So, who's the latest shady character being represented by incompetent superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian's PR firm? It's Pastor John Hagee, the John McCain-supporting zealot who's currently under fire for saying "in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis had operated on God's behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine." Hagee—a strident supporter of Israel, to the point of insanity—argued that Hitler was a "hunter" sent by god to help get the Jews back to the promised land. It's a good thing that he's retained the steady hand of 5WPR to help him through this controversy:

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama traded states again last night, but Obama is only a handful of delegates away from securing the Democratic Party's nomination. The latest Web metric — widgets embedded on social-network pages — puts him firmly in the lead against John McCain. If only widgets counted as much as having a Republican running voting-machine maker Diebold. [ReadWriteWeb] (Photo by Steve Jurvetson)

This YouTube clip of a pet parrot saying "Obama! Yes we can!" over and over looks sort of like any other viral video from a supporter of the Democratic presidential candidate. "The closer we come to the final nomination the more excited he's become," the bird's owner writes in a caption. But to Republicans, it must look like the perfect illustration of what will inevitably become one of their key lines against the almost certain eventual nominee: that his supporters tend to be superficial lemmings, short on real policy knowledge but full of strong, vague feelings about where the country needs to go, and thus not rational enough to pick the country's next leader. This attack vector did not do much for Hillary Clinton, but you can bet operatives for elderly Republican John McCain are working overtime to write it into Obama's media narrative. Clip after the jump.

What will be John McCain's greateast challenge in his race for the presidency? His many and varied unethical relationships? Or the fact that he looks like a terrible monster on high-definition TV? Slate's Timothy Noah argues the latter. No one cares about ethics, but many people are buying fancy new flat-screens. And John McCain, who looks grandfatherly and dignified on, like, a YouTube box, looks like a mythological monster in crisp HD. Seriously! Above, a screenshot of McCain in regular definition. After the jump, the clip that's taken from in glorious HD.

"Some of my favorite political websites and blogs include... Perez Hilton." [Meghan McCain via Animal NY]

Did anyone catch John McCain's two appearances on Saturday Night Live this weekend? He was sort of funny if a bit wobbly and a tad, you know, old. He's really trying to court the youngs, isn't he? What with the SNL and that horribly awkward Dwight Schrute reference on The Daily Show. Oh and the hip, young celebrity endorsements! He's got them from reality TV Hills girls, and now he's roping in soap star annoyance Leven Rambin. Read more about the influential brainless young starlets that he's got in his camp, after the jump.

Did anybody see Republican nominee John McCain last night, at Graydon Carter's Waverly Inn restaurant in the West Village? Tell us.

Old Man John McCain will appear on Saturday Night Live this weekend. Just a cameo, of course. Though he hosted in 2002, back when was still a maverick beloved by liberals and elite coastal types. Details of the sketch he'll appear in are scarce, though it will probably be toothless and unfunny, as all SNL political material tends to be. McCain might be funny, though! Presumably less wooden than Obama and Clinton were in their toothless, unfunny cameos. McCain's a natural comic (have you heard the one about how Chelsea Clinton is ugly?). Which, as we all know, is utterly unpresidential.

Drug-stealing charity-defrauder Cindy McCain, the lady John McCain left his other wife for and is now forced to stay with because she's fantastically wealthy, is not particularly well-known by the American public. The McCain campaign insists they're trying to change this but obviously they'd be fools to. The less people know about the biography of either McCain—besides the torture thing!—the more likely they'll be able to pull off a victory against Barack Obama, whose biography Americans are largely content to make up themselves out of things they find around the house, like suspicion of people who are different from them and racism. After the jump, John McCain refuses to even deny that he called his wife a cunt. (Which he did, in 1992.)

American corporations that keep profits earned overseas can indefinitely keep that money out of the country in order to avoid paying American taxes. Former HP CEO and current John McCain campaign spokesperson Carly Fiorina says that gives companies an incentive to develop factories and jobs in markets abroad. Rather than close the loophole, Fiorina says it's better to lower the taxes. But then I have to ask, how will we pay for those wars overseas? I mean, besides slashing the social safety net and borrowing more money from China? The clip above is part of a longer interview with This Week with George Stephanopolous that ran yesterday morning. Her comments on McCain's environmental policy mirrored those made by the candidate at a whistle-stop in Oregon today.

