Though financial doom has pushed superstar vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin off the front page of the news for now, celebrities (who regard the economy as little more than a cute diversion for the poor) are still as gripped with Palin-mania as ever. Now, hot on the heels of stars like Matt Damon, Lindsay Lohan, and Brooke Hogan, it's Margaret Cho's turn to opine on the veep choice, and though she's spilled copious amounts of e-ink on her Myspace blog to lobby against the Republican ticket, today found the comedienne in a state of confused ardor:

As everyone with a working internet connection and a pair of rabbit ears atop their TV set may have learned, beloved comedy legend Tina Fey deigned to return to Saturday Night Live this past weekend, playing vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin ("Who's that?") in a performance as accurate as it was sensitive and even-handed. Why, even Palin herself enjoyed the skit, as her spokesperson told CBS News. There's just one catch: Palin watched the whole thing on mute and never turned up the volume dial, which she then had fired. According to Star:

Pop quiz: are you moderating a presidential debate this fall? (Hint: are you old, white, and male?) You may be wondering what you're supposed to ask about! Sure, you could just ask them to talk about their positions on various issues, politely step back as they lay out policy proposals and debate the merits of said proposals, but then everyone will get bored. Your job is to stir shit up and force them both into making gaffes! That is how we decide what to talk about when we talk about campaigns. So. Because we dislike John McCain, personally, we will now explain how best to cause him to say or do something stupid during a debate. But don't worry, Republicans: we have a trick to trip up Obama too! Foreign Policy This one's a gimme, because John McCain doesn't know a goddamn thing about the rest of the world except that he wants to bomb it. There was the "Iraq/Pakistan border" thing, which could maybe be explained by him saying Iraq instead of Afghanistan, and the Czechoslovakia thing, which is pretty much just explained by him being lol old, and mistaking Sunnis with Shiites constantly and also thinking al-Qaeda was training in Iran, which can really only be explained by not giving a shit about minor details like who we're "fighting" besides Muslims in general. But now that his confusion has spread to Western Europe, his handlers should be worried. "John McCain doesn't know where Spain is" is basically a gift to the Democrats. Of course McCain can and will play off any debate question about his gaffes with a condescending "of course I know [blank]" statement, followed by a carefully coached recitation of lessons his handlers drilled into him, which defuses the issue, but it's a clear sign that he'll be tripped up by a different lame gotcha question about world leaders or geography. Do people actually care when a candidate doesn't know "trivia"? Not really, but if he plays further into the "confused old man" routine it'll hurt him way more than idiocy did Bush. The Economy Ask him just about anything about the current Wall Street crisis. Wait for weird disjointed pseudo-Democrat talk about regulation. Followup with any serious statement John McCain has made on the economy during his 100 years as an anti-regulation Republican. Watch him forced to either sell out his Capitalist base or deliver some decidedly not-populist rhetoric. Torture Ask him, Andrew Sullivan style, if he believes the CIA should be allowed to use "interrogation techniques" similar and in some cases worse than the torture inflicted on him by the North Vietnamese. Offer to demonstrate! (Though, of course, 24 viewers definitely think the CIA should be allowed to torture, and McCain is maybe helped by any mention of his POW years, but still, this shit was indefensible.) His Commercials, Campaign, and Surrogates Just ask him if he "stands by" or can defend almost any number of questionable things his campaign has done. As we saw on The View, he will not apologize, but he will look pissed off as he half-heartedly defends shit he used to hate. Which is way worse than apologizing would be. Bonus: How to Trip Up Barack Obama Ask a serious question about a complex and important issue. Make it one that requires Obama to speak extemporaneously. He'll answer, as he thinks through it, with something pretty reasonable, but complex, and he will say "Uh," and then McCain will say "shut up, Brainiac! Babies are tiny angels, why do you want to kill them?" THE END.

Sure, the elitists at the Washington Post reported Sarah Palin "Left [A] Trail Of Bad Blood" as mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, and local homemaker Anne Kilkenny famously emailed the whole world to say the Republican vice presidential nominee was a "ruthless" city politico. But as the attached clip show, Palin at least started out wanting to spread CHANGE and HOPE, not unlike a certain other politician now on a presidential ticket. "I want to bring a positive energy and determined voice to your ideas," Palin said in her debut mayoral campaign spot, signed "Positively Sarah." The feathered hair and keyboard-and-trumpet score will brighten your evening all on their own! The clip is after the jump.

