narcissistic or subversive (putting himself, something, or some group--perhaps black people?--other than "Country First"), McCain has now opened a 4-point lead in the Gallup Polls among registered voters. That's not even factoring in McCain's advantage among "likely voters," which is higher; or the percent of voters who accurately guess the race of the person on the other end of the phone when the pollster calls and adjust their response if she sounds black, or the additional percent who would vote for a black man in public (as they did in Democratic caucuses) but whose unconscious (and increasingly conscious) prejudices emerge when they vote in private, often taking forms such as, "I just don't know Obama," "Something about him makes me uneasy," "I'm not sure I can trust him," "I think he's really a Muslim," or "He must have stuck with that Reverend Wright all those years for a reason."

Fortunately these numbers are volatile, and the Obama campaign seems to have decided that it's time to run an offense again at least part of the time (with a new ad debuting yesterday in swing states attacking McCain's "maverick" status). With all the factors going for Democrats this year (their generic lead over Republicans after 8 years of mismanagement and malfeasance remains in the double digits) and the more charismatic candidate, the polls should shift back again, at least to parity.

But McCain shouldn't have gotten a 10-point bump from his uncivil convention, and this election shouldn't be close. What happened in one short week was both completely predictable and completely avoidable. Just hours after a Democratic Convention that reignited Democratic enthusiasm and started to swing those swing voters who just weren't sure about Obama, the Obama campaign had forgotten everything it should have learned from its success of Denver--most importantly that you never drop your gloves, and that you never let the other side control the narratives--and had returned to the same failed strategies that gave us Presidents Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry, strategies Democratic consultants have passed from generation to generation like a family heirloom laced with hemlock.

The only statement the Obama campaign issued after McCain announced his choice--and the only real statement it has made until yesterday's "No Maverick" ad--was a laudatory statement of congratulations. When George Stephanopoulos posed a question to Obama about her qualifications this weekend and Keith Olbermann did the same on Monday, Obama evaded it both times, as if it were Obama, not McCain, who should be on the defensive about having chosen an unqualified person who is under the cloud of an ethics investigation and who has proven herself, like McCain, unable to get along with even members of her own party in Alaska, and, like Bush, to have an uneasy relationship with the truth.

The Obama campaign even released an ad the day before her speech that implicitly conceded that she was a great choice and a giant leap forward for women, beginning, "...although he [McCain] may have made history" (which was factually inaccurate, unless the Obama campaign was conceding the election, since her nomination would only be historic if McCain were elected; Geraldine Ferraro broke the glass ceiling of a vice presidential nomination nearly 25 years ago), and went on to say nothing about McCain's choice, instead attacking McCain on being like Bush (without noting that McCain had just proven it again by choosing a religious zealot with non-mainstream values and a penchant for governmental intrusion on social issues that most swing voters find repugnant), with the words, "So this may be his running mate, but..." implying, "OK, we'll concede that she's terrific, but McCain's the one running for President." (Given that Palin was the one on everyone's mind, the ad seemed oddly out of sync, placing a punctuation mark on the Obama campaign's conflict about what to do about her. This is not the first time their "rapid response" has been over 10 days as they watched a large lead turn into a deficit in the polls.)

McCain had not, in fact, made history. He had made a crass political calculation that was both reckless and ill-considered, just like Bush, and he had put something other than Country First, namely his personal ambition to be President. If Obama can't tell the truth about what's wrong with his opponent, he isn't speaking honestly to the American people, regardless of his motivation. If his pollsters and consultants have been advising him to avoid attacking his opponent for abandoning every value he ever stood for (he was against torture, now he's for it; he was against overturning Roe v. Wade, now he's for it; he was for comprehensive immigration reform, now he's against it; he was against tax cuts for the wealthy in wartime, now he's for it), he needs to redeploy those pollsters and consultants to someplace useful, like Afghanistan, where we need some extra boots on the ground.

