Letterman Working at McDonald's

Spaulding will be on vacation for a few days. In the meantime enjoy this comedy gem.

On Wisconsin!

Letterman's Great Moments in Presidential Speeches: One Time

You Know You're Getting Old When...

...you realize how much you've enjoyed 60 Minutes the past two weeks.

Slippery When Wet

RosenBlog:

Kerry Wood fell while trying to get out of his hot tub. Wait, you mean this guy still hasn’t mastered the towel drill?

And This is Just the First Day...

Baseball is back (thank you) and the Northsiders are, um...well, back to mid-season form.

This report on the first day of pitchers and catchers reporting to camp from the Chicago Tribune:

Carlos Zambrano met with reporters and announced he's close to signing a five-year deal, though team sources insisted there's a long way to go and Zambrano has not received a concrete offer.

Kerry Wood skipped the first throwing session after hurting his ribs Monday slipping out of a hot tub, making him the first Cub to be sidelined with an injury.

Alfonso Soriano reported early. Jeff Samardzija was ordered to get a haircut. Ted Lilly insisted the blood from his fight with his former manager was "tobacco chew." Jason Marquis took Sammy Sosa's number. And manager Lou Piniella gave his opening speech to pitchers and catchers.

Wow. Keep in mind the whole team isn't even there. With this much drama the Cubs are three or four angst-filled teens away from being a drama on the CW.

Letterman's Great Moments in Presidential Speeches: Onion Grower

Obama on Energy

When Spandex Isn't Revealing Enough

AP:

...A Dutch gym plans to introduce "Naked Sunday" for people who like to huff and puff in the buff.

...Nude exercisers would be required to put towels down on weight machines and to use disposable seat covers while riding bikes. All machines would be cleaned and disinfected afterward.

There is not enough sanitizer in the world to get me on the exercise bike after a naked, sweaty hindquarters has just dismounted. I don't care how many towels they have under their backside as a protective barrier.

Now Iraq is Affecting Our TV Commercials?!?

A New York Times article claims that the war in Iraq was lurking just below the surface of all those Super Bowl commercials:

No commercial that appeared last night during Super Bowl XLI directly addressed Iraq, unlike a patriotic spot for Budweiser beer that ran during the game two years ago. But the ongoing war seemed to linger just below the surface of many of this year’s commercials.

More than a dozen spots celebrated violence in an exaggerated, cartoonlike vein that was intended to be humorous, but often came across as cruel or callous.

For instance, in a commercial for Bud Light beer, sold by Anheuser-Busch, one man beat the other at a game of rock, paper, scissors by throwing a rock at his opponent’s head.

In another Bud Light spot, face-slapping replaced fist-bumping as the cool way for people to show affection for one another. In a FedEx commercial, set on the moon, an astronaut was wiped out by a meteor. In a spot for Snickers candy, sold by Mars, two co-workers sought to prove their masculinity by tearing off patches of chest hair.

There was also a bank robbery (E*Trade Financial), fierce battles among office workers trapped in a jungle (CareerBuilder), menacing hitchhikers (Bud Light again) and a clash between a monster and a superhero reminiscent of a horror movie (Garmin).

It was as if Madison Avenue were channeling Doc in “West Side Story,” the gentle owner of the candy store in the neighborhood that the two street gangs, the Jets and Sharks, fight over. “Why do you kids live like there’s a war on?” Doc asks plaintively. (Well, Doc, this time, there is.)

During other wars, Madison Avenue has appealed to a yearning for peace. That was expressed in several Super Bowl spots evocative of “Hilltop,” the classic Coca-Cola commercial from 1971, when the Vietnam War divided a world that needed to be taught to sing in perfect harmony.

Coca-Cola borrowed pages from its own playbook with two whimsical spots for Coca-Cola Classic, “Happiness Factory” and “Video Game,” that were as sweet as they were upbeat. The commercials, by Wieden & Kennedy, provided a welcome counterpoint to the martial tone of the evening.

Those who wish the last four years of history had never happened could find solace in several commercials that used the device of ending an awful tale by revealing it was only a dream.

