You've seen the Saturday Night Live take on the debate. Now here are some offerings some others, including Sean Masterson. the actor-writer-producer and self-described "person just like you."
In this one, Masterson the Republicrat inserts himself into the debate.
Here's another effort, a little more primitive, but with some good one-liners, even if they are shown cartoon-style in bubbles.
Saturday Night Live send ups of the presidential debates are a time-honored tradition, and barely 24-hours after Friday's debate between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, the sketch comedy show was back at it.
We here at Politics (Un)Seriously were a little disappointed with this effort, particularly the performance of Fred Armisen as Barack Obama. At times Armisen's Obama sounds more like a New Jersey cab driver than the Illinois senator. But maybe that's just us. Tell us what you think, and we'll post some of our past SNL debate sketch favorites in future posts.
In honor of what appears to be a deal on the Wall Street bailout, we thought it only fitting to bring you a scene from "Wall Street," the movie, and the famous, "Greed is good," speech by Gordon Gecko.
Jon Stewart switches roles and becomes a bank loan officer. His customers are Washington's "economic power couple," Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke.
This one falls about halfway between a spoof and a political ad, which in the world of politics and video, is probably just the right combination. But when we saw that Ralph Nader was going to fit in the same video with the Obama girl, we couldn't resist watching and posting this one. The video comes from BarelyPolitical.com and on the YouTube page lists a link to VoteNader.Org which we guess is their way of saying, "I'm Ralph Nader and I approve this ad."
President Bush's national TV appearance the other night caused Jon Stewart to have a flashback moment to Bush's "final days of decision" speech five years ago about Iraq ...
One of the political film classics is "The Candidate" from 1972 with Robert Redford playing longshot Senate hopeful Bill McKay who comes from nowhere to beat powerful incumbent Crocker Jarman. McKay, the neophyte, has his rocky moments such as when he gets punchy from using his campaign slogan, "There's Got to be a Better Way," so many times that it almost becomes a nonsense phrase for him. Another was when he kept dissolving into laughter while filming a campaign ad. Great line from his campaign manager played by Peter Boyle: "Grim up!"
There's a toss-up race in Ohio's 15th congressional district where Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy, a Franklin County Commissioner, and Republican State Sen. Steve Stivers are competing for the seat of Republican Rep. Deborah Pryce who is retiring after eight terms. The Ohio State University College Democrats weighed in with this ad, so we'll see if accusing Stivers of being a covert Michigan Wolverine lover tips the balance. (Thanks to The Sporting Blog for spotting this).
Making the rounds today is a video showing a service at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church, where Sarah Palin was a member, shot months before she formally entered the race for Governor. Palin appears a little over seven minutes into the video, after Bishop Thomas Muthee had delivered a sermon, saying "If we have God in our schools, we will not have kids being taught how to worship Buddha, how to worship Mohammed. We will not have in their curriculum witchcraft and sorcery."
Then Palin appears for a blessing from him and the congregation, and Muthee says, ""Come on, talk to God about this woman. We declare, save her from Satan. Make her way, my God. Bring finances her way even for the campaign in the name of Jesus. ... Use her to turn this nation the other way around."
Barack Obama tells Katie Couric (read the transcript) his favorite movie is "The Godfather" and his favorite scene is "where the caretaker comes in and, you know, Marlon Brando is sitting there and he's saying "you disrespected me. You know and now you want a favor." (Actually, it was the undertaker). So we found a version of the scene for you, although it has been adapted by a software company called VMware in which some of the original dialogue has been replaced by the Godfather counseling Bonasera on beefing up his computer networks. Which is a hoot in itself.
As for John McCain, his favorite is "Viva Zapata" and his favorite scene is one between Marlon Brando's Zapata and Jean Peters ("The beauty whose heart he captured!") Well, here you can see them together in the trailer:
This is a bit of footage that's a year old, but still is a favorite for us, so we thought we'd give it another run. McCain at a town hall meeting is asked by a young guy whether he's worried that, at his age, he'll die in office or get Alzheimer's, and McCain caps his answer by calling him a "little jerk."
We guess for Al Franken, who is looking for a new career as a U.S. Senator, doing comedy sketches is like riding a bike, you never lose the knack. Franken may not have written a script for Saturday Night Live for 13 years, but according to Politico, he "helped craft" last night's opening SNL sketch satirizing John McCain and the truth of his paid ads. So, check this video out and see if you think Franken still has the touch.