A week ago, I warned of exactly what could turn the election around for the GOP after the stunning success of the Democratic Convention and Obama's magnificent acceptance speech:

Obama is now poised to break 50 percent in the polls. Whether he does so, and whether he wins or loses in November, will likely depend on whether he, his campaign team, and the Democrats learn the lessons of this convention, or whether they backslide in debates and public statements into the politics of meandering, dispassionate prose; failure to demonstrate toughness, resolve, and, yes, aggression where appropriate; and failure to understand that the best time to shape the public discourse is before the other side has had a chance to "sell" its version of truth to the American people. Decades of research in social psychology have demonstrated that two of most important principles of persuasion when people have a choice between options are to get there first--to tell your side of the story--and to inoculate against what the other side is likely to say. Democratic consultants need to read that research--tonight--and stop relying on the same intuitions that have proven wrong in election after election. We are supposed to be the party of science, yet we constantly practice political creationism... A case in point is the way the Obama campaign appears poised to respond (or, more accurately, not to respond) to McCain's choice of a running mate, which they need to do immediately, before the start of the GOP Convention.

The piece went on to describe the story McCain would try to tell at the Republican Convention--"that this was a bold move of a maverick reformer, an effort to break the glass ceiling for women, an effort to bring executive experience to his team, and the elevation to prominence of a young, socially conservative reformer with a moving story of her commitment to the crusade against all abortions"--and warned that Palin would showcase her decision not to abort a Down Syndrome baby at the GOP Convention (replete with repeated camera shots of the cuddly new baby) and use that decision as part of a story that would make her a folk hero, a mixture of Mother Theresa, Wonderwoman, and Supermom.

I argued that before the opening gavel, the Obama campaign needed to brand McCain as reckless and impulsive, having selected a running mate who wouldn't have been on anyone's shortlist of, say, 1000, to be a heartbeat away from the leadership of the free world on the ticket with a 72-year-old man with recurrent melanoma; that it needed to brand McCain as a hypocrite who was running as a maverick but had just selected a woman who makes George W. Bush look like a feminist to pander to right-wing religious extremists, and who had been hammering Obama relentlessly for months for his lack of foreign policy experience and then picked a person whose only foreign policy experience consisted in knowing where Russia was on the map and applying for a passport; and that it needed to brand Palin herself as an extremist who reserves for herself and her family the right to make painful, difficult, highly personal decisions but believes the government should make those decisions for every other family struggling with the question of whether to carry a troubled or unwanted pregnancy to term. She would even force teenage rape victims to bear their rapists' babies--something 85 percent of Americans find morally abhorrent, including the majority of evangelical Christians, and something every American should hear about her over and over. There is, in fact, a country where people with the hubris to believe that they know what's in the mind of God use the instruments of state to enforce their interpretations of scripture on other people's lives, and perhaps when Palin and her husband succeed in convincing their fellow Alaskans to secede from the United States, they can suggest joining that country: Iran. I'm sure the Iranians would be happy to annex Alaska for the oil.

But the Obama campaign chose, once again, to run its plays from the Kerry playbook, in this case waiting for Palin to define herself in whatever way she wanted in front of an enormous television audience, just as they had allowed McCain to run unopposed in his self-definition as a "straight talker" and a "maverick." And the results were just as predicted: Palin emerged a folk hero, and McCain's decision, instead of being branded as reckless, reinforced his reputation as a maverick.

The Obama campaign has 60 days to turn momentum around one more time. They couldn't have more favorable circumstances, with unemployment now breaking 6 percent, the economy in disarray, an unpopular president, an unpopular war, and our military strength and our moral standing in the world at their lowest ebb in over a century. Perhaps they'll get lucky. Perhaps some crucial emails will emerge showing Palin's illegitimate interference in Alaska's "Troopergate," forcing her to drop out of the race and leaving the McCain campaign in tatters. Perhaps Santa Claus, with whom Palin has foreign policy experience because of Alaska's proximity to the North Pole, will bring a sack of coherent messages to Chicago. Or perhaps the campaign's newfound willingness to mix it up with McCain in the days leading up to the Democratic Convention and its apparent return from hibernation in the last two or three days suggests that they have decided that it isn't enough to have a brilliant ground game and a brilliant Internet team but that you also have to have a coherent message and some spine.

