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John Prine had it right. And this was back in 1971.

But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.

Twenty-seven years later, the decals have changed to lapel pins, but the argument is back full-force. When in October of 2007 Barack Obama made his now-famous comment about not wearing the flag lapel pin because it had "become a substitute for true patriotism," he caused a tremor in the political force that has yet to completely subside. Even though he went on to clarify that "you show your patriotism by how you treat your fellow Americans…by values and ideals," the political cat was out of the bag, running around the FOX news set, and pissing on everything.

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A buttock? Male, female? Muscular. Hair. More hair. Definitely male. REVEAL hard-core gay sex scene between a flawless blond bodybuilder-hooker and a bald, middle-aged 300-pound man. A cell phone rings. The fat man reaches for it, hits a button to stop the ringing. Back to sex. A hotel phone starts ringing. And ringing. And ringing. The fat man picks it up and hangs up to stop the ringing. It rings again immediately. The fat man tries the same trick. And it rings again immediately. Finally, the phone wins. As the fat man talks on the phone, the hooker continues to do his job.

Fat man: Yeah … Harold, can I call you ba— … Uh-huh … I still haven’t deci— … This really isn’t a good time for— … Please. I have to— … I just— … I need— … (Desperate to get back to sex, gives up.) Okay … Yes, I’m saying yes … No, you can’t announce it yet … I’m giving you my word … I’ve got to hang up now … Okay. (Hangs up.)
Hooker (looking up from his work): Are you a superdelegate?

"Four Days in Denver," a piece in the current New York magazine by Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., starts off with a bang, as a superdelegate, um, consults closely with a Mike Jones-like character in a Denver hotel room. From there, O'Donnell, a former writer/producer for The West Wing, spins an entertaining scenario of a deadlocked convention, full of political insights.

Too bad, though, that New York didn't give the assignment to John Wells, the executive producer of West Wing who actually grew up in Denver -- and might have known that Mike Jones saw clients in his studio.

Even superdelegates. -- Patricia Calhoun

Tucker Carlson is sort of the Paris Hilton of political punditry: he's famous for just being famous. Which is enough, it needs be said, to have your own show for a near three-year run on MSNBC. But then, Paris had The Simple Life, too.

Life with Tucker Carlson isn't so simple. He has more credentials than many of his conservative equals, having legitimate journalism chops: he was on the editorial staff of the conservative journal Policy Review, and later worked as a reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (a name that shouldn't fool anyone as to its leanings by virtue of its title). He went from there to television—specifically PBS—where he co-hosted The Spin Room. That gig led Carlson to CNN (though he hung around PBS until 2005, as well), and directly to Crossfire. Not a bad pedigree, given the comparatives in his field.

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Criticizing Glenn Beck is an unsatisfying thing.

Part of the reason for this is that it's so easy. After all, the guy is, like Limbaugh and Hannity before him, utterly untrained for what he's come to do. Rush was a sales rep; Sean was in construction; Glenn Beck was a Top-40 DJ. Three of the loudest voices for the new conservatism, all of whom discovered that making purposefully crude and obnoxious things was a quick way to the top of the right-wing talk-radio heap.

And what a heap it is.

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Why do you argue?

These were the words that may have killed CNN's Crossfire, which was cancelled not long after. Jon Stewart's now-legendary appearance on that show took not only conservative bow-tied Tucker Carlson to task, but also spanked democratic strategist Paul Begala. Begala no doubt thought that he was going to have a very easy afternoon, that summer's day in 2004, what with Stewart being the only guest scheduled, and what with their politics running so parallel.

In this, Begala was wrong.

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Beware of pollsters with agendas.

A pollster is supposed to be someone just culling data from a statistically significant portion of the population, right? Someone with one eye on politics, and the other on science? Well, if you consider the efficacy of propaganda a scientific end, Frank Luntz is your kind of pollster.

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Amy Holmes holds the pundit trifecta ticket: she’s black, she’s pretty, and she’s a Republican.

Or so she’s espousing these days. She’s gone on record in the past to say that she’s registered as an Independent, and that she privately harbors some fairly liberal views, including being strongly pro-choice.

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