This analysis is probably correct. Iraq malaise could be affecting TV commercials. But rather than probe the commercials that closely, Spaulding prefers to just state the obvious -- this year's Super Bowl commercials just flat out sucked.

Here is a look at five commercials Spaulding can't believe the company spent $2.5 million for 30 seconds to run:

Emerald Nuts

So, lemme get this straight. If I eat nuts nobody messes with my desk... What if I eat raisins, or an apple? Will some obscure celebrity come and clean up my workspace?



Bud Light

Bud reminds us that apes aren't as smart as humans...something only their consumers would need to be reminded of.



Bud Light

You throw a rock at somebody's head just so you can get a bottle of beer. You know who isn't getting any beer? The guy who threw the rock while he does eight to 10 at the county pen.



Snickers

Homophobia...great, such a modern mindset. Does this mean you'll be selling your product at 1968 prices?



Bud Light

Break down everyone into stereotypes and then making fun of immigrants! What a great way to sell beer!



These ads are deplorable. Someone just make them stop. Bring back animated frogs, tell me where the beef is, have Michael Jordan sell me something -- anything -- just don't make me sit through more of this crap.

I'm sure it tested well with the dim witted, but we deserve better. Madison Avenue -- take a do-over during March Madness. Get to work.

Shocker

NY Daily News:

WASHINGTON - Calling Sen. Hillary Clinton a "panderer and a flatterer," consumer advocate Ralph Nader said yesterday he'd be sorely tempted to mount his own 2008 presidential campaign if she wins the Democratic nod.

Really, Ralph, you might run for President?!? Didn't you do enough to keep our country moving forward by taking momentum away from Gore in 2000?

You Just Couldn't Hold It Until the 3rd Quarter, Could You?

Miami Herald:

Nationwide, as fans rush to go before the Super Bowl's second-half kickoff, they'll flush enough water to fall over Niagara Falls for 39 minutes.

Favorite Super Bowl Ad

Spaulding Law: Super Bowl Ads

If you're going to spend $2.5 million on a Super Bowl ad, shouldn't you have to actually create a "new" ad? I don't want to see a $2.5 million re-run. Yes, I'm talking to you T-Mobile Wade/Barkley commercial.

Therefore, effective next year's Super Bowl, all advertisers must create new content in order to be eligible to run an ad during the game. Spaulding Law.

Letterman: Message About February for President Bush

Trouble With Da Bears Ticker (And No, We're Not Talking a Heart Attack)

The Superfans must be watching Channel 5...

Chicago Tribune:

WBBM resets Bears clock after complaints

WBBM-Ch. 2 found out the hard way that, contrary to conventional wisdom, it is possible for a Chicago media outlet to overdo this whole Super Bowl thing.

Channel 2 on Sunday night squeezed a blue-and-orange countdown clock into a corner of the screen to show the days, hours and minutes remaining until the Chicago Bears meet the Indianapolis Colts in Miami. Turns out, this was a bad idea.

The time ticked away.

The audience got ticked off.

"We were bombarded by viewers who said it was annoying, it was distracting," Channel 2 news boss Carol Fowler said. "It wasn't appreciated by people watching the Hallmark movie of the week."

Somehow, these people already were aware the Bears have a big game Sunday--on WBBM, as luck would have it--and felt the clutter of a clock wasn't necessary. So, by midmorning Monday, after more than half a day on the air, the station had removed it from all network programming.

Channel 2's countdown clock still will run during all local newscasts (save for weather segments, when the station has determined it clashes with all the other graphics), all its Bears Super Bowl specials and for 30 seconds at the top and bottom of the hour during syndicated programs, such as "Dr. Phil" and "Rachael Ray."

But you no longer have to be a clock watcher while viewing "As the World Turns," "Numb3rs," Katie Couric or "Late Show With David Letterman."

"We listen to people, and we don't want to make more enemies than friends here," Fowler said.

No word yet on whether Channel 2 will post a "Countdown to Griese" clock if Grossman has a bad first half.

The Search for an American President -- Case Study: John McCain

The 2008 presidential election is -- whether you're ready for it or not -- in full swing. And, with no incumbent president or vice president-running-for-president in the field, the list of potential nominees for both parties is littered with candidates ranging from household names, to names that might not even be recognized in their home states.

