JABbering Stooge

Wow. Even perennial Republican cheerleader Joe Klein is disgusted with McCain’s swiftboating efforts. If a Republican has lost Joe Klein, he’s lost the electorate.

Given recent evidence that Tom Brokaw is in the tank for Sen. McRove, I thought it would be good to give a preview of tonight’s debate.

AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: Sen. McCain, first question. Are you comfortable? Is there anything we can get for you? A pillow?

SEN. McCAIN: No, not at this time, thanks.

TOM BROKAW: Alright, next question.

AUDIENCE MEMBER #2: Sen. Obama, can you prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that you have never been a Muslim for more than one second?

SEN. OBAMA: Yes, as a matter of fact, I can. I have been a Christian fo-

TOM BROKAW: With all due respect, Senator, it would behoove you to tell the truth in this debate.

SEN. OBAMA: Tom, I am answering truthfully.

TOM BROKAW (irritated): Senator, since it is obvious that you either can’t or won’t answer truthfully, we’ll move on.

AUDIENCE MEMBER #3: Sen. McCain, I have a question about your running mate. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin: Hot or not?

SEN. McCAIN: Oh, yeah. You bet your ass she’s hot! And if I weren’t married to a coked-out beer heiress, I’d do her in a New York Minute! Can you say MILF? I knew you could.

TOM BROKAW: Thank you, Senator. Can we have our next question please?

AUDIENCE MEMBER #4: Senator Obama, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.

SEN. OBAMA: I have served on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Senate for several years now, and have worked with Sen. Lugar to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. I hav-

TOM BROKAW: Senator, again, I have to remind you to speak truthfully when answering questions. We have time for one more question.

AUDIENCE MEMBER #5: Senator McCain, you have smeared Senator Obama repeatedly this week for the loosest association with Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground, and participated in a reign of terror when the Senator was eight years old, and continue to do this in spite of your repeated votes to protect anti-abortion terrorists.

TOM BROKAW (exasperated sigh): Do you have a point with this question, ma’am?

AUDIENCE MEMBER #5: I do. Senator, I want to know if you feel any shame for your naked hypocrisy? And while we’re on the subject, do you feel any shame for you and Gov. Palin stirring up lynch mobs against Sen. Obama yesterday?

SEN. McCAIN: Did I mention that I was a POW in Vietnam for five years? The Presidency is MINE, goddammit!!!

TOM BROKAW: Well, we are out of time for this debate. Thank you, audience. Thank you, Senator McCain. Thank you, Senator Obama, terrorist lover. From Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, I’m Tom Brokaw. Thank you for watching. Good night.

Liz Sidoti delivers yet again for McCain.

* With apologies to Matt Groening.

Since next Tuesday’s debate is a town hall format, wouldn’t it be great if one of the questioners could ask McCain why he won’t release his medical records? And would the “librul” media allow such an inquiry?

And more importantly, for the wingnuts, why was it okay to hound John Kerry constantly about his medical records from his Vietnam service, but asking the same questions about McCain’s health is suddenly verboten?

Are you guys up for another drinking game? Well, too bad!

JABbering Stooge Official 2008 Vice-Presidential Debate Drinking Game

The following are worth one drink:

• Gov. Mooseburger Palin refers to herself as “Joe Sixpack”.

• Gov. Palin gives a beauty pageant-quality answer.

• The words “like,” “everywhere,” “such as,” “the Iraq” or “U.S. Americans” appear anywhere in one of Gov. Palin’s answers.

• Gov. Palin has a deer-in-the-headlights look during any of the questions.

The following are worth two drinks:

• Gov. Palin mentions what books she’d like to burn ban.

• Gov. Palin talks about Putin’s head invading American airspace.

• Gov. Palin claims to have said “Thanks, but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere™.

• Gov. Palin mentions Bristol’s pregnancy as an example of how life-loving conservatives are.

The following are worth three drinks:

• Gov. Palin derides “community organizers.”

• Gov. Palin complains about the moderator/that she doesn’t get only softball questions.

