Campaign In Home Stretch, The Awesomeness Of David Gergen Is Finally Acknowledged, Ian McCarthy Named To Culprits List, and Candidates Yuk It Up
Hi everyone. We kick things off tonight with a little tease of clips from the annual Al Smith political dinner, but more on that later. First, the serious stuff. In a Candy Crowley piece we learn that Obama is sitting pretty right about now. His mission at this point is to refrain from becoming too complacent, lest McCain knock him right out of that chair. And if his supporters need a reminder that the fat lady has not yet sung, he's got a good one. "But for those who are getting a little cocky, I have got two words for you: New Hampshire." Candy notes that the Obama camp is also leery of supporters not voting because they think he's going to win anyway. I'm not sure there's going to be any of that this time. People want to vote for Obama, not just against the other candidate. They're excited to do it and want to be part of history.
McCain, on the other hand, is still plugging along and trying not to look like he's already lost. He's also trying to convince people he's not Bush. It's not a good time to be John McCain. After her piece, Candy joins us live and talks about the negative robocall blitz the McCain campaign has undertaken. Let me guess, if only Obama had done those town halls, this wouldn't have had to happen. Anyway, you can hear them at Talking Points Memo. We then move on to John King's Magic Map and are informed that Obama currently has 277 projected electoral votes. That's seven more than he needs for the presidency. Can we vote today, please?
Moving on now to a little coverage of the real winner of Wednesday night's debate: Joe the Plumber. Mentioned 26 times, the media had whipped themselves up into a Joe investigation/booking frenzy before the candidates even shook hands goodnight. Why, I'm not exactly sure. Who cares what Joe the Plumber has to say? Funny thing is, Joe is actually not a plumber, or for that matter, even a 'Joe.' His first name is Sam. Which leaves 'the' as the only true word in the phrase 'Joe the Plumber'. I was actually quite uncomfortable when I heard of all the freelance opposition research going on against this man. Of course, that was before I realized he wasn't exactly shunning his 15 minutes of fame.
It turns out Joe has things he'd like to get off his chest, and they all sound suspiciously like right wing talking points. Social Security is evil. We should never have to apologize for America. And so on. "Joe will soon have his own cable news show," says Anderson. It's funny that he said that, because McCain's campaign has been reminding me of a long running sitcom. Things were all exciting in the beginning. We became familiar with the characters and were intrigued by the season's arcs. But then the show seemed to run out of new material, so it recycled old story lines. When that failed to work, it started taking wild chances with narrative, ruining some of the character continuity. Finally, as a last ditch effort, the show added this new minor character to shake things up, but most viewers are ready to see this program get canceled. Of course, there will always be those die hard fans, praying that the rumors of a future spin off are true.
Moving on now to our nightly panel, currently being rocked by David Gergen, Roland Martin, and Ed Rollins. The Gerg thinks it was fine that Joe the Plumber was given a voice, though he's not sure why the McCain campaign didn't vet him first. Vetting? I have two words for him: Sarah Palin. Ed then talks about McCain's obvious disdain for Obama during the debate (my God, the reactions!), but enough of all that. I want to get right to the moment of complete and total win that occurred on 360 tonight. See, earlier today I was doing my rounds on the interwebs when I came across this blog post in which comedian Jessi Klein professes her love for our David Gergen. My regular readers know that I myself am no stranger when it comes to loving me some Gerg.
In fact, besides the Wolfbot, he is the only CNNer that I have bestowed with a nickname: The Gerg. Why? Because he is so entirely awesome, that simply using his last name will not do. No, he is The Gerg. There can be no other. Not even Anderson Cooper gets that treatment. So imagine my excitement to see my feelings being shared by another (and after perusing the comments, I also see they are shared by another and another and . . .). Anyway, I bookmarked the link, figuring that I'd post it tonight, along with a few words of amusement, and that would be that. But it turns out that 360 also took my path on the Internets today, which subsequently led to perhaps the most enjoyable ambush I have ever seen.
"David, yesterday, a writer named Jessi Klein blogged on Tina Brown's new Web site, The Daily Beast," says Anderson. And The Gerg clearly knows exactly what he's talking about (Googles himself, perhaps?), "I can't believe you are doing this to me." Oh, believe it, baby. Anderson then proceeds to begin reading some of the post, while The Gerg laughs and tries to spontaneously combust. "I can't believe that Anderson Cooper groupies are migrating away," he says. Oh Gerg, we're your groupies too! There's enough love for everyone! But this my friends was not the end of The Gerg's humiliation, because 360 decided that if they're gonna do this thing, they're gonna frickin do it right. "We invited Jessi Klein to tape a personal message to you," says Anderson. "Oh, you did not," The Gerg exclaims, beyond exasperated. But they did.