How satisfying for Rupert Murdoch to sit on the top table at yesterday's dinner to celebrate Time magazine's issue celebrating himself and the other 99 most influential people in the world.

Time magazine brought together members of its 100 "Most Influential People" list at Time Warner Center tonight, and thanks to phone-blogging members of the press, the celebrities' trash talking, braggadocio and false humility has already hit Twitter in a sort of first-draft of the recaps that will probably hit blogs and newspapers over the next few days. after the jump are some highlights, including quips from Robert Downey Jr., Amy Poehler and John McCain, plus fameball Julia Allison explaining why she wasn't invited.

John McCain's primary qualifications for the presidency are that he's old, he was tortured, and he's been a corrupt Senator for hundreds of years. Also he'd like you to know that he has a sense of humor, which is why he's The Daily Show's most-invited guest ever. On the show last night, McCain once again demonstrated how "hip" and "with it" he is by naming a character on a popular sitcom. One that is currently on-air, even! Not, like, Maynard G. Krebs or something. Jon Stewart desperately tried to get him to appear more presidential by making a joke he knew McCain wouldn't play along with.

Yesterday, Arianna Huffington revealed that John McCain told her in 2000 that he didn't vote for George W. Bush. Which we believe. We believe that he told her this, anyway. Who knows if it was true then, or now. But McCain denied it, right away. Which leads Arianna to list all the documented times he's blatantly lied about saying something so far this campaign season. A fun little list! Of course it shows why McCain felt comfortable telling Arianna Huffington that he didn't vote for Bush in 2000. And also why he's the most popular guest in Daily Show history!

Arianna Huffington used to be a Republican. She was BFF with Newt Gingrich and everything! Then she switched sides and now she runs a super-liberal website where she occasionally breaks news like this: John McCain didn't vote for George Bush in 2000. But now he's a total Republican sell-out! This disappoints Arianna greatly, because she used to respect him, back when he was a maverick. We're pretty sure he's always been a mean, corrupt old bastard, but whatevs. He's probably disappointed in her, too! [HuffPo]

Oh boy. Christopher Hitchens, known for his calm, restrained and unfailingly polite style of argument (those Brits!) comments on the supposed "temper" of old man John McCain in Slate today. The piece is largely an excuse for Hitch to use every synonym for "crazy" that he knows. It's time, he says, that we "wonder whether the Republican nominee has his tray table in the fully locked and upright position, whether he lives happily or unhappily in his own ZIP code, whether there are kittens in his granary or bats in his belfry, and whether his elevator goes all the way to the top." And so on from there.

Oh, hey, all three U.S. presidential candidates will stoop to a level of pandering heretofore only imagined by theoretical physicists and appear on tonight's episode of World Wrestling Entertainment's Raw. John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama were all invited to appear in the ring, and they were all wise enough to decline. Still, they happily taped appearances, to air tonight on USA. "WWE has tried to get the presidential candidates to square off before," according to Broadcasting & Cable. "It was unable to arrange an arm-wrestling match between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000." Thank god things are different this time around. [Broadcasting & Cable] Update: OH GOD IT'S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT. "DO YOU SMELL WHAT BARACK IS COOKING?" He actually says this. Seriously. Clip after the jump.

On last night's 30 Rock, Alec Baldwin's network head Jack asked Tina Fey to help him invite a couple ladies to his upcoming fundraising dinner for cranky old presidential candidate John McCain. Of note: Alec Baldwin calling Chuck Norrins "C-Nor." Oh, and the mayor of New York was on the show! Michael Bloomberg, who was briefly going to be our next president in the land of imagination, presented Liz's ex-boyfriend the beeper king a medal for a heroic subway rescue. Clip above! And you can watch the whole thing on Hulu, because it's Friday so who gives a shit.

Do you really want to know what Spencer and Heidi were wearing in Midtown today? Our stalker has the deets.

The three women who dubbed themselves the "McCain Girls" and made a series of YouTube videos on behalf of the Republican presidential candidate were working for 23/6, the "humor" site from IAC/Huffington Post, and their entire campaign was a joke. To hear 23/6 President Sarah Bernard tell it, the first video was supposed to be an obvious parody of the Obama Girl videos, but no one understood that. Then 23/6 decided to keep the "prank" going as long as possible, which turned out to be one month. McCain watched the video repeatedly, he told Fox News in the clip after the jump, but his description of it as "very entertaining" hints that he knew something was fishy.