So as someone who has been informally advising the campaign for nearly a year, but who has grown as frustrated and concerned as the dozens of fellow Democrats who have written me in increasing tones of desperation over the last week, let me suggest 10 more ways the Obama campaign can avoid yet another B-movie with an unhappy ending.

1. Don't practice political creationism.

The Obama campaign was well aware of the argument a year and a half ago that the most destructive thing they could do was to leave the emerging Muslim smear on the Internet unchallenged. They were aware of the relevant scientific data on how the same kind of smear that worked against Harold Ford, Jr. in Tennessee. They chose to ignore the science and to rely instead on Democratic conventional wisdom, that bringing a smear into the light of day and attacking it there before it captures the popular imagination only draws attention to it, and that it's better not to "dignify" it. We've heard that story before, and it doesn't end happily ever after.

They were similarly aware of the argument--it was published right here a little over a week ago--that allowing Palin to define herself would make it difficult to change public opinion if she delivered a strong, emotionally compelling acceptance speech, because once people have formed a positive impression, they will fend off data inconsistent with it. Precisely how and why this happens in the brain is not a secret. Once again they chose to ignore the relevant science.

This is how Republicans govern. They ignore science and rely on faith and intuition. Unfortunately, it's how Democrats campaign. No one should be involved in messaging or strategy in a Democratic campaign who isn't intimately familiar with the 60 years of research in social psychology on persuasion--on what works and what doesn't. This isn't optional reading. No one aware of that research would have made the strategic error the Obama campaign just made on the Palin nomination.

2. Stop playing checkers when the other side is playing chess.

Republican strategists play chess. They think six moves ahead. Democrats play checkers. They think one move ahead.

Why has the Obama campaign been so terrified of saying anything about Palin? As best I can tell (I have no inside information on this, but they seem to be slowly rolling out female surrogates to fire the first shots over Palin's bow), it's because they are afraid of offending women or being branded as sexist (something the Republicans accused them of anyway, even when they hadn't said a word). That kind of concrete thinking is just like the concrete, one-dimensional thinking Republicans demonstrate when they govern. If a basic book on social psychology should be mandatory reading for Democratic campaigns, The Daily Show should be mandatory viewing. Take a look at Samantha Bee's "commentary" on Palin (it's on the Show's website), where she describes how "as a Vagina-American" she had to support Palin even though they differ on every value that matters to her. Every time Jon Stewart tried to appeal to her rationally (the Democratic way)--that Palin is against women's rights to make the most personal decisions about their own lives, that she opposes equal pay for equal work--Bee just shook her head and answered with responses like, "Boobies," or "Love pouch."

The piece was hilarious, but it was also right to the point. African-Americans didn't flock to Alan Keyes. And neither women nor men would have so readily bought what Sarah Palin was selling if the Democrats had spent the days before her speech describing McCain's recklessness, poor judgment, and lack of principle in selecting her, and if they had simply told a good story about her that she would have had to spend her speech defensively responding to rather than turning herself into a folk hero. Those shots of her newborn baby and her pregnant daughter with her newfound fiancée whose Facebook entry says he doesn't want children wouldn't have been so powerful if the viewers watching them knew beforehand that if Palin and McCain are elected, Americans families won't be allowed to make their own decisions if faced with similar choices, that their children will never hear the word "condom" in sex education classes even though over 85% of the electorate--including evangelical Christians--wants their children educated about birth control, and that we will consequently see an increase in the number of unwanted pregnancies until McCain makes his first Supreme Court appointment, after which Roe will be overturned--something the vast majority of Americans oppose. Undoing a narrative is far more difficult than inoculating against it.

3. Don't confuse positive and negative messages with ethical and unethical ones.

John Kerry never talked about Abu Ghraib, even as the horrific images were coming out in the middle of the general election. His advisors were worried that if he did, the Republicans would respond that he didn't "support the troops." That's playing checkers. In his convention address, Barack Obama never mentioned Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition (using examples of real people whose only crime was to be mistaken for someone else, who went through exactly what John McCain went through at the Hanoi Hilton), water-boarding, the conversion of the Justice Department to the police arm of the Republican Party, George Bush's knowledge of the impending 9/11 attacks, or the fact that any of our children can be picked up while traveling abroad and taken away and tortured without a trace by any nation that deems them a security risk (an "enemy combatant") because those are the rules of the road the United States has established under Republican leadership.

