That would have been a good idea:

You know what would have been a great way for one of the candidates to counteract the Gore endorsement? Call a press conference, keep the reason a secret, and then invite a "regular person" up onto stage to endorse you. Get a steelworker, or a soccer mom, to say, "I'm voting for John Edwards. I may not be a big, famous politician like Al Gore, but last time I checked my vote counts just as much as his does. Here's why I like John so much." It would be cheesy-populist endearing (just like Edwards!), and it would make a pretty powerful point about this thing not quite being over just yet.

Stuart Benjamin on Strom Thurmond:

So the choices with Thurmond seem to be that either he was a hypocrite or someone who would say anything to get elected, even if he disagreed with the words he was saying. Which one was he -- hypocrite or liar? My guess is that he really did believe what he said in the 1940s and 1950s, so I think he was probably a hypocrite. One piece of evidence that provides some support for this position is that, unlike some other former segregrationists, he never did repent.

The second disturbing question is, what did he do to cover this up? One big question is why Ms. Williams never went public while he was alive. She now has given us an answer, and it's not pretty: "Williams said her earlier statements had been a cover, part of an agreement she made with the senator to keep quiet in return for decades of financial support." She had little money -- she was, after all, a daughter with no father (and a mother who worked as a maid and died young). Thurmond helped to create her penury by not raising her, and then exploited her poverty by apparently making a deal in which he would give her money in return for her silence about her true parentage. I don't blame her -- she was dealt a pretty lousy hand by life (and by Thurmond more specifically), and she made a rational decision given her choices. I do blame him. His decision was rational in the way that hush money is often rational -- the briber would rather pay the money than have the information revealed. But it's a pretty despicable business when the hush money is paid to your daughter to further a career built on discriminating against her and others like her.

If they're allowing unsupervised furloughs for John Hinckley Jr., what's next? France banning students from earing religious gear like headscarves, yarmukles, and crosses? Oh, wait...

Three down, fifteen pages -- and 25 hours -- to go.

Finals suck.

Dumbass:

A top Vatican (news - web sites) official said Tuesday he felt pity and compassion for Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and criticized the U.S. military for showing video footage of him being treated "like a cow."

Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Justice and Peace department and a former papal envoy to the United Nations (news - web sites), told a news conference it would be "illusory" to think the arrest of the former Iraqi president would heal all the damage caused by a war which the Holy See opposed.

"I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures," he said.

"Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him," he said in answer to questions about Saddam's arrest.

Quick question: What the hell dentist does the cardinal go to, that footage of a murderous kleptocratic ex-dictator getting free dental care -- as opposed to being given some face time with the fathers and brothers of Uday and Qusay's rape victims, say -- equals treating him "as if he were a cow"? Does his dentist have a cow fetish or something?

Dumbass.

Thank God at least one reviewer is, David Elliott of the San Diego Union Tribune, is taking a stand against the LOTR fangasm:

Here is an epic that divides viewers, maybe more than the "Matrix" films. Its many young fans, who did not grow up on "Lawrence of Arabia" and "The Godfather" or even "Star Wars," revel in "awesome" visuals and slow, backfilling narrative.

You can't blame people (like a few Lordites who called to tell me I was too old to really relish the series) for not having seen movies made before they were born, but some perspective beyond the Tolkien or fan-site kind does help you evaluate Jackson's film achievement.

It was my awareness of what Coppola, Lean, Gance, Kobayashi and other creators of epics have done that helped prompt questions in my head, as the latest film rolled along. Call them snarky, but they may be pertinent:

Since we know that cute Frodo must save mankind by returning the gold ring to Mount Doom, why the endless padding of "heroic" suspense? Jackson really thinks we needed such touches as the episode with a huge spider worthy of a '50s monster film (reputedly he's an arachnophobe).

Details, details (Jackson loves them): How come good guys are essentially defined by ears (usually pointed) and bad guys by teeth (nearly all grotesque)? You could gnaw greasy steel wool for 2,000 years and not have teeth like these.

Why is hero Frodo (Elijah Wood) often so wan and floppy, as if in need of smelling salts? Why is he so slow to notice that creepy mini-nudist Gollum is no friend? And his pal Sam (Sean Astin) calling him "Mr. Frodo" starts to seem like a joke.