• Gov. Palin calls Joe Biden a “latent Marxist”.

Chug if this happens:

• The “librul” media, in spite of all of the above, declares Gov. Palin the winner.

WARNING: Only play the JABbering Stooge Official 2008 Vice-Presidential Debate Drinking Game if you have a strong liver or are drinking non-alcoholic beverages. This blogger is not liable for any alcohol-related medical emergencies resulting from playing this drinking game for real.

Is it just me, or did Brian Williams look like he was having an acid reflux reaction at having to report Obama’s expanding lead in Pennsylvania and other battleground states?

Editor & Publisher notes that Keith Olbermann took partisan hack Charles Babington to task for a very shoddily written article on Obama’s acceptance speech last night:

NEW YORK In an unusually heated attack on a veteran political reporter by a cable news host, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann laced into the Associated Press’s Charles Babington an hour after Barack Obama had concluded his speech in Denver on Thursday night.

Nearly all of the top commentators and reporters on the three cable news networks had hailed Obama’s speech as something new and powerful, and filled with specifics, and predicted it would have a positive effect on his chances vs. John McCain. This hallelujah chorus included conservatives such as Bill Kristol and Pat Buchanan and the longtime Republican David Gergen, as well as Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams. Buchanan called it the best and most important political convention speech he had ever heard, going back 48 years.

So the liberal Olbermann was outraged that the AP’s Babington had written, in his analysis of the speech, just off the wire, that Obama had tried nothing new and that his speech was lacking in specifics. He read the first few paragraphs on the air, lamented that it would be printed in hundred of newspapers on Friday, and concluded, “It is analysis that strikes me as having borne no resemblance to the speech you and I just watched. None whatsoever. And for it to be distributed by the lone national news organization in terms of wire copy to newspapers around the country and web sites is a remarkable failure of that news organization.

“Charles Babington, find a new line of work.”

Amen, Keith. Incidentally, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano predicted that the Rethuglicans would “try to Catch-22 his speech:”

She said Republicans will criticize him no matter what. They will argue that his lofty speeches lack substance and details, she said, and a detailed speech that scrimps on soaring rhetoric will prove “he has lost his gift.”

Little did Gov. Napolitano realize that the ranks of the Republicans included the “librul” media.

Question: Did partisan hack Charles Babington even watch Obama’s acceptance speech? Apparently not.

I don’t know a lot about a reporter for the Associated Press named Charles Babington who also spent a lot of time at the Washington Post — it seems like he’s written things over the years that have annoyed the left and and annoyed the right, which means either he’s a “balanced” journalist or maybe a lot of his articles are just bad. I’m suspecting the latter after reading his analysis of Obama’s speech tonight, a speech he conceivably may not have even watched as he filed his analysis just about 26 minutes after it ended.

One interesting thing about Babington is he doesn’t seem to care about an informed electorate. This is what he said earlier this year on PBS with Gwen Ifill:

• Sometimes we like to think, oh, they get a spreadsheet out of all the issues. Most voters don’t get that. Most voters probably don’t even know why they vote for someone and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Tonight, he did his part to keep the electorate uninformed.

I guess partisan hack Charles Babington went to The Ron Fournier School of Propaganda Journalism™®©…

What does it say about the state of Our Stupid Media™ today that C-SPAN has the best coverage of the DNC out of all the cable networks?

Are you going to cover the fact that former Rep. Jim Leach — a REPUBLICAN — spoke harshly about his own party at the DNC? You know, the way you covered Zell Miller’s speech in 2004 and the way you’re covering Joe Lieberman’s speech this year? No? You’d rather peddle the (false) notion that Hillary’s going to make a last-minute play for the nomination, and that that’s good news for McCain?

Well, okay then. You can do that. But you’ll have to trade in your journalism credentials for some Official John McCain Straight Talk Express™ Presstitute Kneepads.

The John McCain that you have defended to the point of blatant sycophancy for the last 10 months or so is not the John McCain of 2000 that you fell in love with.

Via Steve Benen.