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Stephen Colbert skewers the Terror Watchlist by speaking to Hasan Elahi, who remains on the Watchlist despite being cleared of all charges and who has resorted to an innovative way to respond to those federal watchdogs.

My favorite terrorist is Hasan Elahi. Just saying his name makes my heart go up one Terror Alert level. Why Elahi? Well, to begin with, he’s innocent. A quality so rare in someone so guilty. You see, in 2002, Elahi was detained by the FBI on suspicion of hoarding explosives in a Florida storage unit. Turns out, he didn’t have any explosives. In fact, he was the only person in Florida without gunpowder. But the FBI refused to give Elahi a written letter clearing him of suspicion because he refused to change his name, religion and skin color. Instead, they just asked him to “check in” with them periodically. And here’s where I really like this guy: for the last six years, Elahi has taken the burden off government surveillance by surveilling himself. Everyday, Elahi takes hundreds of photos of his whereabouts and sends them to the FBI. Pictures of the airports he travels through, the bathrooms he visits, even the meals he eats. With these pictures, he’s ensuring that he’ll never be arrested on suspicion of terror, though by judging by some of the meals he’s eating, Gitmo might be an improvement.

Stephen Colbert looks at the messy business of tricky associations when running for president.

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Nation, the more I learn about John McCain, the more I love his maverick spirit. For example, his critics say he’s too old. So what does McCain do? He keeps aging. The politically expedient thing would be to grow younger. Uh uh. McCain clearly doesn’t care what the polls say. But there was one recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that he should pay attention to. If found that 32% of Americans consider Barack Obama’s connection to Rev. Wright a major concern. But 43% are concerned about John McCain’s connection to George Bush. In other words, the biggest political albatross heading into November is George Bush. That…that is a shame. Especially considering everything President Bush has done to ensure the extinction of albatrosses.

Stephen can't seem to grasp the concept of "electability." Who better to help him figure it out than the smartest person he knows...

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"What if everyone votes for someone that nobody would vote for?!"

Note from Nicole: We originally posted this last week, but had problems with the videos, so we pulled the post. We got that straightened out and it was too good to not post again.

Once in a while, I’ll hear some of Barack Obama’s detractors — from both sides — argue that he’s been lax in offering detailing policy proposals. I’ve never entirely understood the line of attack — both the Obama and Clinton campaigns have been extremely forthcoming when it comes to presenting a detailed platform, filled with all kinds of specifics, especially compared to Mr. Vague Generalities.

The real problem, of course, is that it’s the McCain campaign that avoids substance like the plague. We saw this just yesterday when McCain unveiled his healthcare proposal. Asked about those who either can’t afford or can’t qualify for private insurance, McCain proposed that the federal government “work with” states to cover those who would get left behind. What does “work with” mean? No one knows.

This is part of a conspicuous trend. Tyler Cowen, hardly a partisan Dem, noted today:

Trade aside, so far I’ve yet to see many actual policy proposals from the McCain camp. Mostly I’ve seen attempts to signal that they won’t do anything too offensive to the party’s right wing. Very few of these trial balloons seem to be ideas that McCain had expressed much previous loyalty to. I don’t even think we should be analyzing these statements as policy proposals. We should be wondering why the Republican Party has given up on the idea of policy proposals.

Yglesias noted, “[T]he GOP seems to have decided to blow a not-very-appealing idiosyncratic element of George W. Bush’s personality into some kind of principled objection to policy proposals.”

True, but how did we get to this point?

Continue reading »

The featured guest of this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner was late-night talk-show host Craig Ferguson, and although his act was less searing than Colbert's legendary roasting, he did manage to get some good shots in.

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Seattle Times:

The Scottish-born Ferguson found middle ground between the tepid impersonations of last year's entertainer, Rich Little, and the merciless satire that Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert delivered in 2006.

Ferguson, who became a U.S. citizen in February, asked Bush what he was going to do after leaving office, then suggested, "You could look for a job with more vacation time." The president has drawn criticism for the amount of time he has spent away from the White House during his presidency.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Ferguson said, "is already moving out of his residence. It takes longer than you think to pack up an entire dungeon."

I wonder if Ferguson held back a bit out of fear his newly-gained citizenship would be revoked?

Good morning. I'm Lance Mannion and I've got a secret. And if you're old enough to get that reference please leave this site now. You're too old. You're skewing this page's demographic away from the highly desirable 18-34 year old audience we covet. You're asking why I don't leave myself, considering I must be as old as dirt too since I made the joke? Well, I can't. I'm committed to doing the morning blog round up all week. And yes, this is a pretty fair sample of the kind of humor you'll find at my blog, so don't say you weren't warned.

Now, what do Steve Colbert, Joe Klein, Mitt Romney, John F. Kennedy, and Seth and Evan from Superbad have in common? Nothing, except that they're all subjects of the links below:

One-time LA Times political reporter Bill Boyarsky wishes political reporters as a breed weren't so much "like geese, waking up to a new world each day as if the day before had never happened."

But Mike the Mad Biologist finds hope that some members of the bad old MSM are beginning to see that their critics in the Blogtopia (TM Skippy) have a point and a purpose.

Mark at New Corpse Blog makes a plea to the striking Writers Guild to grant the writers of the Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Letterman, and the Tonight Show the same special status news writers have so they can come back to work and stop hurting America with their silence.

This would be a good time for everyone to take a refresher course in Journalism 101 from Professor Jon Swift.