So says Politico blogger Ben Smith, who wore a suit to appear — looking nothing like his illustration, albeit kind of cute! — on Martha this morning.* The lifestyle queen invited political bloggers to her show today because she thinks it's scary the nation might elect a president who doesn't know how to read them and also probably because the more topical subject of complex financial shenanigans is not her specialty, oh wait just kidding. Personally I have always thought not being addicted to the internet was John McCain's most attractive quality since being tortured, but it raises a good point: I do not want presiding over this perilous economy one of those people who asks "You actually get paid to do that?"Like, for god sakes, yes motherfucker I majored in personal electronics assembly but there just weren't a lot of opportunities in that.

Saturday Night Live has a long, storied history of political satire, a reputation that was only burnished after this past Saturday's well-received Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin skit. The venerable comedy institution has been known to move the cultural dial with some of its depictions, whether it was the spring sketch that famously declared the media to be "in the tank" for Barack Obama or its 2000 impersonation of Al Gore as a "lockbox"-brandishing scold. Still, we're a bit puzzled by some of the quotes from an event held Monday at the Museum of the Moving Image, where Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler, and Lorne Michaels met to discuss their satirical process:

Bad news, Obama partisans: a prominent female Hillary supporter has openly defected to John McCain, calling the Democratic candidate "an elitist." That supporter? Lynn Forester de Rothschild. You know, of the Rothschilds. The beloved Real American, salt of the earth banking and finance dynasty. Their very name is synonymous with heartland values like a life of suffocating spiritually empty glamor and excess. So we're sure John McCain is thrilled that he now has the support of Lady de Rothschild. Except, you know, he actually probably is happy about this, because she has lots and lots and lots of money. Oh but Barack Obama still has the support of America's real elites. [Political Ticker/CNN]

Looks like we might not be hearing from Republican Party apparatchik Carly Fiorina about how awesome the party's presidential ticket is any time soon. The former Hewlett-Packard CEO was asked by a St. Louis radio host if she felt vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had the experience to run a major company like HP, and Fiorina replied "No, I don't. But you know what? That's not what she's running for." When she was later asked about that statement, she replied that presidential nominee John McCain wasn't capable of running a large company, either — but then neither is Democratic nominee Barack Obama or his running mate Joe Biden, in Fiorina's opinion. I, for one, appreciate Fiorina's optimistic assessment, since the current president promised to run the nation like a company back in 2000, and we all know how that turned out.

Sarah Palin may have railed against the "Washington elite" at the Republican National Convention and bragged about how being an "average hockey mom" from a small town. But she obviously wants to fit in with American aristocracy, because according to Page Six she wore a "shantung silk Valentino [Gravani] jacket worth $2,500" while giving her down-home talk. Shantung silk, whatever the hell that is, sounds like it's from China, while Valentino is clearly Italian, which makes this thing one of the most treasonous garments ever invented. It gets worse!

Saturday Night Live cast members sounded really concerned about the level of fairness on their sketch comedy show the other night, the Times' Brian Stelter noticed. Head writer Seth Meyers said the show tries to be "as fair and evenhanded as possible." It was "safer," he added, to mock both Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton in a recent sketch, since without the latter it might have seemed "like an attack piece." Wait, since when is SNL so jittery about offending people? Is this the level of conscientiousness that comes with unexpectedly influencing the Democratic primaries? Sure, but more importantly this is the latest evidence all media will soon have to watch their political step. A few more signs:

On the whole, the journalists who've TURNED AGAINST their former boyfriend John McCain are some of our least favorite journalists in the nation, embodying as they do everything insular and adolescent about the Washington Press Corps. They loved John McCain when he could convince them that he was only bullshitting to the voters, not to them. Now, he won't speak to them! And hey, he's lying about shit, too, but whatever. Today, another media person handed McCain back his class ring and ran home, weeping. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, explain yourself!