Why does the villainy, though large, lack stature? With evil Saruman not back again (and Christopher Lee is mad as blazes about it), we're stuck with Sauron, nearly as dark and abstract as the monolith in "2001," plus gruesome Orcs and medieval mammoths.

Why, in these many realms, are the only viable occupations warfare, sorcery, music and carousing? Who built and sustains these mountain-scaling keeps (perhaps Merlin, the original digitalizer)?

...

Jackson has achieved not Tolkien. He has made a cornucopian and corny hash of Tolkien, old John Martin spectacle paintings, head comix, Arthurian tales, Bob Howard macho-lit, New Zealand travelogues, Thomas Kinkade kitsch, '30s serials and the mountain films of Leni Riefenstahl, whose spirit hovers over the grand shots of relay bonfires on snowy peaks.

"Lord" is All Epic, All the Time. Jackson loves battles, which means: hurling dense masses of mostly computerized fighters at one another. "How are the battles?," he recently asked a British reporter about "Master and Commander," and one hopes the reporter had the sense to tell him that Peter Weir's sea saga involves realistic men fighting a historical war with only modest help from special effects; nothing seems cartooned, and death, though bravely won, is not mythic.

This may be the best bit:

Impressively mounted, technically dazzling, the series also italicizes in neon every feeling, while some characters (like a gloomy, inept king) function as filler.

Preach on, brother! Ever Lordite who says these are the best movies that absolutely ever were should be strapped down, Clockwork Orange-style, and forced to watch Lost in Translation until they Get It.

There are probably better things to drink while proctoring an exam than a Naked brand smoothie whose flavor is called "Man-Go-Go." The name alone could probably justify 87 sexual harassment suits...

You know an SNL host -- in this case, the insufferable Elijah Wood -- is about as funny as a field amputation when they bring in a former cast member and a taped segment to punch up the monologue. If they had to have a LOTR cast member host, why not bring back Ian McKellen? Dumbasses.

UPDATE: I do have to say, however, that the kid from Kenan and Kel is hysterical.

This is some fun, happy news:

ANGEL's big guy is getting behind the camera lens for an upcoming episode of the show. David Boreanaz told Sci Fi Wire that he's directed an episode of the show, "Soul Purpose", which will air on January 21 next year. "It's got a JACOB'S LADDER feel to it," the actor told the website.

I noticed a few years ago that, rather surprisingly, none of the BUFFY or ANGEL cast members had directed any episodes, which was rather odd considering how often that seems to happen on long-running series. (HOMICIDE's Clark Johnson may be one of the best examples of someone making the TV-series-actor-to-director jump; he directed SWAT this past summer, which was far more fun than it had any right to be.) This season of ANGEL has been surprisingly strong, given the age of the series, the addition of Spike to the cast, the mysterious loss of Charisma Carpenter from the cast, and the potentially shark-jump-inducing premise switch. Boreanaz himself has been doing some rather subtle acting, as someone who's lost nearly everything he had but can't quite give up, either.

Plus, they did that amazing flashback episode about the demon-fighting Mexican wrestler brothers, which featured the immortal line, "Andale! Andale! The devil has built a robot!"

Gary Farber has thoughts in the key of "F".

Horribly under-rated writer Priest is going to be writing a new CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE FALCON series for Marvel, starring, well, Captain America and the Falcon:

The foundation of CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON is the unshakeable friendship between these two men. The friendship is non-negotiable and the trust between them is implicit, despite the rather damming evidence that, in issue #1, The Falcon has violated National Security, and the government has given Cap just 24 hours to bring Falcon in before they go after Falcon with guns blazing. If you use the trust these two men have as a compass, it makes negotiating the many twists and turns of "Two Americas," CAF's inaugural story arc, much easier.

In four issues taking place in just over 24 hours, Cap tracks the fugitive Falcon through rural Cuba as a hurricane slams the island, trying to stay one step ahead of government agents and Columbian drug warlords-- all out gunning for Falcon who has apparently and inexplicably turned against his own government. Cap's faith and trust in his old partner is put to the test as Falcon leads Cap through a dangerous steeplechase, ending in a major firefight in Miami. Using all the training he's received from Cap to stay one step ahead of his old partner, Falcon comes into his own as a worthy adversary for Cap as he manages to evade not only Cap but the good guys and bad guys as well. Complicating matters is a powerful rogue agent, a mysterious new threat developed by the US Navy, who is determined to stop Falcon from revealing classified secrets and who will stop at nothing-- not even Cap's death-- to achieve that objective.

I'm there, dude.

Neil Gaiman's brain farts are much more interesting than my brain farts.

I woke when Dave Mckean phoned this morning.

"Did you get my e-mail?" he asked. "I need the dialogue overhaul. Stephen Fry will be here in a couple of hours."

"Hang on," I said, puzzled. "That's not happening until Thursday."

"Right," said Dave. "Today. Thursday. Stephen Fry. Couple of hours from now."

My brain farts never involve celebrities.

This word you are using, "precious," I do not think it means what you think it does...

The only good thing about the impending premiere of the third excruciating installment of the relentlessly tedious Lord of the Rings trilogy is that the three-years-and-counting Internet geekgasm about these fricking movies will finally, FINALLY, end soon.

The cast members, alas, still labor under the delusion that they have taken part in the making of The Greatest Movies That Anyone Has Ever Made In the History of Making Movies.

Orlando Bloom led co-stars Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen in the goodbye dance for excited fans. Cast members had attended the world premiere of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," the final film in Peter Jackson's trilogy, in this capital city on Monday.

"It's amazing. The whole experience has just been the most precious time ever," said Bloom, who plays Elf warrior Legolas.

Still, I imagine that it couldn't be as bad as the fifty thousand DVD featurettes of Elijah Wood smirking about how very, very wonderful and precious being part of these very, very wonderful and precious -- and by "very, very wonderful and precious" I mean "very, very long and overwrought" -- movies has been.

And there's only one more Oscar season of fanboys griping that the movies had better win this time OR ELSE, never mind that there have been dozens of amazing motion pictures this year like Lost in Translation, American Splendor, Matchstick Men, Kill Bill, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Bend It Like Beckham, A Mighty Wind, all of which were a hell of a lot better than the previous installemnts in this turgid, bloated trilogy.

Vote Lieberman! He Eats More!

Blogger seems bloggered again. Blogger.

Silver Bullet Comic Books features a long interview with my online pal Tony Isabella about DC Comics' mishandling of his creation, Black Lightning, and DC's treatment of black superheroes in general. What's happened to these characters over the years is simply depressing; Tony's faith in and aspirations for his creation are inspiring.

Well, that's a relief.

I'm crazy Howard-Dean-Head-Man! Give me some candy!

Photo via Drudge.

Meanwhile, Political Wire links to a WTOP poll showing that Dean leads with 45% among the candidates actually running in the DC primary. That's the good news. The bad news is that the other candidates running in DC are Shaprton (11%), Moseley-Braun (8%), and Kucinich (4%). You'd think he could manage 50% or better versus the bottom tier of the primary field.

An open letter to the Teasdalian pepperpot who sat behind me at Bad Santa this weekend:

Dear Pepperpot,

Thank you for your running commentary throughout Saturday's showing of Bad Santa. Had you not been sitting behind me, I would not (to take just one instance) have known that actress Lauren Graham appears in a TV series called Gilmore Girls, nor known that you thought she was "so cute." In fact, you were even kind enough to repeat your observation of her cuteness no less than four times during the film. This knowledge affected my moviegoing experience in ways which I am sure you cannot even imagine.

I do have a few questions, however. Throughout the film, you made frequent exclamations about how shocking you found some of the events and behaviors depicted. Given that the movie is a black comedy about an alcoholic, sexaholic department store Santa Claus planning the latest in a series of Christmas Eve heists, I must ask, which part of the title "Bad Santa" did you not understand? Did you not expect that the film would address the less savory side of the life of an alcoholic department store Santa? Were you thinking he would be a wacky drunk, in the Nick and Nora Charles tradition? Did the advertisements for the film featuring Billy Bob Thornton, as the titular bad Santa, vomiting, cursing, passing out, stealing things, and so on not communicate this aspect of the film to you? Or did you simply assume that all of those scenes were staged expressly for the film's advertising, like that ad for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels fifteen years ago?

Clearly, you possess remarkable and unique cognitive capacities. Please contact me regarding medical research for which I believe you would be well suited.

Very truly, etc.