Next we are played said message from Jessi, who goes on to shower The Gerg with praise and love; all of it true. And The Gerg's reaction while this is happening is priceless. He cracks up, hides his face in embarrassment, and, is he blushing? Why yes, yes he is. Jessi's message ends with the perfect line: "Anderson, I love you too, but my heart belongs to Gergen," and she follows up by blowing him a kiss, which The Gerg adorably returns. Except for Jessi who played it cool, there are giggles all around. "I can't believe I was ambushed on your show," The Gerg says to Anderson, who is clearly getting a massive kick out of for once being the ambusher and not the ambushee. Roland Martin anoints The Gerg as, "the mack daddy of politics." True dat.
That. Was. Adorable. Also, a friend of mine who has met the man had this to say, "Man, if only she knew how good he smelled. It'd be all over." Oh my. The Gerg is awesome in more ways than I even knew. But you know what? Our analyst here isn't going to just let this embarrassment go. Oh, no. The Silver Fox is going down! Following the incident, The Gerg quickly took to the live-blog to ask for help in getting back at Anderson, even asking us to email him with ideas. And when you employ the power of the fangirls . . . watch out! Oh, and about that emailing? I totally did. That's right, Anderson Cooper, you best watch your back. Because when The Gerg says email, I email. It's not optional, people. I look forward to witnessing the payback. But for now, a big thank you to Jessi Klein, David Gergen, Anderson Cooper, and the rest of 360 for making me laugh harder than I have in a fairly long time. In fact, the clip is so good, it needs to be embedded (h/t FriendOfDem). Enjoy:
Transitioning now to Ali Velshi giving us our nightly Dow update at the big graphic wall. And what a sobering transition it is. Actually, let's not do this right now. On to the "Ten Most Wanted List, The Culprits of the Collapse," AKA "10 Assholes Who Screwed Us Over." Gary Tuchman is handling the segment tonight and he schools us on Beazer Homes USA, which I have admittedly never heard of before. Beazer Homes USA is a home builder and also previously a mortgage broker. Apparently the deal is that Beazer convinced people to buy houses they couldn't afford, initially helped them pay their mortgages so they could qualify, and then payments skyrocketed more than the homeowners were told.
Then there's the whole issue of Beazer putting inaccurate information on mortgage applications. Wow. So now all these people are stuck in houses that they can't afford that in some cases are worth less than their mortgages. Once again, this is all about greed and sticking others with what you can. Beazer gets paid when it sells a house, but if the buyer defaults, the government picks up the tab. Pretty sweet deal, huh? After Gary's piece, Anderson calls out Ian McCarthy, the president and CEO of Beazer. Up on the Culprit board he goes.
As if there hasn't been enough funny this hour, we're next played both candidate's speeches from the Alfred E. Smith dinner. Both of them were pretty hilarious. I think I'll give McCain the win here. He can have this one. Obama gets November 4th.
"The Shot" tonight is fun with photoshop! I knew Joe the Plumber was getting around, but man, I underestimated his media domination. See Joe the Plumber as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars. See Joe the Plumber as James Bond. See Joe the Plumber fill in for Larry King. Oh 360, you amuse me so. Speaking of amusing, I think Jeffrey Toobin needs to be sent to the principal's office. He did it again!
Tonight's webcast was helmed by Jason Carroll, which I think was a surprise to everyone, including, apparently, Jason Carroll. It seems the gig kinda fell on him last minute and he's clearly not quite sure what to do. First he talks with Candy Crowley and expresses his surprise that McCain can be funny. Yeah, he used to be good at that--now he's angry guy. Jason then talks to Anderson, who is apparently having computer problems, which Jason reports he had earlier. Tech support is requested. Man, what is with 360 and all these computer problems?!
Out of ideas, Jason inquires to Kevin what he shouldn't be doing on the webcast, noting that his senior producer Ted Fine pretty much dumped this on him. Hearing this, Ted apparently tells Jason via his ear piece not to say his name. So nobody talk about Ted Fine, got it? We're not going to mention Ted Fine. There is no place for conversing about Ted Fine here. Also, I heard from a birdy that Ted Fine looks a lot like Anderson and that's an interesting thing to talk about if we were talking about Ted Fine, which, uh, we're not.
Jason then asks the dude at camera one (who I believe Kevin referred to as Big Dog; it was hard to hear), what he should do on the webcast . . . and we're met with silence. Whoops. Back to Anderson it is. Jason probably figures he can't lose there, especially if he goads him to dance. "I know you can shake it," say Jason. "I know you can throw down." Anderson confirms that he can, in fact, throw down, but he's not gonna on TV because no one wants to see a grey haired middle aged guy shuffling around. Oh, he is so so wrong. Such a tease! Jason actually did really well for getting saddled with a live webcast with apparently no prep time.
