Does America prefer its First Ladies to be weird uptight robots incapable of saying anything rational for fear of eclipsing or contradicting their husbands? Well yeah, obviously. Still. Parse this: "Cindy McCain says voters don't have to look past her husband's support of the troops to realize that he is 'pro-woman.'" Some of the troops are women...? Is that what that means? Some suicide bombers are women, too! Anyway. Her Good Morning America appearance was less successful at humanizing her than Michelle Obama's charm offensive has been. It did lead to this amusing quote that Google News magically highlighted without context, though. Click to see.

Remember when John McCain called his wife the worst possible word? Not enough! But that's solved with this sketch from the same YouTube comedy group that made john.he.is, a clever and popular parody of will.i.am's "Yes We Can." In the sketch, a TV news team argues about whether to publicize that the Republican presidential candidate once called Cindy McCain a cunt. The self-aware humor of the team constantly reciting this fact, then saying how if only they were online they could drive the association into people's brains, actually doesn't get old! The clip is below, and warning: half the dialogue is, obviously, an extreme obscenity.

David Gergen just made a good point on CNN about John McCain: We all laughed when the Republican presidential candidate said he didn't use a Mac OR a PC, and that his second wife did all his internet surfing for him, but McCain's luddite tendencies are screwing up his campaign and thus could wreck the country someday. Exhibit A is Clayton Williams, who was to host a McCain fundraiser but who was discovered to have once made a crass rape joke. It turns out the rape joke has long been in Williams' Wikipedia entry, ranked number three by Google in a search on Williams' name. Whoops! McCain clearly needs to learn The Google. As internet-savvy Barack Obama can testify after his jettisoning of vice-presidential-screener James Johnson, it won't weed out all the tainted associates, but it's great for that critical first cut. Clip after the jump.

The Internet can change elections! Just not through Meetup and Friendster like some people thought. Okay, these five pictorial jokes about Barack Obama and John McCain won't be entirely responsible for Obama's imminent November victory. They're just mobilizing the base! Because Influential Thought Leaders don't join "One Million Strong For Obama On Facebook," but they do link to political jokes on their Tumblr blogs.

Barack Obama's campaign made a good move with a new site full of Obama rumors and refutations, in the classic "Myth: X. Truth: Y" format. We think it looks pretty dramatic (or maybe creepy) and while it does remind me of a "Myth vs. Fact" page from a Scientologist or Christian site, it doesn't have that 90s all-in-Arial feel. And if it feels like a religious tract, isn't that perfect for the target demo?

Oh hey, look, it's John Cusack, campaigning against John McCain in a MoveOn.org ad! Cusack's War, Inc., which was a sort of Dr. Strangelove-meets-the-Iraq War, got weak reviews, but points to the actor for including a very, very difficult POP QUIZ in this commercial. Spoiler: The correct answer to every question is the same: "I have no idea, but Lloyd Dobler is DREAMY." Ad/quiz after the jump.

John McCain's campaign store is a treasure trove of hideous merchandise and, briefly, hilarious commentary. The comments on each item were clearly totally unmoderated, which is always a treat. Would you like to buy some John McCain-branded golf balls? How could you not after reading reading reviews like this: "The downside is that these golf balls almost feel like they've been painted over something that was once pasty white and older than one might think. If I press hard enough I think I can feel some scars, but then again it's never a good idea to press too hard on one's balls. Nevertheless, it might be why these balls tend to get stuck in quagmires or sand." There is so much more! At varying levels of maturity and humor!

At a fundraising lunch in Richmond, Virginia yesterday, John McCain joked, "Basically, I did a Google" when researching possible vice presidential candidates. One would hope a campaign with nine-figure funding would be able to hire people more familiar with Internet technology to do it for him, lest TechCrunch reconsider its endorsement. Just imagine the dirty tricks search-engine optimizers could pull!

Britain's Daily Mail this weekend tackled head-on an issue most U.S. papers have danced around: John McCain's first wife, Carol, who faithfully raised his children and awaited his return from a North Vietnamese prison. Unfortunately, she was in a terrible car accident while McCain was a P.O.W., and the doctors had to cut away at her leg bones and pump her full of medication, making her both shorter and fatter than the swimsuit model she had once been. McCain bought her a beach house, ran around with other women and left her for his current wife, Cindy, then 25 and rich.

This is a 100% real banner ad running on the website of the spiritual home of unreconstructed Old Leftists The Nation. It is an obvious, slimy, and desperate attempt to link Barack Obama to nutty Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And it is paid for by John McCain 2008. First we thought this was the stupidest ad buy ever, as if any Nation reader would ever vote for McCain. Then we remembered that The Nation is read by lots of Jews. Then we clicked on "no" and WON A FREE IPOD!! [The Nation]

John McCain would love to see NASA adopt a "better set of priorities," by which he doesn't mean science and stuff, but rather just sending a dude to Mars. Hooray Mars! McCain says he was inspired as a child by reading The Martian Chronicles, a book that tells the story of how humans exterminate native Martians and colonize their planet until Earth descends into nuclear war and everyone goes back to die. He probably doesn't remember any of those details, as he read the book 58 years ago. [AFP]

Surely when John McCain said the one line in this six-second video from his June 3 speech, he meant to say we should be able to deliver sterilized boiled water to dehydrated babies, as an example of the relief efforts the American government should provide in disaster situations. But instead he said this, and now I've watched the video seventeen times and made it my ringtone.

