Here’s a preview of John McCain on Late Show last night. He told host David Letterman, “I screwed up,” then laughed and did a little “gee whiz” shrug, and made an awkward joke about being tortured in Vietnam. “What can I say?!” the Republican presidential nominee asked.
Letterman later hit McCain for paling around with Watergate burglar and would-be firebomber G. Gordon Liddy, even though McCain has slammed Barack Obama for an arguably more distant relationship with 1960s radical William Ayers.
McCain ultimately seemed defensive and unprepared, and the whole thing was train-wreck-level awkward, but you really have to watch, if only to witness still more of McCain’s bizarre face-pulls.
Paris Hilton is teaming up with Martin Sheen for her latest Funny or Die video, she is asking for advice on running for “fake preisdent” (Sheen played a president on the West Wing show.)
This past August, Hilton made a response (click for video) to John McCain‘s presidential ad, in which the McCain camp compared Barack Obama to Hilton.
I thought the first one was pretty funny, but to me this is just grasping at straws trying to get headlines while promoting her show, although I did laugh at The Notebook joke. What do you think about it?
source: Paris Hilton Gets Presidential with Martin Sheen [funny or die]
David Letterman told his audience that McCain called him today to tell him he had to rush back to DC to deal with the economy.
Then in the middle of the taping, Dave got word that McCain was, in fact just down the street being interviewed by Katie Couric. Dave even cut over to the live video of the interview, and said, “Hey Senator, can I give you a ride to the airport?”
Earlier in the show, Dave kept saying, “You don’t suspend your campaign. This doesn’t smell right. This isn’t the way a tested hero behaves.” And he joked: “I think someone’s putting something in his metamucil.”
“He can’t run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sara Palin. Where is she?”
“What are you going to do if you’re elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We’ve got a guy like that now!”
Did you see John McCain on ABC’s The View this morning? Well the presidential candidate said he would like the Constitution interpreted the way it was originally written to be.
Whoopi Goldberg didn’t really like this statement and said, “should I be worried about being a slave, about being returned to slavery because certain things happened in the Constitution that you had to change?”
Barbara Walters chimed in and said to Sheri Shepherd and Whoopi that “us white folk will take care of you.”
Thursday afternoon, “Heart” e-mailed out a statement regarding vice-presidential candidate Sarah “Barracuda” Palin‘s use of their similarly monikered song at the Republican National Convention.
“The Republican campaign did not ask for permission to use the song, nor would they have been granted that permission. We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music. We hope our wishes will be honored.”
But after McCain finished his speech accepting the GOP’s presidential nomination tonight, Palin joined him on stage, and the song was used again: Heart’s “Barracuda” played as balloons fell.
With that elephant in the room, Heart’s Nancy Wilson felt compelled to personally respond. In a phone interview with EW, she said:
“I think it’s completely unfair to be so misrepresented. I feel completely f—ed over.”
She and sister Ann Wilson then e-mailed the following exclusive statement:
“Sarah Palin’s views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song ‘Barracuda’ no longer be used to promote her image. The song ‘Barracuda’ was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The ‘barracuda’ represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there’s irony in Republican strategists’ choice to make use of it there.”
The Heart-McCain incident isn’t the only example of music-related controversy on this year’s presidential campaign trail. Click here to read Chris Willman‘s report about Barack Obama’s eyebrow-raising use of Brooks & Dunn’s “Only in America” after his nomination-acceptance address last week.
source: Heart’s Nancy Wilson responds to McCain campaign’s use of ‘Barracuda’ at Republican convention [hollywood insider]
Until recently, it was the John McCain party that was accusing Barack Obama of “celebrity status“.
Who is the celebrity now? Heidi Montagcan’t believe she’s not John McCain’s running mate. She might as well be.
What others said:
Dlisted says, “Basically, the Palin family has become the Spears family of Alaska. Somebody shake Brit Brit from her Vicodin-Cheeto coma and let her know that this Sarah Palin chick is taking her place!”
After some unsavory rumors that Sarah Palin faking a pregnancy to protect her daughter surfaced, Palin revealed yesterday that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant but scheduled to marry the 18-year-old hockey playing father, Levi Johnston. One hesitates to delve into the story of candidates’ minor children, who are not public figures. Now, though, the focus has turned to where it should: The vetting process that yielded the unexpected selection of the relative unknown Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate.
There had already been reports that McCain and his inner circle decided on Palin outside the normal process set up to ensure that there would be no surprises. This revelation — of what was apparently an open secret in Alaska would seem to vindicate that charge. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and NBC’s Andrea Mitchell both report that a bunch of GOP lawyers are now heading to Alaska for “a deeper vet.†As Josh Marshall puts it, “Face It: They Didn’t Vet Her.â€
Team McCain insists this is nonsense and that they were fully aware of the situation with Palin’s daughter. AP’s Liz Sidoti reports that,
Sarah Palin’s path to the Republican ticket started with her name on a list — and a team of some 25 people poring through public records searching for trouble spots without her knowledge. Then came the 70-question survey and a nearly three-hour interview.
[...]
Stoking the notion of a rushed examination, a timeline issued by the campaign indicated that McCain initially met Palin in February, then held one phone conversation with her last week before inviting her to Arizona, where he met with her a second time and offered her the job.
[...]
[Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., the lawyer who conducted the review] said Palin’s review, like others, began with a team of two dozen people culling information from public sources. The team reviewed speeches, financial records, tax information, litigation, investigations, ethical charges, marriages and divorces, for a number of potential running mates.
For Palin specifically, the team studied online archives of the state’s largest newspapers, including the Anchorage Daily News, but didn’t request paper archives for Palin’s hometown newspaper for fear the secret review would become public. Among the findings: Palin had once received a citation for fishing without a license.
[...]
Culvahouse then conducted a nearly three-hour interview. He said the first thing Palin volunteered was that her daughter was pregnant, and she also quickly disclosed her husband’s two-decade-old DUI arrest. The public search also unearthed details of the Legislature’s investigation into the dismissal of Alaska’s public safety commissioner, allegedly because he would not fire Palin’s former brother-in-law as a state trooper.
It sounds like, at a minimum, Team McCain valued maximum surprise and buzz from the announcement more than thorough vetting. Similarly, they seemed determined to avoid further annoying social conservatives, given that pro-choicers Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge were clearly McCain’s preferred running mates.
Drawing comparisons with George McGovern’s disastrous choice of Thomas Eagleton as his running mate, Jeralyn Merritt has started a pool: “What Day Will Sarah Palin Drop Out?†Given Palin’s popularity with the party’s conservative base and McCain’s own combativeness, I doubt it’ll come to that.
One wonders, though, why they chose Palin even with this story out there. ABC’s Jake Tapper asks the not unreasonable question, “What would the response be if Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and his wife Michelle had a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter?â€
Surrounded by an enormous, adoring crowd, Barack Obama promised a clean break from the “broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush” Thursday night as he embarked on the final lap of his audacious bid to become the nation’s first black president.
“America, now is not the time for small plans,” the 47-year-old Democratic Illinois senator told an estimated 84,000 people packed into Invesco Field, a huge football stadium at the base of the Rocky Mountains.
He vowed to cut taxes for nearly all working-class families, end the war in Iraq and break America’s dependence on Mideast oil within a decade. By contrast, he said, “John McCain has voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time,” a scathing indictment of his Republican rival — on health care, education, the economy and more.
Polls indicate a close race between Obama and McCain, the Arizona senator who stands between him and a place in history. On a night 45 years after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I have a Dream Speech,” Obama made no overt mention of his own race.
“I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don’t fit the typical pedigree” of a presidential candidate was as close as he came to the long-smoldering issue that may well determine the outcome of the election.
Fireworks lit the night sky as Obama, his speech concluded, accepted the cheers of supporters. His wife, Michelle, and their daughters Malia and Sasha joined him as the country music anthem “Only in America” filled the stadium. Vice presidential running mate Joseph Biden and his wife, Jill, joined them onstage.
Depicted by McCain as too young and inexperienced to sit in the Oval Office, Obama responded with an oblique reference to his rival’s temper.
“If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next commander in chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have,” he said.
John McCain has utilized almost every television commercial in his campaign as a means of slamming Obama Barack — even calling him a “celebrity“. Meanwhile, Barack has mostly focused on his own merits.
Well, Barack is finally on attack. This election is going to be extremely fun to watch. Can you imagine how dirty things will get by November?
Some people take their music seriously. So seriously, they’re willing to take the potential next President of the United States to court!
The singer-songwriter sued McCain and the Ohio and national Republican committees in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Thursday, accusing them of using his song “Running on Empty” without his permission.
The lawsuit claims the song’s use was an infringement of his copyright and will lead people to conclude he endorses McCain. The suit says Browne is a lifelong liberal who is as well-known for his music as for being “an advocate for social and environmental justice.”
The advertisement mocks Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s contention that if U.S. drivers got regular tuneups and drove on properly inflated tires, they could save the same amount of oil that would be gained by offshore drilling. According to the suit, “Running on Empty” plays in the background of the ad criticizing the remarks.
Robert Bennett, chairman of the Ohio party, said the ad was pulled when Browne objected. He called the lawsuit a “big to-do about nothing.”
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers disavowed the ad, saying it wasn’t a product of the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign.
Browne’s lawsuit contends the Ohio Republican party released the ad on behalf of McCain and the RNC. The RNC did not return a phone call seeking comment.
The suit notes that other musicians, including ABBA and John Cougar Mellencamp, have asked McCain to stop using their work.
Browne’s attorney, Lawrence Iser, called the ad’s use of the song “reprehensible.”
The 59-year-old singer claims his reputation has already been damaged and is seeking more than $75,000 in damages.
Browne released “Running on Empty” — the song and an album by the same name — in 1977. According to the lawsuit, the album has sold more than 7 million copies.
Browne’s financial success has aided Democratic candidates over the years. Campaign finance records show he contributed $2,300 to Obama’s presidential campaign last year and $2,000 to the Illinois senator’s campaign coffers in 2004.
John McCain is losing my respect rapidly. First all of his ads are geared towards “bashing the competition”, instead of pushing his own goals and merits — now he’s blatantly using copyrighted songs without the artists permission. Shame on you!
source: Jackson Browne sues McCain, RNC over song in ad [yahoo news]
It may seem as if most entertainment industry figures are aligning with Barack Obama and just a few with John McCain, but there are still a handful of famous names who are still on the fence. And both campaigns are well aware of one star who stands out among the undecideds: Angelina Jolie.
Both campaigns have reached out to her, apparently to court her support. But in a statement to Variety provided by political adviser Trevor Neilson, Jolie says that she is waiting to make up her mind.
“I have not decided on a candidate,” Jolie says, “I am waiting to see the commitments they will make on issues like international justice, refugees and how to address the needs of children in crisis around the world.”
Unlike many other celebrity endorsements, Jolie’s carries the weight and influence of her extensive humanitarian work around the world, as the goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Her statement was an indication that she would be open to choosing a candidate.
That was in evidence earlier this year after her trip to Iraq, when she wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, “Staying to Help in Iraq,” in which she argued that the U.S. should step up financial and material assistance to Iraq — not withdraw from its commitment in the region.
She wrote, “My visit left me even more deeply convinced that we not only have a moral obligation to help displaced Iraqi families, but also a serious, long-term, national security interest in ending this crisis.
“Today’s humanitarian crisis in Iraq — and the potential consequences for our national security — are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of Middle East, won’t explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?”
“What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made.”
She did, however, “call on each of the presidential candidates and congressional leaders to announce a comprehensive refugee plan with a specific timeline and budget as part of their Iraq strategy.”
Her call for a continued U.S. presence left some conservative blogs buzzing that Jolie may in fact endorse McCain — after some had just assumed that she would back Obama.
Jolie has said very little about the presidential race since.
As you all know, John McCain has already started hitting below the belt, calling Barack Obama “the world’s biggest celebrity”.
McCain even went as far as comparing Barack to Paris Hilton.
Well… she’s pissed.
UPDATE (James):
For those unable to watch the video, ABC News’ Tahman Bradley has the rundown:
Sitting on a lawn chair in a bathing suit, Ms. Hilton says to camera, “Hey America, I’m Paris Hilton and I’m a celebrity too. Only I’m not from the olden days and I’m not promising change like that other guy. I’m just hot.”
She continues, “But then that wrinkly white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which I guess means that I’m running for president.”
And so, since Hilton has interpreted the comparison to Sen. Obama, D-Ill., as meaning that she too is qualified to be leader of the free world, Hilton, jokingly, lays out her campaign platform.
The video has some more tough words for the “wrinkly white-haired” Arizona Senator: “He’s the oldest celebrity it the world, like super old. Old enough to remember when dancing was a sin and beer was served in a bucket,” a narrator says, with a picture of Larry King and then Yoda to drive home the age point.
In the unkindest cut of all, McCain’s spokesperson Tucker Bounds tells TMZ that on the subject of energy, Paris is deeper than Barack. He says, “Sounds like Paris is taking the ‘All of the Above’ energy approach that John McCain has advocated — both alternatives and drilling. Perhaps the reality is that Paris has a more substantive energy plan than Barack Obama.”
Naturally, all of this has resulted in some enlightening discussion on the issues that matter most to Americans.
According to the Federal Election Commission website, the Hilton’s contributed the dough last March. Initially, Rick put up all the $$$ but in April it was split between him and his wife.
Now it’s being reported that McCain is taking a shots at Obama, using Paris as his ditzy weapon.
Personally, I don’t see the big deal…We ALL take shots at Paris, she’s an easy target.
source: Paris’ Parents to McCain: How Dare You [tmz]
“The Republican campaign did not ask for permission to use the song, nor would they have been granted that permission. We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music. We hope our wishes will be honored.”
The lawsuit claims the song’s use was an infringement of his copyright and will lead people to conclude he endorses McCain. The suit says Browne is a lifelong liberal who is as well-known for his music as for being “an advocate for social and environmental justice.”
