The Debates

        I don't get Bush. So many wasted opportunities. So many chances to pick Kerry up and use him like a mop.

        At the beginning of the first debate Kerry sounded like he was doing nothing but quoting his TV ads. There wasn't an originally phrased thought coming out of his mouth. I swear, after two answers worth of it I'd have been squinting into the distance, then said, "Oh sorry -- Senator Kerry seemed to be reading from his TV advertisement cue cards. I was just trying see where he had them propped up."

        Come on, Bush's people could watch those spots off Kerry's website. They should have already anticipated and had responses for these things. Instead we got 90 minutes of Bush repeating "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time." Let me give some advice to anyone out there thinking of debating: Don't make your opponent's points for them. It's your time, not theirs. You can shoot them down without letting their words come out of your mouth.

        Did they learn? Nope. He said it again Friday night. It's enough to make you want to scream.

        And for the love of God will someone on Bush's staff write a comeback to that "no plan to win the peace" bit of tripe? Listen, comedy writers are cheap. Go hire a room full of them till someone comes up with a snappy response. Kerry/Edwards are so consistently chanting "Ooooom Win The Peace Ooooom" that you could have crippled them by shooting down that one stupid phrase.

        I don't expect Bush to be as quick on his feet as I am, but this is Debate 101 stuff. What bunch of head-up-their-butts fools are briefing this guy?

Saturday Night Live

        Note to SNL, you don't have to parody every bloody debate! Last night's two parodies (Friday's Presidential, plus Tuesday's Vice-Presidential) in one show was a bit much.

        The bigger problem is that the sketches are so close to the real thing that they weren't even slightly funny. It's hard to parody something that has already fallen into parody, and these debates passed that threshold on night one. SNL has done little more than emphasize (barely) and condense what actually happened. Between Bush's malapropisms and Kerry's outdoing that fat rebel in Star Wars's "stay on target" attitude, there's nothing left to make fun of.

Amy Poehler's Promotion

        While we're on SNL, Jimmy Fallon's top secret replacement at the Weekend Update desk turned out to be current cast member Amy Poehler. Bzzzz. Wrong. Try again. She's a definite miss in the job and I don't feel like giving her a chance.

        It's not that I have a problem with Amy herself, she just isn't up to this job. It requires a certain something special that she simply isn't suited for. Colin Quinn was like that. Good comedian, personable guy, horrible behind the anchor desk. It just wasn't him.

        They should have brought someone in from the outside who would be dedicated to doing just that job, much like Dennis Miller who rarely showed up in sketches, or current co-anchor Tina Fey.

SNL's Best Weekend Update Anchors

        Norm Macdonald, Dennis Miller, Chevy Chase. 'nuff said.

Us Weekly's Waterloo

        What was Us Weekly thinking staking their reputation on Britney pulling a fake marriage? Were they really that eager to make competitor People look like stupid dupes? It was a fool's game that backfired. Us editor-in-chief Janice Min went on Access Hollywood adamantly insisting on the "fake marriage" theory. "The wedding was a hoax," she said. "They can try as hard as they want to make it a real wedding, they can wish it until the end of time, but it will never be a real wedding." Us had gotten hold of a "secret document" (left carelessly on a grassy knoll, no doubt) that supposedly proved the whole thing was a hoax. They hired lawyers to state it was definitely faked.

        Whoops -- the wedding was real after all.

        Note to Us's publisher: you might want to start headhunting a new editor-in-chief.

R.I.P. Rodney

        Respect in Perpetuity. You deserve it.