It is a great time for politics.

While it is true that all politics are local, and the actions of your local mayor often have a bigger impact in your life than those of a president, there is no office in the world with which we entrust our hopes and dreams more than that of the presidency.

We want presidents to show us big challenges and define bigger answers. We want presidents who believe in us more than we believe in ourselves. We want presidents who embody the very best of who we are as Americans, not our very worst. We want presidents whom we know will leave the world a little bit better for our children simply because we found it in ourselves to trust in them and their vision for America.

And it is because the presidency carries with it such a spiritual connection with who we are as a people that we can and should take the time to put any candidate for that office through the wringer.

Presidential candidates should be forced to prove to us that they care about our families as much as we do; that they understand what it means to not have health care; that they know how our energy consumption patterns are at odds with the scarcity of fossil fuels; that they too can relate to the fear of going to work one day, not knowing if the forces of globalization will force you to look for new employment the next.

This is what we can and should get to know about our candidates -- that they "get" us, and, in turn, that we "get" them. Not that we always have to agree with them, but that at the end of the day we want to know that they are pushing this country in a direction that we understand to be good, just, and fair.

That's what we should be evaluating. But we aren't.

Instead we (the media/public) are lurking in a murky, ethical abyss -- a place where we don't know where to draw the line, and as a result end up obliterating any chance we have of actually getting to know our would-be presidents as people.

The problem now is that candidates think they are doing us a favor (or at least doing what they think is necessary to attain 270 electoral votes) by attempting to appeal to our schizophrenic evaluation criteria -- criteria that in their present form are completely unable to separate the sexual weaknesses of a person from the responsibilities of the office; or the errors of youth from disqualifying errors of judgement; or the evolution of one's voting record, from election year flip-flopping.

And what do we get because of our failure as a citizenry to be critical, impartial, human, and fair? Over-programmed, cookie cutter candidates, who at one time might have been able to inspire us with their realism, but now bore use with catch phrases and jargon. We get empty vessels; completely unable to arrive at an opinion until it has been focus grouped and validated in each of the early primary states by the candidate's Frank Luntz-of-the-moment pollster.

We get watered drown drivel.

We get John McCain 2007 vs. John McCain 2000.

And it is in this fact that we see the true heartbreak of modern American politics.

John McCain in the 2000 presidential primary was a son-of-a-gun who told us what we needed to know, not what we wanted to hear. He was Mr. Straight Talk, and that wasn't a campaign creation -- it was true.

McCain 2000 rode into each town on the Straight Talk Express bus, the closest thing any modern campaign has had to a "no-spin zone," delivering real answers that won him the title of media darling and ogling from 20-something buzz-maker The Daily Show.

Fast forward seven years, and we have a stiff McCain appearing on Meet the Press. We have a McCain who is hob-nobbing with the same folks that he called out during his first presidential run. We have a McCain who is...well, the very opposite of the guy who became a favorite amongst moderates, college students, and the politically weary.

Vanity Fair magazine traveled with McCain and reported on what can -- in the eye of one searching for authenticity -- only be read as the devolution of the candidate.

Vanity Fair, February '07 issue, page 3 of online article:

But the plain truth is that the Straight Talk Express, Version 2.008, is often a far cry from the Magic Bus of 2000.

"Let me give you a little straight talk," McCain tells the crowd at a house-party fund-raiser in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for Senator John Thune, the Christian conservative and self-styled "servant leader" who defeated the Senate's Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, in 2004. The minute Thune was elected, McCain says, he became an important figure in the Republican Party and the Senate.

That's not straight talk. That's partisan pap. Nor, presumably, was it straight talk last summer at an Aspen Institute discussion when McCain struggled to articulate his position on the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. At first, according to two people who were present, McCain said he believed that intelligent design, which proponents portray as a more intellectually respectable version of biblical creationism, should be taught in science classes. But then, in the face of intense skepticism from his listeners, he kept modifying his views—going into reverse evolution.

"Yes, he's a social conservative, but his heart isn't in this stuff," one former aide told me, referring to McCain's instinctual unwillingness to impose on others his personal views about issues such as religion, sexuality, and abortion. "But he has to pretend [that it is], and he's not a good enough actor to pull it off. He just can't fake it well enough."

When it comes to the rough-and-tumble of practical politics, as opposed to battles over political principle, McCain's apparent compromises are just as striking. Six years ago, McCain was livid when Sam and Charles Wyly, a pair of Texas businessmen friendly with the Bush campaign, spent $2.5 million on a nominally independent advertising effort attacking McCain. He called them "Wyly coyotes," and implored an audience in Boston to "tell them to keep their dirty money in the state of Texas." This time, McCain accepted money from the Wylys. The Wylys gave McCain's Straight Talk America political-action committee at least $20,000, and together with other family members and friends they chaired a Dallas fund-raiser for the pac. (The Wyly money was later returned because the brothers have become the subject of a federal investigation.) In 2000, McCain denounced the Reverend Jerry Falwell—and others like him—as "agents of intolerance." Last spring McCain gave the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University.

Two years ago, McCain was unsparing in his criticism of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who slimed his friend and fellow Vietnam veteran John Kerry. Kerry felt close enough to McCain at the time to make multiple and serious inquiries about McCain's interest in running for vice president on a national-unity ticket (and McCain basked in the courtship, even if he knew nothing could ever come of it). So the alacrity with which McCain joined in demanding an apology from Kerry—whose "botched joke" last fall about George Bush's intellect came out as a slur against American troops in Iraq—was surprising, if not unseemly. Once upon a time, the two friends would have talked about the issue privately, and McCain might well have given Kerry his frank advice. As of mid-November, they had not spoken since McCain's statement condemning Kerry's "insensitive, ill-considered, and uninformed remarks"—which McCain once again read from a piece of paper, by the way. When I asked McCain if he thought Kerry was really trying to insult the troops, he answered only indirectly, and with some annoyance: "I accepted it when he said, 'I botched a joke,' O.K.?"

At its core, the appeal of the "straight talk" is that we feel like we don't have to scrutinize and parse every word the candidate says.

That McCain has gone away, and we are left with a McCain that is rebranding himself to better appeal to his target demographic, the wealthy Republican mega-donor. Lost in this transition (from the sounds of this) is the call-it-as-I-see-it McCain, leaving us with the one who is willing to distance himself from his friend John Kerry for a shot at the Oval Office.

Strategically all of these moves are defensible, but the "gut" that McCain once played so well to now finds itself queasy and upset by his attempts to reach out to the grassroots of the Republican party -- an apparatus that certainly wasn't reaching out to him in 2000.

Vanity Fair, page 4 of online article:

The battle between Bush and McCain in 2000 was bitter, with Bush supporters in South Carolina spreading rumors that McCain was insane and that he had fathered a black child. (McCain and his wife, Cindy, are the adoptive parents of a girl from Bangladesh.) Bush and McCain traded insults involving each other's moral standing. A year later, with bad feeling still so high that strategist John Weaver had been virtually blackballed from working in Republican politics, Weaver went so far as to sound out Democratic Senate leaders about the possibility of having McCain caucus with them. This would have put the Senate, then divided 50–50, into Democratic control. Aides to two senior Senate Democrats say it was never clear how serious McCain himself was about the proposal, and any possibility that it might actually happen was short-circuited when another Republican, James Jeffords, of Vermont, made the move first, in 2001.