The first woman vice president is gathered with advisers after the President has died suddenly of a cerebral aneuryism. The Speaker of the House asks all the other aides to step out of the room and tells her she should resign instead of becoming chief executive because her selection as running mate had been mostly a stunt.
Script sound familiar? That's because it was from the premiere of the 2005 TV show Commander in Chief starring Geena Davis as Mackenzie Allen. Donald Sutherland, as the overtly sexist Republican Speaker tells her:
"You know that your vice presidency was never ever intended to be a presidency. It was done as a stunt...You can see that. You're a female, you're an independent, you're a teacher ... But the point is it was all done as pure theater. And you got great reviews, but now you should get off the stage..."
Here's the video:
So, if Barack Obama doesn't make it to the White House, he can always take his administration to television ...
The Daily Show took its own crack at covering the financial crisis hanging over the nation by matching up the candidates on both tickets in a "Generic-off" to see who could talk about solutions without really saying anything.
OK, we found this clip because someone, by connecting it with Barack Obama on YouTube, was clearly trying to make an anti-Obama point. But this is one we've been waiting to lay our electronic hands on because it was years ahead of its time in showing how television was going to change presidential politics.
It's from Elia Kazan's 1957 movie "A Face in the Crowd" starring a very different Andy Griffith than the one you remember from Mayberry. Griffith portrays a guitar-playing hobo named Lonesome Rhodes who lands in jail in Piggott, Arkansas where he is discovered by a local radio station and vaults from there to a country-boy national star. Then when he's hired to be the national spokesman pitching a dubious vitamin supplement called Vitajex, the owner of the company turns Lonesome's talents to coaching his choice for President, a starchy old Senator, on how to be a down-home kind of guy.
Definitely one of our favorite all-time scenes from a political movie, even beats Allen Garfield coaching Robert Redford in "The Candidate."
Have a video you'd like to suggest? E-mail us at cqpolitics2@cq.com and include the code.
Steven Colbert dares to question the unquestionable about the McCain-Palin campaign ...
Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate May Steal Support From McCain
We suppose this "Daily Show" video from back during the conventions qualifies as investigative reporting, probing into what people mean when they extol "small town values." So, the most "respectful and wholesome" team in journalism, plunges in ...
Have a video to suggest? Send the code and why you liked it to us at cqpolitics2@cq.com.
This video was sent to us from an advocacy group called "Change to Win" which was created by a group of unions and says its mission is to lobby on behalf of workers for "a paycheck that can support a family, affordable health care, a secure retirement and dignity on the job." It's a pretty funny send-up of those new employee orientation talks that many companies have to greet new workers. And tell us if the CEO's smile doesn't remind you of Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock. The video was produced by American Rights at Work. (Remember, if you want to submit a video, just write to us at cqpolitics2@cq.com, and say why you liked it and include the embed code).
For anyone who watched the Republican National Convention, it's clear who the GOP's main adversary is in this year's election: the media. The 'Eastern Media Elite,' to be precise. It's quite true, we are everywhere and we do control everything. In this video that would be humorous if it weren't so true, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank shows just how good the media has it.
Every day, we at CQ Politics are trolling the net for stuff that will inform - and entertain - readers of the site. One booming area when it comes to politics in the webosphere is video, particularly video that has the bite of good satire, is particularly compelling ... or is just outright funny.
So, we're starting a new blog devoted to this kind of material, whether it's the best from the Daily Show, to political ads or to homemade videos that are being done by more and more people.
Your nominations are welcome! Just drop us a note, a short paragraph or two on why a particular video caught your eye, and include the embed code. You can contact us here at cqpolitcs2@cq.com.
And now to get started, we'd do something a little different and reached back into the video past for a younger, pre-mayoral, pre-presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.
It's 1993 and in the bizarro universe of Seinfeld, Kramer, (Cosmo to his friends), has invested in a store that thinks it has found the Holy Grail - a great tasting yogurt that is absolutely non-fattening. That is, until Jerry and Elaine discover they are gaining weight. Enter mayoral candidate Giuliani who is told, after a physicial, that his cholesterol has shot up to 375. And he takes to the airwaves, vowing to clean up the yogurt mess ...