Well, it's not going to be every day that my blog post is more focused on the non-news, but tonight was special. I've had a craptastic couple days and found the hour quite enjoyable. Even I have to take my media critic hat off every once in a while. That'll do it.
McCain, on the other hand, is still plugging along and trying not to look like he's already lost. He's also trying to convince people he's not Bush. It's not a good time to be John McCain. After her piece, Candy joins us live and talks about the negative robocall blitz the McCain campaign has undertaken. Let me guess, if only Obama had done those town halls, this wouldn't have had to happen. Anyway, you can hear them at Talking Points Memo. We then move on to John King's Magic Map and are informed that Obama currently has 277 projected electoral votes. That's seven more than he needs for the presidency. Can we vote today, please?
Moving on now to a little coverage of the real winner of Wednesday night's debate: Joe the Plumber. Mentioned 26 times, the media had whipped themselves up into a Joe investigation/booking frenzy before the candidates even shook hands goodnight. Why, I'm not exactly sure. Who cares what Joe the Plumber has to say? Funny thing is, Joe is actually not a plumber, or for that matter, even a 'Joe.' His first name is Sam. Which leaves 'the' as the only true word in the phrase 'Joe the Plumber'. I was actually quite uncomfortable when I heard of all the freelance opposition research going on against this man. Of course, that was before I realized he wasn't exactly shunning his 15 minutes of fame.
It turns out Joe has things he'd like to get off his chest, and they all sound suspiciously like right wing talking points. Social Security is evil. We should never have to apologize for America. And so on. "Joe will soon have his own cable news show," says Anderson. It's funny that he said that, because McCain's campaign has been reminding me of a long running sitcom. Things were all exciting in the beginning. We became familiar with the characters and were intrigued by the season's arcs. But then the show seemed to run out of new material, so it recycled old story lines. When that failed to work, it started taking wild chances with narrative, ruining some of the character continuity. Finally, as a last ditch effort, the show added this new minor character to shake things up, but most viewers are ready to see this program get canceled. Of course, there will always be those die hard fans, praying that the rumors of a future spin off are true.
Moving on now to our nightly panel, currently being rocked by David Gergen, Roland Martin, and Ed Rollins. The Gerg thinks it was fine that Joe the Plumber was given a voice, though he's not sure why the McCain campaign didn't vet him first. Vetting? I have two words for him: Sarah Palin. Ed then talks about McCain's obvious disdain for Obama during the debate (my God, the reactions!), but enough of all that. I want to get right to the moment of complete and total win that occurred on 360 tonight. See, earlier today I was doing my rounds on the interwebs when I came across this blog post in which comedian Jessi Klein professes her love for our David Gergen. My regular readers know that I myself am no stranger when it comes to loving me some Gerg.
In fact, besides the Wolfbot, he is the only CNNer that I have bestowed with a nickname: The Gerg. Why? Because he is so entirely awesome, that simply using his last name will not do. No, he is The Gerg. There can be no other. Not even Anderson Cooper gets that treatment. So imagine my excitement to see my feelings being shared by another (and after perusing the comments, I also see they are shared by another and another and . . .). Anyway, I bookmarked the link, figuring that I'd post it tonight, along with a few words of amusement, and that would be that. But it turns out that 360 also took my path on the Internets today, which subsequently led to perhaps the most enjoyable ambush I have ever seen.
"David, yesterday, a writer named Jessi Klein blogged on Tina Brown's new Web site, The Daily Beast," says Anderson. And The Gerg clearly knows exactly what he's talking about (Googles himself, perhaps?), "I can't believe you are doing this to me." Oh, believe it, baby. Anderson then proceeds to begin reading some of the post, while The Gerg laughs and tries to spontaneously combust. "I can't believe that Anderson Cooper groupies are migrating away," he says. Oh Gerg, we're your groupies too! There's enough love for everyone! But this my friends was not the end of The Gerg's humiliation, because 360 decided that if they're gonna do this thing, they're gonna frickin do it right. "We invited Jessi Klein to tape a personal message to you," says Anderson. "Oh, you did not," The Gerg exclaims, beyond exasperated. But they did.
Next we are played said message from Jessi, who goes on to shower The Gerg with praise and love; all of it true. And The Gerg's reaction while this is happening is priceless. He cracks up, hides his face in embarrassment, and, is he blushing? Why yes, yes he is. Jessi's message ends with the perfect line: "Anderson, I love you too, but my heart belongs to Gergen," and she follows up by blowing him a kiss, which The Gerg adorably returns. Except for Jessi who played it cool, there are giggles all around. "I can't believe I was ambushed on your show," The Gerg says to Anderson, who is clearly getting a massive kick out of for once being the ambusher and not the ambushee. Roland Martin anoints The Gerg as, "the mack daddy of politics." True dat.