"You're looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create," said McCainiac economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, waving a shiny iPhone-like device at reporters. His premise was that McCain's work on the Senate Commerce Committee helped paved the way for breakthroughs in telecommunications. But really, what was he thinking? The AP, pouncing on the obvious comparison to Al Gore's Internet boast, had Holtz-Eakin's quote out on the wires faster than you could thumb-type OMG NO DOUG NO. (Image by Research in Motion)

Barack Obama may have California's electoral votes in the bank, but that doesn't mean he won't make a quick trip to the ATM en route to Election Day. In what's expected to be his last rally of Hollywood pals before Nov. 4, Obama will attend a pair of sold-out, back-to-back fundraisers tonight in Beverly Hills. First up: an intimate dinner for 250 at the Greystone Mansion, followed by a trip down the street to the customary Streisand Kiss-of-Death Variety Hour at the Beverly Wilshire. Total miles one-way: Three. Total windfall: Roughly $9 million — by one estimate, a single-day fundraising record for a presidential candidate. And celeb-culture darling Sarah Palin won't even be there! We break the evening down after the jump.For all its flak and flubs, the Palin phenomenon has managed to neutralize Obamania since her selection to the GOP ticket on Aug. 29. That much is obvious; the rest, not so much, with a panicked Hollywood dumping out its collective wallet between tonight's $28,500-per-plate Greystone dinner and the $2,500-per-ticket Streisand/DreamWorks fete (with special guest Ben Harper, no extra charge!). Politico's Jeffrey Ressner suggests this is some kind of benchmark, though a one-day record can't be substantiated unless all the checks clear at once. Or something. Just as long as they clear, right? And just as long as Obama and Co. listen, notes Variety, which informally surveyed industry backers who think their cash may yet (and/or should) buy some long-haul influence:

Now that the McCain campaign has decided on its "all easily disproved lies, all the time" strategy (with, so far, great returns!), they are finding it hard to even come up with relevant or convincing things to lie about. Which is why McCain policy advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin today held aloft his BlackBerry and announced to confused reporters, "you're looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create." Wait, what? The AP is already comparing this to Al Gore's "I invented the internet" claim, which as everyone but Maureen Dowd hopefully now knows, was actually mostly true, in that Gore actually said he "took the initiative to create the Internet," in the context of his being the only Senator in the 1980s who kept babbling about the importance of national computer networking initiatives. So by that measure, how true is this? What is the supporting evidence? Ha ha it still seems like crazy bullshit.

Okay, GOP. I was there the first time you lambasted the deep-rooted sexism pervading our media and culture to score political points with women. I was there the second and fourth and 59th time too! I didn't think it would work initially. Aren't Democrats the party of abortions and birth control and the Equal Rights Amendment? Yes, the Obama campaign's purported misogyny got Geraldine Ferraro steamed enough to threaten supporting John McCain, but surely that had to be an isolated case of post-menopausal hysteria! (Joke.) But then you unearthed so many disgruntled white Hillary supporters Fox News began to look like a Barnard reunion.* And the Sarah Palin nomination was brilliant! The media is still vomiting up all that bait you set. Yeah okay but, you are done for now. You just invoked the S-charge against the socialist babykilling maggots for the very last time! Because you can level it at pretty much anyone — me included yes! — but not freaking Tina Fey.

Congratulations to the John McCain campaign, which has now officially been told off on all three big cable news networks! Attached is a video of MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell taking some hard swings at McCain's sacrificial spokesman, Tucker Bounds, about campaign lying Monday. Also attached: Video of Fox News's Megyn Kelly doing the same thing on right-leaning Fox News Channel. Wow. Remember when CNN did this to Bounds, so McCain cancelled a Larry King interview in a snit? Guess that won't work anymore. Bounds has become a human piñata like Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan before him, as the media hold him responsible for the crimes of his boss, who they can't get at. It's awesome to see, but still all too rare — on all the networks. Click through to watch a compilation video of Bounds getting creamed.

