ellaesther - May 13, 2010 | 4:56 pm · Link

I usually can’t bear watching Lewis Black—I am in a constant state of anxiety that his heart attack is going to happen ANY MINUTE NOW!!—but last night he was so brilliant that I could only sit back and enjoy.

I particularly loved how he saved the bit that “my people have some experience with this” for the end. God bless a sledge-hammer comic who also knows the value of subtlety!

EconWatcher - May 13, 2010 | 5:02 pm · Link

Lewis Black is funny in snippets on TDS, but his show was unwatchable.

licensed to kill time - May 13, 2010 | 5:09 pm · Link

That was really funny. Good post title, too! I was seeing variations on Back in Black..

Lewis Black always looks like he’s about to spin apart into a bazillion flying shards at any second.

D-Chance. - May 13, 2010 | 5:17 pm · Link

Stewart has been gold. His smackdowns of Mary Landrieu and Howard Dean were hilarious.

Kobie - May 13, 2010 | 5:23 pm · Link

Lewis Black is a national treasure. His standup is phenomenal, and he always kills on TDS.

Bill H - May 13, 2010 | 5:38 pm · Link

I cannot watch Lewis Black. I am just not willing to be screamed at. He reminds me too much of my Dad fifty+ years ago when he was in a drunken rage and about to beat the shit out of me. Can’t do it. I head for the off button.

MikeTheZ - May 13, 2010 | 5:51 pm · Link

Lewis Black is my personal hero. I aspire to be that funny.

Because of the last 10 years or so, I am already that angry.

trollhattan - May 13, 2010 | 5:59 pm · Link

I thought last night’s bit was dead perfect. He had me thinking he’d taken it to the conclusion only to double-down and crank the rack another notch. Then, it’s,

“John?”

The topic is worth the level of effort—keep shining the cleansing UV light on these wankers. At some point they have to be made to acknowledge what they’re saying, versus their intentions.

I’ve seen a couple of his HBO standups and of course am surprised he can throttle it up and down to suit the show’s pacing. His dial isn’t permanently set on “11.”

mistersnrub - May 13, 2010 | 6:01 pm · Link

Looks like the MSM has picked up the softball meme.

Worthless, unserious high schoolers, the whole lot of ‘em. Joe Scarborough is particularly deserving of a punch in the jaw for that bravura display of assholery.

Linda Featheringill - May 13, 2010 | 6:04 pm · Link

@Bill H: I am sorry, Baby, that you had to live with your Father.

How is your life, now?

LT - May 13, 2010 | 6:05 pm · Link

@Linda Featheringill: What Linda said.

kindness - May 13, 2010 | 6:12 pm · Link

Nazi Tourettes….classic. Too true too.

Cat Lady - May 13, 2010 | 6:26 pm · Link

I think it’s just sad that only the comedians call bullshit. (Plus Froomkin, but look where that got him). I know that’s their role, and we’re really really lucky to have Stewart, Colbert and Tina Fey, but it’s depressing. On the other hand, those three use their snark fu like a laser knife. I was reminiscing recently with a friend at the absurdity of the Wasilla Wingnut during the campaign, and my friend thought she was quoting the Wingnut about seeing Russia from her house. When I insisted that it was Fey who said that, not the Wingnut, she didn’t think it was true. FSM bless the jesters.

Martin - May 13, 2010 | 6:31 pm · Link

@Cat Lady: What was so very awesome about Fey was when she ran an entire segment of a comedy skit by quoting Palin word for word. That was just genius.

Cat Lady - May 13, 2010 | 6:35 pm · Link

@Martin:

Yes, it was genius, and lucky. Tina Fey may have single handedly saved the Republic, for a little bit longer anyway. Also. Too.

Mike Kay - May 13, 2010 | 6:47 pm · Link

OT

I wonder why people say the WH press corp. is so childish.

http://www.daylife.com/photo/0a6Q57c6JCdmI?q=obama

arguingwithsignposts - May 13, 2010 | 6:55 pm · Link

@lamh32:

Sad to see it go, but it hasn’t been as good since Jesse L Martin and Jerry Orbach anyway.

Or when Sam Watterson became D.A.

DaveInOz - May 13, 2010 | 6:58 pm · Link

I watched it here in Oz last night (Yes, we get The Daily Show on cable the next day). Lewis Black is awesome – he’s not on enough.

I enjoyed the John Oliver spot too. Wasn’t GWB’s departure a missed opportunity?

Mike Kay - May 13, 2010 | 7:03 pm · Link

@KDP: but al franken is a corporatist, he voted for HCR.

lamh32 - May 13, 2010 | 7:07 pm · Link

OT:
Even his “supporters” are laughing at him. McCain is a joke, which probably means some other “jokers” (I mean voters…yeah right) will still vote for the senile ole fool (to quote Aunt Esther from Sanford and son)

Rep. Shadegg And The Morning Joe Crew Laugh At McCain’s ‘Danged Fence’ Ad (VIDEO)

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been getting a lot of grief for his strange “complete the danged fence” ad, and today that even included McCain’s fellow Arizona Republican, Rep. John Shadegg, who had a good laugh at the ad with Joe Scarborough and the Morning Joe crew.