That. Was. Adorable. Also, a friend of mine who has met the man had this to say, "Man, if only she knew how good he smelled. It'd be all over." Oh my. The Gerg is awesome in more ways than I even knew. But you know what? Our analyst here isn't going to just let this embarrassment go. Oh, no. The Silver Fox is going down! Following the incident, The Gerg quickly took to the live-blog to ask for help in getting back at Anderson, even asking us to email him with ideas. And when you employ the power of the fangirls . . . watch out! Oh, and about that emailing? I totally did. That's right, Anderson Cooper, you best watch your back. Because when The Gerg says email, I email. It's not optional, people. I look forward to witnessing the payback. But for now, a big thank you to Jessi Klein, David Gergen, Anderson Cooper, and the rest of 360 for making me laugh harder than I have in a fairly long time. In fact, the clip is so good, it needs to be embedded (h/t FriendOfDem). Enjoy:
Transitioning now to Ali Velshi giving us our nightly Dow update at the big graphic wall. And what a sobering transition it is. Actually, let's not do this right now. On to the "Ten Most Wanted List, The Culprits of the Collapse," AKA "10 Assholes Who Screwed Us Over." Gary Tuchman is handling the segment tonight and he schools us on Beazer Homes USA, which I have admittedly never heard of before. Beazer Homes USA is a home builder and also previously a mortgage broker. Apparently the deal is that Beazer convinced people to buy houses they couldn't afford, initially helped them pay their mortgages so they could qualify, and then payments skyrocketed more than the homeowners were told.
Then there's the whole issue of Beazer putting inaccurate information on mortgage applications. Wow. So now all these people are stuck in houses that they can't afford that in some cases are worth less than their mortgages. Once again, this is all about greed and sticking others with what you can. Beazer gets paid when it sells a house, but if the buyer defaults, the government picks up the tab. Pretty sweet deal, huh? After Gary's piece, Anderson calls out Ian McCarthy, the president and CEO of Beazer. Up on the Culprit board he goes.
As if there hasn't been enough funny this hour, we're next played both candidate's speeches from the Alfred E. Smith dinner. Both of them were pretty hilarious. I think I'll give McCain the win here. He can have this one. Obama gets November 4th.
"The Shot" tonight is fun with photoshop! I knew Joe the Plumber was getting around, but man, I underestimated his media domination. See Joe the Plumber as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars. See Joe the Plumber as James Bond. See Joe the Plumber fill in for Larry King. Oh 360, you amuse me so. Speaking of amusing, I think Jeffrey Toobin needs to be sent to the principal's office. He did it again!
Tonight's webcast was helmed by Jason Carroll, which I think was a surprise to everyone, including, apparently, Jason Carroll. It seems the gig kinda fell on him last minute and he's clearly not quite sure what to do. First he talks with Candy Crowley and expresses his surprise that McCain can be funny. Yeah, he used to be good at that--now he's angry guy. Jason then talks to Anderson, who is apparently having computer problems, which Jason reports he had earlier. Tech support is requested. Man, what is with 360 and all these computer problems?!
Out of ideas, Jason inquires to Kevin what he shouldn't be doing on the webcast, noting that his senior producer Ted Fine pretty much dumped this on him. Hearing this, Ted apparently tells Jason via his ear piece not to say his name. So nobody talk about Ted Fine, got it? We're not going to mention Ted Fine. There is no place for conversing about Ted Fine here. Also, I heard from a birdy that Ted Fine looks a lot like Anderson and that's an interesting thing to talk about if we were talking about Ted Fine, which, uh, we're not.
Jason then asks the dude at camera one (who I believe Kevin referred to as Big Dog; it was hard to hear), what he should do on the webcast . . . and we're met with silence. Whoops. Back to Anderson it is. Jason probably figures he can't lose there, especially if he goads him to dance. "I know you can shake it," say Jason. "I know you can throw down." Anderson confirms that he can, in fact, throw down, but he's not gonna on TV because no one wants to see a grey haired middle aged guy shuffling around. Oh, he is so so wrong. Such a tease! Jason actually did really well for getting saddled with a live webcast with apparently no prep time.
Well, it's not going to be every day that my blog post is more focused on the non-news, but tonight was special. I've had a craptastic couple days and found the hour quite enjoyable. Even I have to take my media critic hat off every once in a while. That'll do it.
posted by eliza at 11:54 PM
2 Comments:
Love the Gerg, he is the awesomeness and it's about time it was acknowledged publicly. I also love the Toob and think he's pretty deserving of a nickname as well.
Someday I hope to see Anderson actually "throwing down" but I'm not holding my breath.
!!!TED FINE!!!
ooooops 'bout that, sorry Ted. ;)
Hee. I think we're all discovering EVERYONE loves The Gerg.
Alas, I don't think we'll ever see Anderson shaking his groove thing.
Ted Fine!
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