As Steve Benen noted right here on this page, on Thursday Mitt Romeny's set to deliver what he hopes will be a Kennedy-esque speech on his faith and his religion and their relationship to his political beliefs, and at PERRspectives they're saying, "Governor, You're no Jack Kennedy." But at No More Mister Nice Blog, Steve M. confesses to being taken aback by Romney's choice of location for the speech and wonders "What does a Republican have to do to become a pariah in this country?"

Meanwhile, Molly Ivors had a vision.

And Superbad comes out on DVD today, which occasion causes Uncle Crizzle---also known as Craig Lindsey, film critic for the News & Observer---to remember gratefully how Superbad saved his summer.

Craig's formal review of the movie is here.

All done for today. Please send tips and suggested topics for tomorrow and the rest of the week to me at lance(at sign)lancemannion(dot)com.

Our man skippy the bush kangaroo went to show his support of the WGA strike in Hollywood, and it looks like there's going to be some more picketers out there:

it looks like the networks are going to get squeezed from all sides. the news writers for cbs have voted to go on strike. hollywood reporter:

after working without a contract for more than two years, cbs news employees represented by the wga east have approved a strike through an authorization vote.

eighty-one% of the 75%-80% of the union's rank and file who turned out in a special election thursday and friday voted to authorize the strike. that, however, doesn't mean a strike is imminent. it first would have to be approved by the negotiating committee and upper echelon of the wga.

the wga already is in a three-week-old strike with many of its members in a separate union for tv and film writers, which has resulted in picket lines in new york and on the west coast. the cbs news union's negotiating committee is scheduling a meeting after thanksgiving to assess the situation, wgae president michael winship said..[..]

if this were a conservative blog, we'd make some crack about how the cbs news execs were going to have to make the news up themselves now.

I don't know about you, but I'm seriously jonesing for The Daily Show and Colbert Report...anything that's gonna squeeze the networks into getting to the table and negotiating is good with me.

So Happy It's Thursday, as the kids say!

Hey there, Actor212 of Simply Left Behind here once again, winding down the week with you. Thursdays...never could get the hang of Thursdays...I was born on a Thursday.

Onto the links. You guys probably got a poker game to get to...you know what? I'm tired of kicking Republicans around! It's too easy! Let's pin a few tails on donkeys in here... - Does the American education system have to mean apartheid? In a three-part series, liberalamerican of The Strange Death Of Liberal America examines the education system in America, and how it's helping to create a caste system.

- Alex over at Martini Revolution examines the shallow end of the pool: media and gene.

- What do you do when a governor says one thing in his state, and another outside it? RadioPatriot calls South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford on his lies.

- All Things Democrat: Why Congress should NOT tell us what torture is not.

- Richard Power writes one of his most achingly lyrical pieces: Hard Rain Journal*-- Who Will Rescue The Goddess of Liberty from Her Abusers & Their Enablers in the US Congress? *link fixed

- Drexel Democrats remind us that Stephen Colbert is a modern day Nostradamus.

- Marty Peretz of The New Republic - Dick

Don't forget: Voting in the 2007 Weblog Awards is open until 5PM ET (2PM for those of you on the PCH), You can vote for Crooks and Liars here, for Best Video Blog, and if you'd like to throw a little lovin' my way...don't worry, the shots cured me...please vote for my blog, Simply Left Behind.

Please email tips to Actor212 care of Yahoo spot com. I can't promise to post them all. I can promise to read them.

SteveAudio here again with some fresh Tuesday sounds:

When I think about you I touch myself. . . Stephen Colbert is running for President, and plans to debate. . . himself.

I heard the news today, oh boy. . . Judy "Kneepads" Miller = Seymour Hersh. Hot Military Stud Jeff Gannon whines. Studs Terkel swings his pulitzer like a bat and hits it out of the park. And it's fun to make fun of Fox News because they're so funny.

Man he's too cool for school. . . Intelligent Design is so . . .intelligent. Free-market economists are so economical with their brains. The two Naomis write great books.

Everybody wants to rule the world. . . Giuliani had fantasies of adequacy. And he thinks Democrats will learn to love Iraq like he does. And he makes stuff up about health care.

It's time to be a big girl now, and big girls don't cry. . . Condi Rice thinks the State Department has done a bang-up job in Iraq. Andrew Sullivan doesn't like Hillary.

That music you hear means we're playing our break song. More music tomorrow, hopefully we'll play something you like. Send any tips or song requests to steveaudio at earthlink dot net, with Blog Round Up as the title.

So long, we're here all week, and there's a great view from the patio, just watch the gnats.

Considering that Colbert's speech here at C&L was the second most linked to post of 2006, I think it's safe to say that we're not expecting a similar reaction from this year's Correspondents' Dinner.

WaPo :

The White House press corps last week found itself embroiled in controversy -- a controversy over its efforts to avoid controversy at an event whose guests include President Bush.
Stung by criticism that comedian Stephen Colbert went too far last year in his remarks at the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner, the group announced last week that it had lined up a different kind of entertainer for its next dinner on April 21: impersonator Rich Little.

[..]The group's president, C-SPAN's Steve Scully, issued a statement saying: "The White House Correspondents' Association never dictates or censors the content of a press dinner entertainer's act . . . My advice to [Little's agency] when we booked [him] in December was to follow the time-honored Washington motto [of] the Gridiron Dinner: 'Singe, but never burn.' "

Admittedly, it's an old story, and Olbermann has already named them the "Worst Person(s) in the World" for this, but I want to put this out to you. Who do you think would have been a worthy successor to Stephen Colbert for the White House Correspondents' Dinner?