Shadegg was on the show this morning to talk about Arizona’s immigration law, but no one did much talking after MSNBC showed a clip of the ad.
“Someone say something,” said Mika Brzezinski.

And Another Thing... - May 13, 2010 | 7:21 pm · Link

@Sly: He also does a great Kissinger. When he left Air America in preparation for building his political career, I nearly went into mourning…I missed him so much. He is very smart, does his homework policy & info wise, and has a really great heart.

Annie - May 13, 2010 | 7:32 pm · Link

Maybe I have a high tolerance for screaming, but I want to see more Lewis Black…He has the capacity to destroy nonsense, particularly political idiots like Glen Beck…Next I want to see him in front of a blackboard…

Mike Kay - May 13, 2010 | 7:35 pm · Link

@frankdawg: Franken sold you out. he could have filibustered HCR until the public option was included, but no. He’s RAHMs!’ rubber stamp. RAHM! says jump, and franken says “how high, sir”.

Worse of all, he’s a centrist, and perhaps a secret republican.

No, al franken is dead to me. when he comes up for reelection in 5 years, I’m supporting the blogosphere’s primary challenger. Move to the left al, or we the people will move you out of the way!

kommrade reproductive vigor - May 13, 2010 | 8:10 pm · Link

I fucking LOVE Lewis Black. Christ, imagine a Black/Beck debate.

Ooo. I need a cigarette.

Mike Kay's Brain - May 13, 2010 | 8:22 pm · Link

Dude, I told you not to flap our gums when I’m not there.

WereBear - May 13, 2010 | 8:47 pm · Link

Lewis Black used to say exactly the same kind of thing in a calm, reasonable tone… and no one ever heard of him.

When he put some emotion into it, it really worked.

This is, after all, showbiz. And I love it. No one melts down like Lewis Black.

Cliff - May 14, 2010 | 1:52 am · Link

Well, DougJ doesn’t like John Stewart, so I can’t watch this video.

matoko_chan - May 14, 2010 | 10:23 am · Link

I’m really curious about the constant eumene the winger juggalos push that liberals are eugenicists and thus Obama=Hitler.
Doughy Pantsload—

That these were the prevailing ideas at the time: Collectivism, eugenics, militarism (both as a mobilizing metaphor as well as the real thing), nationalism, statolatry, technocracy and – in America – a desire to “Europeanize,” often on Bismarckian lines, political institutions and arrangements. And while these ideas were popular in all sorts of places, their champions were the Progressives. I focused on Wilson because I wanted to make that case through his story (just as I wanted to tell similar stories in the other biographical chapters).

So i ax CK MacLeod, that runs a not-braindead conservative website and who is object of Jonah’s ire over Woodrow.
his answer to my question—why do conservatives always try to link eugenics to liberalism?

Opposition to eugenics serves multiple purposes: It asserts the primacy of “culture of life” moralisms; it conjures nightmarish images of the all-powerful, de-humanizing state; it warns against naive trust in faddish pseudo-science masquerading as science; it points to a skeleton in the progressive-liberal closet; it allows conservatives to stand up and declare themselves anti-racist in a way that doesn’t require them to buy off client constitutencies like machine-political liberals; it shows that conservatives read books and know about stuff, too; it sometimes induces liberals to expose themselves as moral cretins, either in regard to past history or in regard to new bio-ethical issues; maybe best of all, it opens a discussion of the slow genocide represented by birth control/family destruction visited on the left’s most loyal constituency by the leading figures of the left, makes the “ghettos” look like the Nazi ghettos, urban mayors and community organizers like concentration camp capos, a view now supported by generations of inexorable math on the black population, which has been induced to abort its own potential and disfigure where not destroy its own culture…
So eugenics seems great for conservatives to talk about! Its only downsides are that a) it’s too hot, b) it’s too obscure, and c) to the extent it induces hatred and suspicion of “liberal fascist” white people, it just re-ghettoizes blacks, who as a self-defending in-group (and practically and psychologically complicit in their own self-destruction – a complicated topic of its own) still are welcomed by liberals, and remain in relative terms physically, culturally, and politically inaccessible to conservatives. So in the end it’s more effective in amping the moral self-righteousness of social conservatives – and reinforcing their cultural isolation – than in opening a bridge to African Americans and eroding the liberal coalition.

link

Joe Hill - May 26, 2010 | 7:47 pm · Link

@EconWatcher: You need to watch his special in Washington DC with his parents in the front row. Classic political humor (oxymoron?)