Yes really, Us Weekly reports. News of a $30,000 piece of (arguably) nonessential equipment being installed on the premises of a taxpayer-funded residence might appear to pose problems for her running mate John McCain's presidential campaign in light of his long-fought crusades against wasteful government spending and also skin cancer, but she paid for it with her own money she made charging taxpayers for all those nights she stayed in her own house back in Wasilla. If she is any kind of decent "executive" she charged Bristol and Willow per 10-15 minute sessions to use it too. I love Sarah Palin. Although I sincerely hope she did not abuse her power as governor to get a better deal from that gym from which she bought it.One guy who is either really pissed right now or enjoying it more than even us: Florida Governor Charlie Crist. He was in the running for veep for awhile, but his signature Donatellan permatan actually seemed to take a meaningful toll on his chances. And he is from fucking Florida. [Us Weekly]

Good news! We know it's been a tough day in voyeurism-land for some of you, but you can resume obsessing interminably over Sarah Palin, because as John McCain pointed out this morning, the fundamentals of the economy are still strong. And they'd be a lot stronger if said economy would sit still and take in a little more Sarah stimulus! So we made this fun tableau of the whole clan outside City Hall in observance of the upcoming nuptials. (I hope for everyone's sake they haven't really already tied the proverbial tattoo ink tongue knot so the Palins have the satisfaction of hosting the [con]descending members of the media Katrina-style in that $20 million stadium and pay off that leverage Mayor Palin left when she became Mother Eagle Palin! That would certainly be a service to the nation's jittery bond markets!) Anyhow, it's about time we caught you eaglets back up with the latest in baby name generators…1. Palin sometimes calls opponents "haters." 2. Anchorage conservative radio talk show host Eddie Burke…blasted the organizers of [an anti-Palin] rally during his talk show, calling them “a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots.” 3. FOX News' Megyn Kelly asked McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds: "Why wouldn’t he just level with the voters and say, 'look, he’s going to raise taxes on the wealthy or whatever you consider somebody to be making over $250,000, it’s going to have a trickle down effect. That may not be good for the middle class.' But why say he’s going to raise taxes on the middle class when he’s not? 4. It turns out V.I.L.F. ≠ V.I.L.Vote For! In July, John McCain led Barack Obama among white women by 44 to 39 percent; now his lead is 53 to 37 percent. There was no shift among white men, just like we said, even though we didn't have any poll data to support the assertion at the time because we were talking out of our ass as usual duh. 5. Four months ago, a Wasilla blogger Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said. “You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

While the Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin cold opening attracted some of Saturday Night Live's best notices in years (and best ratings, too — it was the highest-rated season premiere since the 2001 opener following the 9/11 attacks), nothing else that followed had quite the same water cooler buzz. However, if the show had been able to stick to its original plan, there would have been at least one other moment that would have had people talking: a Barack Obama cameo. Though the presidential candidate was forced to cancel due to Hurricane Ike, Michaels reveals to the Washington Post exactly how he would have been used (and what other surprise celebrities got involved as a result):

So the United States is entering financial turmoil, what with all of our banks collapsing and the world's largest insurance company needing a bailout from the State of New York and the stock market tumbling and thousands of fancy jobs on the line. Honestly, though, let's get to the heart of the matter: will this news secretly (or openly!) thrill political partisans? It seems, on its face, that news of Wall Street turmoil helps Senator Barack Obama. And why not? The initial careful ventures into political exploitation of this maybe-catastrophe are already underway. How will it play out? How To Attack Josh Marshall tosses out a readymade almost-true attack line: "The man most responsible for the financial services and banking deregulation that made today possible, fmr. Sen. Phil Gramm, is the man John McCain wants to put in charge of the whole economy." Ok. The "man most responsible" part is defensible, if exaggerated. Gramm deregulated the hell out of the banking sector as a senator. And he lobbied for lax oversight of predatory lending as vice chairman of UBS's i-banking arm. The "man McCain wants to put in charge of the whole economy" bit seems a little less true. We don't know who the hell McCain would let run things. McCain does love Gramm, and Gramm taught McCain everything he needs to know about the economy. McCain's limited grasp of economics basically consists of Gramm's strict anti-regulation philosophies with a bit of pandering to the middle class tossed in. But Gramm is McCain's former campaign co-chair. All signs point to a bigger role played by the less unpopular Carly Fiorina handling the economy in a McCain presidency, even if Gramm's ideas rule the day. Still. That's the kind of fact-checking that gets us nowhere! It's a fine line to use: McCain doesn't get the economy, and the guy he has around to explain it to him is personally responsible for this mess. Some variation on that line will probably be repeated by the Obama campaign over the next week. (Obama has already siezed on a mostly innocuous McCain remark—way to adapt, guys!) Watch Your Own Ties But here are some of the potential pitfalls for Obama. This bit of trivia has already made it to Politico: