McCain finds a new way to go negative

On Friday, John McCain stopped by to have a chat with the ladies on “The View.” (Going on “Oprah” would’ve just been awkward.) McCain even brought Cindy along, since it’s a show for the womenfolk and all, and God knows McCain doesn’t know the first thing about knitting.

This visit to the Barbara Walters House of Vapid was the perfect opportunity to see what windbags on the left (Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar) and the right (Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shephard) think of his campaign so far. Ladies, back him up here.

And the consensus? Apparently he shouldn’t lie so much.

While Gramps was going on and on about how awesome Sarah Palin is (why didn’t she get to come on the lady show, Mac?), he brought out the whole “reformer against pork and earmarks” thing again. But Walters had done her homework, noting that Palin had requested earmarks as governor of Alaska. McCain’s response? “No, not as governor she didn’t.” Except she did, but whatever. Let’s not interrupt Grandpa while he’s in the middle of one of his anecdotes.

Then there are those negative ads about Obama, which Behar asked him about by calling them “lies.” Your move, John: “Actually they are not lies.” Well, OK.

We must say, this new McCain tactic is great. We can’t wait until the debates, when Obama gets finished with a pitch for his economic plan or what to do about Iraq, and McCain’s rebuttal is all, “No.” So much more efficient!

Throughout the whole “View” sit-down, by the way, Hasselbeck didn’t say much, as she was too busy staring wide-eyed at Cindy and mouthing the words “Teach me.”

[Radar, Wonkette]

You deserve a break

On Fridays, I stop all this political nonsense and get back to the tough task of mocking the celebrity industrial complex in my weekly column, the Word, available on my other site.

To entice you, here's this week's entry:

She can save money by Djing her own wedding!
Supposedly, wedding bells are ringing around Hollywood because Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson are going to tie the knot. It doesn’t matter that they’re not even officially an item yet. Earlier this week, Ronson stopped the music during one of her DJ gigs at the Chateau Marmont to proclaim, “By the end of this year, my love will be Mrs. Ronson.” Does that sound more like a threat than an announcement to anyone else?

She went on to add, “Tonight shows the power of a woman. To underestimate that is to underestimate the world,” which kinda sounds like an endorsement for Hillary Clinton, only a few months too late. Or maybe Sam’s a Sarah Palin gal.

But end of the year? Really? Why the rush, Sam? Maybe it’s because of all those baby rumors. Yes, baby rumors. Britain’s News of the World originally reported that the young ladies wanted to make their duo a power trio, though Lohan’s reps quickly denied it. But now Star magazine has sources to quote, so it’s totally going to happen.

Says their source: “Lindsay told Sam that she’s been feeling more and more maternal in the past few months and she wants to get pregnant.” Of course, with a mother like Dina Lohan, who knows what Lindsay thinks “maternal” means.

The birds, the bees and Mommy’s home video
Speaking of children, Pam Anderson has had to undertake the sensitive subject of explaining her infamous sex tape with former/current/former/current beau Tommy Lee to the two sons she had with Lee. The boys are 10 and 12 years old.

She had to know this day was coming. Heck, we all did, but we didn’t think it would come before the kids hit bar mitzvah age. So why did the big day come so early? Why don’t we ask Pam. “They really wanted to see ‘Borat,’ and I finally had a breakdown and let them because all their friends had,” Anderson told reporters.

In the movie, Sacha Baron Cohen’s character, obsessed with Anderson, sees the famous footage of Pam and Tommy doing some interesting things on their honeymoon in 1995. “I explained to them… ‘Mom and daddy run about naked all the time, and we taped some things... and someone stole the tape,’” Anderson said. Ah, yes. It’s a conversation every parent knows all too well. We applaud Pam for handling it with such sensitivity and maturity. No, seriously. She’s a champ. What would you do?

Of course, we’re hoping the older of her sons isn’t too good at math, because once he puts two and two together… ew.

Constant updates

A friend passed this along to me, and I'm posting it as a public service:

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?

Keep checking it for updates in case you have any doubt.

What was that about inquiring minds?

Yesterday, we had a bit of fun with Meghan McCain, but there’s plenty of kid love to go around on the GOP ticket. Take vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s son Track. In a matter of complete coincidence, he’s deploying to Iraq today. (You might not’ve heard. The family doesn’t like to discuss it much.)

Just in time for Track’s Heroic® departure, the National Enquirer is giving him the full press treatment. And as John Edwards knows, you’re nobody in this country until the National Enquirer is writing about you.