There is no relation between whether a message is ethical or unethical and whether it is positive or negative. Sarah Palin told some wonderfully positive stories as tens of millions of Americans watched her and enjoyed her "spunk" and sense of humor. She told that great story about how she sold the governor's private jet on e-bay. It happened not to be true. Voters vote with their emotions, and if you misinform their emotions by refusing to speak negative truths about your opponent, you are misleading the electorate and endangering your candidacy.

Positive and negative emotions are largely independent in the brain, with different causes, functions, and circuitry. Try answering the following questions. First, do you love your spouse or partner? Second, in the last month, who has made you angrier than anyone else in the world? For most of us, the answer to both questions is the same. What does that say about positive and negative emotions?

In politics, if you leave voters' negative feelings about either you or your opponent to chance by refusing to define your opponent or hit back hard and swiftly when he tries to define you (the conventional Democratic wisdom--"voters don't like negativity"), you are ceding half the brain to the other side. You don't win elections with half a brain.

4. Attack the character of the attacker if his attack is suggests bad character.

If your opponent's attacks on you reflect a character problem, attack his character. Make the attack about him, not you. John McCain's "positive" ads about himself and his theme at the Republican Convention ("Country First") show bad character. His first "positive" ad of the general election (called "The American President") ended with the words, "John McCain: The American President Americans have been waiting for." The implication our brains immediately process is that Barack Obama would be some other kind of President: Un-American? Anti-American? African-American? McCain's "Country First" suggests that Obama would put something or someone ahead of his country: Muslims? Blacks? Black Muslims (the conservative media finally made that link explicit this week in Human Events)? Himself? Funny how these themes just happen to fit with the themes of conservative talk radio, Fox News, and the Internet smears. McCain and his party have done everything possible to brand Obama as un-American and unpatriotic, and these ads and campaign themes are not accidental. They are part of an organized campaign to define Obama as "not one of us." They are hateful, and the best way to deal with hate is to call it by its proper name.

5. Make it about "us" if they make it about "them."

McCain's entire convention--up until his speech, which wisely took the high road after he'd allowed all his minions to soften the American people up along the low road--was all about dividing the country into us and them: us who are "really" American, us with traditional values, us with evangelical Christian faith, us with small town values, us who are pro-life (with the implication that the rest of America is pro-death), us with family values (with the implication that the rest of us hate our families), us with our white skin (oops--that one just showed up in the wide-angle shots--thank heaven for Bobby Jindal). Dividing American against American is unpatriotic, and Obama needs to call McCain and the Republicans on it.

Barack Obama began his campaign with a powerful theme of unity. He needs to contrast it starkly with the message of divide and conquer that the Republicans have used successfully since Nixon's "Southern strategy" of peeling white voters away from the Democratic Party through coded messages. I can't imagine a much more effective ad than one that took the "greatest hits" of the politics of division from the RNC Convention and ended with the simple words, "Dividing American against American for political gain isn't just politics, it's un-American. Patriotism is about standing as one people, under God, indivisible. That's the Pledge of Allegiance we all learn as children. Renew that Pledge on November 4. Put an end to the politics of hate and division."

6. Tell three stories about your opponent.

George W. Bush told three messages against John Kerry: that he was an elitist, that he was a flipflopper, and that he was a fake war hero who couldn't be trusted with American's security. All three stuck. It's difficult to make many more than three messages stick or they become noise, but it's a bad idea to rely on only one. The Obama campaign should have started branding McCain the day he became the presumptive nominee in March. Unfortunately, they waited until mid August. The Republicans did not return the favor: they began branding Obama as soon as it became clear that he was the likely nominee and have told multiple effective stories about him: That he is elitist and outside the mainstream, that he is unpatriotic, that he's a tax and spend liberal, that he lacks the experience to be commander-in-chief, and that he is an uppity, empty celebrity who doesn't know his place.

