Monday Morning Barage of Political Videos!

It's Monday and who wants to think, right? Wait... no... wrong beginning to the post here. It's Monday and the world of viral video had a whole weekend to play on their MacBooks with video clips related (and unrelated) to Friday evening's debate between Obama and McCain. Here are four videos I found while cruising the internets this morning. Hopefully they'll start your week off right!

1. Let's get it out of the way here, SNL did it again, with Tina Fey playing Mrs. Mooseburger herself, Sarah Palin, and Amy Poehler turning in a nice Katie Couric... blinking and awestruck at the bizarreness of Fey's Palin answers. Incredible traits of this video: if you don't find it all that funny, compare it to the actual video of the interview. SNL really didn't take liberties with large pieces of this, they simply had Fey read Palin's lines... or reinact them. Um... yeah, so anyway, that's #1, here:



2. This is the first of two debate-related clips, below you can see a clip where supposedly John McCain mutters "horse shit" twice as Barack Obama makes reference to McCain's recent flub regarding Spain. Now, some may say it's a little unclear whether he is actually saying horse shit or not, but having looked at the video a couple times, it seems like it's not only there, but audible. Let me know what you think!



3. This one is slightly less funny, but incredibly nicely done, and simple in many ways. I thought one of the most effective moments of the debate on Friday was when Obama held up McCain's record of statements predicting how the conflict in Iraq would go as evidence for a lack of strength in judgment. Jed Lewison edited together a video for Huffington Post that simply supplies video to corroborate what Obama said. Damning? I think it is, and I honestly think the Obama campaign should consider running basically this exact video as a campaign ad.



4. Finally, let's end this little journey with more of the funny. Obama Girl has returned with a clip from her new reality show, the Obama Girl and Ralph Nader Show. Ok, so this is actually a nice attempt by the Nader camp to work the viral video thing, and it reminds me of the Obama Girl/Mike Gravel clip from awhile back. Anyway, they make good use of Nader's dry sense of humor, and say what you will about Nader and his choices in the last 10 years, the man is my kind of American Hero. Take issues with his tactics, but I believe in his efforts to build a stronger and more equitable nation and to counterbalance the powerful voice of corporations in American politics. All that aside, the video is rather charming, I think (especially the reference to Bea Arthur... now that's classy!).

Timetables, huh? Interesting idea... sounds familiar.

Just a little piece today in the AP about how Condoleezza Rice and the Iraqis met and talked through an agreement that's nearly complete. This agreement would lay out something people are describing as "timetables" for US withdrawal from Iraq.

Funny, I seem to remember one of the presidential candidates advocating for such timetables... and perhaps even a whole party doing so (sorry this article is like 2 years old... wait... that's not even old enough to capture just how long the Dems have been pushing for timetables). I also seem to remember another party, oh, I dunno, attacking such ideas as defeatist politicking.

Anyway, just a little news piece. Just some back-peddling. Perhaps a dash of hypocrisy? That's all. Nothing big.


UPDATE: Fox News calls them "Time Horizons!"