How does "maverick" everyman John McCain stack up to "elitist" Barack Obama? Why, this handy charticle illustrating their assets in a side-by-side comparison speaks for itself. Spin this, you filthy rich basket case. Click through for bigger pic. [ProseBeforeHose]

Last week, Sarah Silverman made a funny video encouraging Jews to vote for Barack Obama. This has old timey comedian Jackie Mason striking back with a video of his own, which he made for the Republican Jewish Coalition. In it, he bashes Obama as having "done nothing" and Silverman as a "yenta" while urging Americans to vote for McCain. But, gee, in January Mason posted a video in which he calls McCain "filthy, disgusting." Which is it, old man? Both sides of Jackie's mouth after the jump. Vote McCain:

Nature's front and back covers. Really now. Coincidence? Or RACISM and ELITISM and possibly SPECIESISM at work? It does, however, raise a good point about dogs' noses and the candidates' positions on them, and how that relates to science. [ATO via AnimalNY]

Do you know what today is? Why, it's Pulpit Freedom Sunday, of course! Oh, you know, the day when Conservative preachers all across the land take to their tax-exempt churches and endorse a Presidential candidate in direct defiance of Federal law. Because these pastors—backed by a tax exempt group of Christian lawyers called the Alliance Defense Fund—think that their free speech should be subsidized by tax-paying Godless suckers like us! Obviously, they should all be investigated by the IRS and slammed with stiff, bankrupting penalties—but that's what they want in the first place. Well, sort of. "The ministers and the conservative group organizing them know they are breaking a 54-year-old law barring tax-exempt organizations from using their sheltered status to support a political candidate. They want to be taken to court, quickly, in hopes of overturning it." They claim that simply because they don't pay taxes, they shouldn't be barred from innocently, "talking to their congregations about biblical issues related to candidates and elections.” And, hey, the pastors and their lawyers haven't even revealed who they'll be stumping for in their illegal Pulpit-based endorsements today. Really, it could be anyone! "The ministers haven’t announced their preferences, although Senator John McCain is expected to be favored. Senator Barack Obama has blurred church-state lines in promising more subsidies for social programs run by religious-based groups. But Mr. McCain has gone much farther, proclaiming America to be 'a Christian nation.' "Taxpayers of any faith should see this as an election-year gambit to dash the pillar of church-state separation. Other clergy, mindful of being spiritual not political ministers, have organized to say no thanks to Pulpit Freedom Sunday. We expect the courts and the Internal Revenue Service to say those preachers are in the right." [NYT]

Annoying clothing designers have been all over Barack Obama throughout the campaign, but won't someone please create some cool streetwear for McCain supporters? Or at least something that hiptards can wear to be even more ironic? Complex can. Check out the McCain couture after the jump.

The GOP just cannot get their language right for a second. It's as if they've been running the country into the ground unopposed for the better part of a decade and have retreated into some nebulous dreamscape where nothing they say can hurt them! Politico's Mike Allen was discussing the McCain campaign with an anonymous member of the George W. Bush gang, when the party hack offered up this bit of wisdom: “The tactics that got them to mid-September in a tie are not going to get them to 50 percent plus one in November. They need … an eye toward driving out the range of contrast that makes McCain different from Obama (action-oriented rhetoric v. grand prose; accessible v. uppity; humble servant of country v. arrogant).” Uppity is quickly becoming the go-to epithet among baffled Republicans. Earlier this month, GA Rep. Lynn Westmoreland was discussing Sarah Palin's Convention speech with reporters outside the House chambers when he was asked to compare Palin to Michelle Obama. Westmoreland opined, "Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity." Asked if he'd really just used that word, the Congressman gave it some thought and responded, "Yeah. Uppity." [ThinkProgress and TheHill]

Simplicity—which often involves leaving things unsaid—is a rare tactic in advertising today. We want every bell and whistle listed and explained for us completely and quickly so we can get back to playing Wii! Political ads are no exception. Here's Barack Obama's newest ad attacking McCain; it takes the trouble to spell out, on screen, the same things the announcer is saying, because Americans have lost our ability for inference along with our attention spans. It lacks three crucial things that the classic 1964 LBJ ad, titled "Merely Another Weapon" (after the jump) has: One clear message; a trust that viewers will understand that message themselves; and awesome atom bomb blasts: Click to view [LBJ ad via The Living Room Candidate]

Yesterday CBS had a new John McCain attack ad pulled from YouTube because it took footage of Katie Couric out of context. Hey, "out of context" is the theme of the ad! Elitists. Now the McCain campaign itself has apparently gotten embarrassed enough by the ad—which pointed out that elitist Indonesian celebrity candidate Barack Obama called hockey mom Sarah Palin a dirty pig—that it has removed it from McCain's website. "Today is not a day for partisanship, it's a day for remembrance," a McCain spokesman said by way of explanation. Here's a clip of average American Bill O'Reilly (who, in a total coincidence, recently scored a nice interview with his friend Barack) graciously taking the side of the black man, blaming the "pig" uproar on the media. "We are driving the pig train," says Bill. Indeed. Click to watch. [Mixed Media, video via Huffington Post]

John McCain, Sarah Palin, and their campaigners, just won't take a hint—or a flurry of cease-and-desist orders from all the musicians whose music they keep stealing for their nauseating "maverick" campaign. Last week, Van Halen had to tell them to STFU when the campaign started using the song "Right Now" totally without permission. Before that, Jackson Brown and John Mellencamp had to force McCain's minions to stop blasting their tunes on the campaign trail. So what did the McCain morons think was going to happen when they tried to make Heart's "Barracuda" Sarah Palin's theme song without getting the band's permission? Well, what has happened is that the psycho-eyed Veep wannabe now has a nickname based on a song she can never play at a public event again. Ha!

So what do you do when the curmudgeonly old Republican you're running against for President throws you a curveball and selects a pretty young-ish woman as his running mate? Point out that she's a pro-life nutbunny chosen to win over the Christian Fundamentalists whose overwhelming political influence has most of the country quite fed the hell up already? Nah, just keep focusing on the old man and the fact that he's spent the last eight years living in the small intestine of the worst President in American history. That's just what Senator Barack "Hope" Obama is doing with his first television ad reacting to the Sarah Palin nomination-it doesn't even name her! Watch it after the jump.

Whether you ever noticed or not, the fact is that MTV has never accepted political ads. Sure, it's always been rife with promo spots of musicians screaming at you to Rock The Vote, but actual candidate ads were never allowed (although they were allowed at fellow MTV Networks stations Spike, Comedy Central, and VH1). But now it's time to put on your listening hats, young voters, because that's all changed! MTV has announced that it will accept political ads, which of course is part of their commitment to engage the youth in the democratic process, and not just a greedy attempt to get their claws on lots of Barack Obama's sweet, sweet money:

In the wake of the Jessica Seinfeld Deceptively Delicious plagiarism scandal, now John McCain's wife Cindy is being accused of lifting recipies. God, could people possibly find anything more boring to steal? On the HuffPo, David Weiner explains how she copied dishes that she passes off as "McCain family recipes" from the Food Network, of all places:

Last week, Charles "Ben's dad" McGrath wrote an essay for Arts & Leisure on PBS that was about 1400 words of PBS sucks. Looks like Mr. Premium cable is too good to spend Wednesday night with a glass of red wine and Antique Road Show. Whatever. PBS's reaction to the piece is about as controversial as PBS itself.

Democratic primary