The Obama campaign is now telling a strong story about McCain, that he is four more years of Bush. They need to tell the same story about Palin. Aside from her right-wing policies, her refusal to answer a state congressional ethics inquiry and her operatives' apparent decision to do the same is yet another way that she's just like Bush.

There is another story the Obama campaign should tell that goes straight to the heart of McCain's central narrative, one that they just began telling today in a handful of states but need to tell everywhere: that he's not a straight talking maverick at all. You can't be both a maverick and a Bush Republican who bragged that he voted with the President over 90 percent of the time and picked a far-right running mate to the delight of his socially extreme base. McCain made a deal with the devil to win the Republican nomination, having gone so far as to describe Bush as one of our greatest presidents. He can't have it both ways. He can either appeal to his base or appeal to swing voters, but whichever way he swings, the Obama campaign needs to make it a lose-lose situation. They can't depend on the media to do it for them. That's what a campaign is for.

The third narrative that is essential to tell about McCain, particularly in light of the current economic situation, is the same one Bill Clinton told about George H.W. Bush in 1992: that he is out of touch with the concerns of everyday Americans. With his seven houses, his heiress wife who thinks everyone in Arizona has a private jet, his chief economic advisor describing people who lose their jobs as whiners, and his own initial knee-jerk response to the mortgage crisis that he wasn't going to bail out the first-time homeowners who failed to show "personal responsibility" (not the unscrupulous lenders who have cost most of us 20 percent of the equity in our homes, and are now requiring middle class taxpayers to pick up the tab), Obama has all the ammunition he needs.

7. Flesh out the message of change with two or three signature issues.

Obama made a great start at putting the meat on the bones of "change" in Denver. I've been a strong advocate of running values-based, emotionally evocative campaigns that bracket "issues" within emotionally powerful messages rather than hiding our values in the fine print of policy prescriptions. The data are clear that candidates who think campaigns are a "debate on the issues" lose (the Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry approach). Obama tried the issues-based approach for months and then reversed course and starting making use again of his extraordinary capacity to inspire at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Iowa, which set him on the path to nomination. He and his team made just the right move in fleshing out the substance of his agenda in Denver without boring voters silly with 12-point plans.

What he has not done, however, which every successful candidate has done since Ronald Reagan, is to offer two or three "signature issues" that tell the American public where his heart, loyalties, and values are and illustrate the ways he would lead. Bill Clinton used "ending welfare as we know it" and a strong economic argument (one signature issue co-opting the narrative of the right, the other addressing people's concerns about the first Bush recession) as his signature issues. In his first term, Bush used No Child Left Behind (stealing the traditional advantage of Democrats on education--a true irony for a semi-literate president to champion education reform) and faith-based initiatives (a move that endeared him to many right-wing and even moderate Christians, particularly evangelicals).

As yet, Obama hasn't taken any issue and "owned" it. This should have been part of the master narrative of his campaign from the start. He could readily have woven his own history of fatherlessness with a message co-opting the traditionally conservative (but quintessentially human) theme of family values with a plan to put inner-city men back in homes, colleges, and jobs and keep them out of a life of crime. That signature issue would have also inoculated him against racial stealth attacks.

With the economy, health care, energy, and national security all clear and present dangers, he could take any two or three of those issues and make them "his." Had he done this with energy, Democrats would have maintained the 30-point edge they had six months ago on energy that has now gone to a draw or deficit with McCain's disingenuous appeals to "drill here, drill now."

As someone who worked as a young man to help workers whose plants had shuttered their doors in the south side of Chicago, Obama could easily put together either a trade message with the theme, "I want to see the words 'Made in America' again," or a message about moving into a global economy with both a short-term strategy of helping displaced workers through difficult times and a long-term strategy of leading the world into a green economy and helping workers retool by creating public-private partnerships in which businesses work with local colleges and technical schools to retrain workers for better jobs for the future.