That was then, when memories of the Bush camp's gruesome, dishonest attacks on McCain were still fresh. When I asked McCain how a rapprochement with Bush could ever have been achieved, he began by saying, "For 10 days I wallowed," then made it clear that the best balm was his realization that the campaign had raised his stature. "We came out of the campaign, even though losing, enhanced nationally, with a lot of opportunities in the Senate legislatively, with more influence, and eventually, if necessary, to be able to go at it again." Whatever the psychic or political specifics, the ultimate result was the celebrated McCain-Bush campaign hug of 2004, in which McCain found himself enveloped in a back-wrapping embrace and upside-the-head smooch. Since that moment McCain has borrowed from the Bush political playbook, aiming to make himself the prohibitive front-runner for the 2008 primaries, and happily snapping up former Bush aides and supporters from key states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, including Terry Nelson, an Iowan and political director of the 2004 Bush campaign. Nelson, now a private consultant in Washington, approved the most widely condemned negative ad of the 2006 midterms, produced by a quasi-independent group financed by the Republican National Committee and aimed at the black Democratic Senate candidate in Tennessee, Harold Ford Jr. In the ad, a sultry white actress says she had once met Mr. Ford at a "Playboy party," then cradles her outstretched thumb and little finger to her ear and coos, "Harold, call me." After the ad sparked an uproar it was taken off the air. Given the racially charged campaign of innuendo deployed against McCain by Bush supporters six years ago, and McCain's outrage at such tactics, the McCain camp's failure to condemn Nelson or the ad struck many as surprising. All John Weaver managed to say at the time was "We're pleased the ad has been pulled down." Nelson is set to manage McCain's '08 campaign.

The question the observer searching for the authentic individual must ask is, "why?"

John McCain is a genuine war hero -- one whose credentials and love of country should be unquestionable. Why the need to mess with the straight talk chemistry and begin beefing up his campaign staff with Bush ex-patriots?

McCain 2000 was an attractive tale because he was the underdog -- the guy who you root for in the sitcom to get the girl instead of the GQ-esque main character. Oddly McCain, without the GQ looks, now finds himself cast as the main character. To date, his performance has been a bit like watching a TV spin-off. You remember you liked Joey on Friends, and he's the same guy, but something just isn't adding up when he's on his own show -- that's McCain 2008.

What remains to be seen in McCain 2008 is whether it is possible to let people on to the Straight Talk Express bus without ruining its essence.

Vanity Fair, page 10 of online article:

At the freshman convocation at Boston College this fall, McCain concluded his talk with a powerful warning about the costs of compromising one's highest ideals.

"Very far from here and long ago, I served with men of extraordinary character, honorable men, strong, principled, wise, compassionate, and loving men," McCain told the students. "Better men than I, in more ways than I can number.… Some of them were beaten terribly, and worse. Some were killed.… Most often, they were tortured to compel them to make statements criticizing our country and the cause we had been asked to serve. Many times, their captors would briefly suspend the torture and try to persuade them to make a statement by promising that no one would hear what they said, or know that they had sacrificed their convictions. Just say it and we will spare you any more pain, they promised, and no one, no one, will know. But the men I had the honor of serving with always had the same response, 'I will know. I will know.'

"I wish that you always hear the voice in your own heart, when you face hard decisions in your life, to hear it say to you, again and again, until it drowns out every other thought: 'I will know. I will know. I will know.'"

McCain's own compromises in pursuit of the presidency may be necessary, even justified. And they may, in fact, pave his way to victory in the Republican primaries, and perhaps to the White House itself. But even if no one calls him out, and the public plays along, McCain may pay an awful price. Because, whatever happens, he will know. He will know. He will know.

The doors to the bus have opened to many of the very same people the Straight Talk Express was running down just seven years ago.

What we deserve to know is whether the real John McCain got off the bus during one of those stops.

Letterman's Great Moments in Presidential Speeches: "If It Feels Good..."

Letterman: Top Ten Questions to Ask Yourself Before Buying the 108-Inch Television

From the Late Show Web site:

10. "Do I want the neighbors to know that I watch 'Maury'?"
9. "Will I finally see all the rich detail I've been missing in 'According to Jim'?"
8. "Is my living room roughly the size of Yankee Stadium?"
7. "Will a 108-inch Wolf Blitzer scare the dog?"
6. "Do I really need to spend ten grand to watch 'Judge Joe Brown'?"
5. "Are these the same bastards that sold me that 108-inch toaster?"
4. "Do I need a television that weighs more than I do?"
3. "What do I do with my old 103-inch television"?
2. "If I don't buy it, do the terrorists win?"
1. "Can I still get the 'Late Show' in low-definition?"

Click link to watch the list.

Superfans

In honor of Da Bears playing for the right to go to the Super Bowl tomorrow, and as a sort of reconciliation for the prediction that da Bears would be one-and-done in the playoffs, the editorial staff is proud to present this classic Superfans moment.