So what’s the rumpus? Well, apparently before joining up, young Track was a bit of a terror in Wasilla, Alaska — a car rim-stealing, hard-partying, OxyContin-snorting terror. Allegedly.

Some of the choicer quotes from Track’s coyly anonymous high school friends include “I’ve seen him snort cocaine, snort and smoke OxyContin, drink booze and smoke weed” and “Track was a master at playing people and paying them to get drugs, alcohol, steal car rims, Xbox games, you name it.”

Now, we’re not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, the National Enquirer was right about the whole Edwards thing, making the mainstream media look foolish for ignoring it because it was in, well, the National Enquirer. On the other hand, they reported in April that Elizabeth Taylor totally OD’d on booze and pills, so… We’re gonna wait for the Sun’s latest Nostradamus prediction before we make up our minds.

[Gawker, Radar]

Kids say the darndest things

The nice thing about families is that they share, like how the Kennedys each get a chance to trash their storied legacy. John McCain, as everyone knows, is unparalleled when it comes to gaffes, but that doesn’t mean he won’t let his kids have a shot now and then.

Take official campaign poster kid Meghan McCain. The 23-year-old blogger is already misspeaking at a Jenna Bush level. Yesterday, she stopped by the “Today” show to plug her knew children’s book, “My Dad, John McCain,” which transforms the senator’s years being tortured as a POW into a lovely bedtime read for tots. (We’re starting to think Meghan didn’t really get the whole “appealing to young voters” thing at the strategy meeting).

While defending her dad and his campaign and, like, the totally awesome things he’ll do for the country or whatever, Meghan unfurled this masterpiece: “My father is obviously a famous war hero. No one knows what war is like other than my family. Period.”



You hear that, military families? Iraq war veterans? Quit your whining. You couldn’t possibly understand war the way Meghan McCain does. Which is why, once her father is elected, she’s totes going to be chairwoman of the joint chiefs and stuff.

But hey, at least she’s not 17 and pregnant. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Who does No. 2 work for?

No one’s really sure what the vice president actually does, but we do know this: The real work comes during the election. The VP picks were selected for very specific purposes, so let’s see how they’re doing. It’s early, of course, but rushing to judgment is what we do best.

A lot of folks have been complaining that Sarah Palin was a cynical pick, chosen solely because she has ovaries and isn’t 72. And there have been complaints about the campaign keeping her from the press. But don’t let her coy interview-dodging fool you. Palin was tapped for one reason: The huge amount of attention she generates gives John McCain the largest possible nap break. Seriously, have you seen him this week? Of course not. He’s sleeping.

And while all Palin has to do is keep people distracted while Gramps rests up, Joe Biden faces a much tougher challenge: convincing people Barack Obama is not an al-Qaida plant who will blow up the White House as soon as he’s in it. And apparently he’s doing a pretty bad job. Last week, Biden chatted up an 89-year-old woman in Philadelphia, leaving her with a peck on the forehead. But his charms didn’t take. Said the woman: “I told him I’m not going to vote for him.” And why is that? Well, she explained, it’s because Obama “pretends to be a Christian, and he isn’t. He’s a Muslim.”

Come on, Joe. Stop slacking. All you have to do is convince people there won’t be a White House Ramadan party, and you can relax for the next four years.

Screw politics, just watch TV

Americans faced with a difficult task: deciding the next president based almost exclusively on whim, superficial criteria and a complex equation political scientists call the eeny meeny miny moe theorum.

I can sense your eyes glazing over, so let’s just talk about television instead. Which show do you like better: Miami Vice or Father Dowling Mysteries?

The parallels are striking. On Miami Vice, Tubbs, much like Barack Obama, was raised by a single mother, and, like Crockett, Joe Biden lives on a boat. Much like John McCain, Father Dowling spent several years in a Cambodian prison camp. And Sarah Palin is from Alaska, which is kind of like being a nun.

But maybe those shows are before your time. (Hello, youth vote!) Or maybe you like them both so much, you couldn’t possibly choose. Then try this one: Which do you prefer, law or order? Specifically, when you watch Law & Order reruns from the 1999-2000 season on TNT, which half of the show do you enjoy more? The Law part, with the young go-getter black detective with something to prove and his veteran partner who always has an off-color joke at the ready? Or the Order part, with its grizzled old coot and the attractive young woman he keeps around to tell him where his keys are?

So really, the question isn’t are you voting Republican or Democrat, but why aren’t you voting for TV?