He could offer a signature issue about investing in our children's and our nation's future by making every dollar Americans put away for their kids' college tax deductible (instead of requiring middle class parents to put away post-tax income in a 529 account and offering them a $4000 tax credit that sounds trifling to middle class parents who know what tuition, housing, and meals actually costs) and by making every dollar they spend on childcare tax deductible (instead of the paltry amounts currently allowable as a tax deduction). Those plans would give tens of millions of voters tens of thousands worth of reasons to vote for good public policy.

If he wanted to break with his party, win moderate Republicans and independents, and try something new that might improve all of our schools, he could allow federal but not state or local tax deductions for middle class parents to send their children to the schools of their choice, including parochial schools. Doing so might well improve the quality of public education by increasing the ratio of dollars to students in public schools because it would reduce the number of students in public schools without cutting any state, local, or federal funding for education. It would also increase competition among schools and give parents more freedom of choice.

8. Remember that you have the most moving orator since Bill Clinton, and get competent debate coaches.

Obama is a magnificent orator who has underperformed in virtually every debate, with the possible exception of his last debate against Hillary Clinton. His performance against McCain at Rick Warren's church (even discounting for McCain's disappearance from the cone of silence) should have been a wake-up call that his campaign does not have the right people in the room coaching him. This is another standard Democratic error. Instead of recognizing that one consultant may be brilliant at organizing people and getting out the vote (which his chief strategist David Axelrod clearly is), the same advisor may not have the right expertise in coaching debate or television performances. In fact, it would be highly surprising if one person could do everything well in a campaign.

It is dumbfounding that the campaign has not brought in Paul Begala to lead the debate prep for Obama, and that they haven't asked Bill Clinton to play McCain in mock debates, since no one could do it better, and it would bring the former President into the campaign in a way that would both solidify their relationship and make optimal use of the former President's talents. Begala and James Carville are the only practicing Democratic consultants who have ever elected a Democrat to the presidency--twice--and although Obama might not feel as comfortable with Carville, whose bare-knuckles style would probably not be his cup of tea (green or black), he and Begala would be a natural combination. To my knowledge, Begala, Carville, and Clinton remain uninvolved in what will likely be the deciding moments of the 2008 campaign.

9. Fly into the eye of the storm, not away from it.

Underlying many of the problems that have plagued the Obama campaign in the last half of the primaries against Hillary Clinton and throughout the entire general election thus far is the standard Democratic predilection for running away from conflict instead of running toward it. Obama wrote a magnificent book about race in which he used his own story to talk about issues of race and class, and he delivered the greatest speech on race since "I Have a Dream." Yet he has run from race every time it has been mentioned since.

He and his team need to recognize and deal with the fact that when white people see his face, they see a black man. He knows that, because he wrote about it in his book. It is no accident that older Democratic voters had trouble with him in the primaries: Their deepest attitudes, particularly their unconscious one, were shaped in an era in which the only black people they encountered were below them, not above them. It will take conscious effort, insight, and careful research to identify the best ways to address their feelings head-on, and the Obama team has no time to waste. The same applies to middle-aged working class men, who have seen people of color promoted above them, and who harbor deep and real resentments for paying the price for the sins of their fathers (or, more accurately, the sins of the fathers of rich white boys, since punching a time card and working on an assembly line or in a mill is not what most of us would consider "privilege").

Our conscious values on race are our better angels on race. The fact that the Democratic Party has nominated, and the nation just might elect, a black man to be President of the United States, speaks to how profoundly most Americans' conscious values have changed since Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech 45 years ago. Most Americans consciously believe that discrimination based on the color of a person's skin has no place in America. But just beneath those values are latent, unconscious negative associations to black people, particularly young black men, which can be mobilized in stealth racial attacks and can be deadly to a campaign. The best way to address those latent feelings and associations is precisely the way Obama addressed them in his speech in Philadelphia: by bringing them into the open and talking about the elephant in the room. The more comfortable Obama shows he is with race, the more comfortable white voters will be with him. But won't the Republicans say he's playing the race card, you might ask? That's playing checkers. Think six moves ahead.