On June 18, Michelle Obama will be on daytime lady talk show The View, and not as some piddling guest, either, as producers originally proposed: The prospective first lady is going to be a full host, just like Cindy McCain, except unlike Cindy she's widely expected to call Barbara Walters "whitey," curse and burn an American flag. As a full host, Obama will get "to help interview guests and participate in the opening 'hot topics,' or banter about what's in the news that day," and also shift uncomfortably as her randy co-hosts ask about husband Barack and his, uh, physical fitness. I guess this is Michelle Obama's big chance to prove to prospective Barack supporters that she's not the crazy, mouthy free-thinker she's been made out to be. Just like a certain other would-be presidential wife had to do 16 years ago. How far we've come. Michelle should totally show up in a burka. After the jump, how the View ladies welcomed Michelle's husband.

John McCain has joined Barack Obama in lining Google's pockets with cash from his admittedly smaller campaign warchest. But a couple of flubs here could hurt the candidate. First, I seriously doubt his target demographic is watching much Al Jazeera. And he used a jowl-free photo from his youth, not something up to date — which is typical of creepy older men looking to rob the cradle on social networks, not a candidate who's trying to sell himself as a rigorously honest plain-talker. Maybe Pablo Chavez, senior policy counsel at Google who's contributed $3,750 to the McCain campaign, could send a note suggesting some changes in the the ad buy instead of a check next month. (Screenshot by Steve Rhodes)

Following in the footsteps of 71-year-old miracle of modern medical technology John McCain, Barack Obama released information on his medical health. Instead of 1,200 pages, like McCain, Obama just put out a simple note from his doctor that concluded he was in "excellent health." Before that, though, it said a full-body (ahem) examination revealed the Democratic presidential candidate's "build was lean and muscular with no excess body fat," which you kind of knew, but it's nice to get confirmation from someone who has seen Obama, you know, all over. Also, "his diet was balanced with good intake of roughage and fluids." But what is the doctor trying to tell us with this: "A complete review of systems was unremarkable." Either that's a nod to the monstrous-in-more-ways-than-one vice president, or he just means Obama isn't a walking catalog of ailments like McCain, whose health (or lack thereof) is lampooned in the Daily Show clip after the jump.

Charlie Crist is the Republican governor of the great state of Florida. He is pretty popular out there. Less polarizing than Jeb Bush, certainly. And he's been named as a possible running mate for John McCain. There is just one problem. Everyone seems to think he's gay, for some crazy reason. "Some crazy reason," by the way, means "a 21-year-old Katherine Harris staffer who claimed he fucked Crist, and who went on the say that another Harris staffer was Crist's long-term partner." Crist denies everything. And now, conveniently, the heterosexual "Charlie Crist sex tape" (ugggghhhh) has surfaced. You'll never guess who's behind it!

Everyone continues to be terribly impressed by John McCain's awesome ability to bullshit. The man is beloved by the press corps (or, at least, he used to be) because he will say any damn thing that comes to his mind, and what usually comes to his mind is whatever you want to hear. So Slate's Jacob Weisberg sat down with McCain in August of '07, when McCain's campaign was a mess and he was losing. Weisberg asked him how things were going, and McCain answered frankly that everything sucked. How Maverick-y of him not to lie! Then he said Weisberg didn't even have to read McCain's book if he didn't want to. Then McCain criticized the President and his handling of Iraq!

John McCain is in mostly good health. He's had melanoma three times but now "appears cancer-free." He's arthritic and takes cholesterol meds and has precancerous lesions removed periodically, but his heart is super-strong! He also has vertigo. The cancer probably won't come back within the next 8 years, though there's a chance of it. Also, "aides said McCain has had no mental evaluations in the past eight years and none was included in the documents." Meanwhile, have you heard that Barack Obama is terribly unhealthy? It's true, some guy at HuffPo says the Senator is totally unfit for duty.

John McCain, who is running for president, will release his medical records to the media. To a select group of reporters, anyway. Only two print journos. It's 400 pages, and no one can make copies. And it will happen on the afternoon before a three-day weekend. Hah. An amazing example of the Friday Night Newsdump. But we've all become sooo media savvy that it just looks pathetic and worrying. What the hell is in there? For that matter, what's up with his wife's tax returns? She won't say, though she will pose for Vogue looking all saucy on a couch. Click to enlarge! Surely if McCain is healthy enough for that fox, he's healthy enough to lead the nation! [Radar, WT]

How to make your cleantech capitalist dreams resonate with the hicks and hawks of Washington, D.C.? In a perfect storm of liberal guilt and heartland pandering, former Secretary of the Navy and CIA director R. James Woolsey has become a domestic-energy sustainability convert. And he's just one of a number of red-blooded Americans who support the war in Iraq and investment in renewable energy, according to Mother Jones. Woolsey joined Henry Kissinger, who hasn't met a long-range bombing platform he didn't like, in endorsing John McCain, whom Woolsey compared to environmental steward Teddy Roosevelt. If cleantech startups want to drink from the fountain of defense spending that has traditionally irrigated the Valley, they need to pay attention.