Once upon a time in America there was at least a tangential relationship between fame and talent. Actors could act. Writers could write. Singers could sing. Of course, there were always freaky novelty acts, but they were in the sideshow, not the main arena. But now we live in the...

Many people have drawn the comparison between Vietnam and Afghanistan in terms of fighting a war without a clear objective. Some accept it. Others reject it. Putting aside how many troops (English translation: young Americans) Gen. McChrystal says he needs to accomplish the military goal in Afghanistan, we're still left...

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs announced this morning that the President and his family played a game of monopoly in the White House kitchen this past Sunday, which the President won. Reaction from the right was instantaneous and vitriolic.

Bill O'Reilly decried the callousness with which the President of the...

The prerequisite for running for President is no longer experience in government, public service, or a background in the law. It's publishing "your story," and getting your face all over the media via the "book/pre-primary tour." And in a long line of "throw your autobiography in the ring" tomes, comes...

When John Edwards said there were two Americas, he was making the point that this country is divided into the haves and have nots, based on money and opportunity. But based on the recent insane behavior on the extreme right, it seems he left out another element: intelligence.

There...

This past weekend tens of thousands of corpulent, toothless economists were herded to Washington to express their outrage over the prospect of government health care, and the rising federal deficit, collectively experiencing two phenomena for the very first time: Protest. And walking.

Brandishing the obligatory Obama-as-Hitler signs alongside the...

The current debate over health care has nothing to do with health care, any more than the TARP debate was about the economy. This is about one thing and one thing only: the GOP's apoplexy over losing power, and their pathological desire to get it back. They despise Obama's popularity,...

I was hiking the Appalachian trail and my GPS went, like, totally batshit.

I was on a double secret intelligence mission, investigating the South American cocaine trade, and tracked the source of the problem to the ass cheeks of an Argentinian stripper.

Fine, I was planning on starring in...

10) Sorry. I thought the kid at the game was the one who already got pregnant. Not the one's who's going to get pregnant in 3 years.

9) It was wrong to joke that A-Rod could've knocked up your kid. The way the Yankees had been playing I didn't think...

Thanks to Twitter, we are no longer sadly unaware of what everyone else is doing, thinking, or feeling at every single moment of every single day. Except for that one time that had traditionally been private: taking a dump. But that empty space in American life will now be filled,...

Madonna's private plane landed in Malawi so she could bring home another black kid. Apparently, she's not satisfied with just the one. Maybe it's a matched set kind of thing. Or maybe she's trying to paper the house for her next movie premiere. Or maybe, just maybe it's part of...

This guy's ambition is only matched by Sarah Palin's delusion. Between her 2012 PAC and Blago's TV blagorrhea, they've got a real Bonnie and Clyde media blitz going. But their combined hubris doesn't even touch Warren's. First he put the candidates through his Purpose Driven litmus test, then...

Some Republicans now praising Barack Obama's election as a wonderful milestone in our nation's history may actually be sincere. While others come off like the sneaky little shit who brings brass knuckles to a fistfight and beats the other guy senseless until his victim's enormous big brother shows up and...

Ok, so maybe it's not the end of racism as we know it, but it's certainly an important step toward shedding the skin of that diseased mentality. It took generations for the old guard to die out and for the country to start growing better people. And now they've finally...

Between the plumber heralding an Obama victory as "the death of Israel," and the twit of a talk show hostess prattling on about the evils of Socialism, the Straight Talk Express has morphed into some sort of GOP clown car, with one geek after another piling out of it. Yet,...

In a revelation bound to send shock waves through the already battered, bruised, and flailing McCain campaign, Joe Six Pack and Joe the Plumber have confided to friends that they have fallen in love and intend to marry. The two Republican campaign symbols met at a recent rally and...

I am a college educated, white collar worker. I live in a major American city and I love my country. Not that empty-headed, flag-waving, drop a tear during the national anthem love, but the more profound love that is based in the knowledge that, despite the abuses of power to...

One of the rituals of politically-oriented talk shows is the occasional appearance of someone from the other side, either to explore another dimension of an important issue, or to present the illusion of impartiality. One such appearance tonight was that of former Bush speechwriter David Frum on Rachel Maddow's...

Like many Democrats and other educated-Americans, my soul has ached during the 8-year rule of the boy king. 8 years of an intellectually and morally challenged president and his cadres of misanthropes, underachievers, dirty tricksters, and other assorted villains, thieves and scoundrels. So perhaps the single aspect of the McCain/Palin...

For Republicans to celebrate with the rallying cry: "She didn't fuck up!" is more than a little sad. Last night was the Senator from Delaware vs. the Governor from Stepford. She grinned like an idiot. Trotted out the folksy, aw shucks bullshit. It was all false and contrived. From her...