The same is true of gender. The Obama campaign appears to have decided that two male candidates at the top of the Democratic ticket can't touch a hair on Sarah Palin's head while she emasculates them with regularity because "women" won't like it or Republicans will cry sexism. Let the Republicans cry sexism, and propose legislation that eliminates it. That will shut them up in a heartbeat. Or call attention to their support for anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives that make it more difficult for women (who also happen to be men's wives and daughters) to break glass ceilings. Think chess.

10. Apply the same nuance to your own political decision-making as you do to policy.

Finally, the Obama team, and the candidate himself, need to look inward. For years Democrats have run from controversy, run from conflict, and run from aggression. Their consultants and pollsters have told them not to talk about this issue or that issue because it's "radioactive" (meaning that they haven't figured out how to speak clearly about the values that led them to take the stand they have taken). In this election year, for example, the Democrats should be running on abortion, not from it. They finally have opponents who are embracing the most unpopular version of the conservative stance, which makes no exceptions for rape and incest (which is the only logically consistent version of it, because if life begins at conception, that applies to life borne of rape). That position is at 15 percent in the polls. If Democratic consultants think that's radioactive, they need to recalibrate their political Geiger counters.

From a psychological standpoint, few actions are determined by a single motive. We may have one-man-one-vote in this country, but we rarely have one-man-one-motive. Are Obama and McCain motivated by ambition? Of course they are. Are they motivated by the desire to do what they believe is right for their country? Of course they are. One motive doesn't negate the other, although at times one can override the other.

Democrats have offered many lofty reasons for their failure to respond to thugs and bullies from the right with a bludgeon, some of which have merit, such as Obama's obvious desire to change the way politics is done, but all of these reasons are intermingled with fear and avoidance, and all of them project cowardice. Republicans have not just held an edge on national security for years because of the policy positions they assume. They have held an edge because they speak forcefully about their principles, not just on national security but on virtually every issue. Democrats, in contrast, equivocate and perambulate, and when confronted with cynical political ploys masquerading as legislation (such as the Iraq War resolution, or the FISA act), they tend to knuckle under for fear of being accused of being weak on whatever bogeyman the Republicans are deploying. Once again, that's playing checkers. The irony is that when Democrats knuckle under, they only reinforce the stereotype that they are weak and spineless.

You can take almost any position you want on vital issues of the day as long as it isn't the fetal position. Voters will forgive mistakes, but they won't forgive cowardice.

An instructive case was Obama's response to media stories on Palin's pregnant teenage daughter. When Obama spoke out in no uncertain terms against anyone using Palin's daughter's pregnancy as a political issue against her, he showed genuine anger and resolve in his voice, and he showed the public a side of him they too rarely see. Regardless of the merits of his position (Palin in fact conspicuously flew her sudden son-in-law-to-be to the Republican Convention to sit next to his bride-to-be to demonstrate their "family values" and turn a liability into yet another sign of her ideological purity to score political points), he projected strength and conviction, something Americans want and expect from their leaders.

There are two words Obama needs to keep in his mind over the next 60 days as he answers any question: strength and principle. If he emanates both, and keeps his answers strong, tight, and principled, he will likely be our next President.

Drew Westen, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation," recently released in paperback with a new postscript on the 2008 election.

Bristol Palin's Pregnancy Covered Lightly By Late-Night Hosts

2008-09-02T23:06:16Z

NEW YORK — Late-night comics tread lightly when referring to the pregnancy of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's unwed daughter.

CBS' "Late Show" host David Letterman made the pregnancy the subject of only his fifth and last joke about the selection of the Alaska governor as John McCain's running mate.

"Daily Show" Mocks MSNBC Infighting: "It's Lord Of The Flies On The NBC Roof!"

2008-08-28T09:12:25Z

Wednesday night on "The Daily Show" — broadcasting from Denver during the DNC — Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, and Wyatt Cenac mocked the infighting at MSNBC.

"It's Lord of the Flies on the NBC roof!" Stewart declared after showing video of the Olbermann-Matthews squabble.

And in response to Joe Scarborough's David Shuster smackdown, Stewart said, "Looks like the weather in Scarborough Country is partly bitchy with a chance of reer [hand gesture]!"

Bee and Cenac then engaged in some "Daily Show" infighting of their own.

Watch: