* Perhaps taking a cue from her most rogueish guest, Oprah Winfrey has decided she will no longer be shackled behind her talk show.

* The Senate takes up its version of the health care bill tomorrow morning. Harry Reid needs 60 votes just to proceed with debate, because the Republicans do not want to deal with this thing at all. If they filibuster, let us hope they forgo the phonebooks and pledge allegiance to the flag for twelve hours straight. (Eat your heart out, Todd Akin!)

* Said health care bill is 2,074 pages long. Tony Perkins and his fightin' evangelicals have released something called "The Manhattan Declaration," which manages to cover "the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty" in just 4,700 words.

* President Obama will make a decision about Afghanistan troop levels after Thanksgiving, assuming he's not in a food coma.

Conservatives must be salivating over this new Gallup poll…

Since September, Obama's approval rating had been holding in the low 50s and, although it has reached 50% numerous times, it had never dropped below 50% until now.

Of the post-World War II presidents, Obama now is the fourth fastest to drop below the majority approval level, doing so in his 10th month on the job. Gerald Ford dropped below 50% approval during his third month in office, and Bill Clinton did so in his fourth month. Ronald Reagan, like Obama, also dropped below 50% in his 10th month in office, though Reagan's drop occurred a few days sooner in that month (Nov. 13-16, 1981) than did Obama's (Nov. 17-19, 2009).

…I mean, they love anything that mentions Ronald Reagan.

Stephen Colbert went on Late Show with David Letterman last night to promote the paperback edition of I Am America (And So Can You!) (now with even more paper!) The best part was when Colbert called Obama the Meryl Streep of Presidents. Does that make Joe Biden the Melanie Griffith of Vice Presidents? Yes, yes it does.

"It really doesn't matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost," Thompson said on his radio show today.

(Barack Obama has a secret Afghan baby??!!?!??)

Ahem. Now, if Fred Thompson had heard Fred Thompson saying that the war has been lost, Fred Thompson would have been outrageously outraged to an outrageous degree. Because here's what Fred Thompson told Sean Hannity in 2007 when Harry Reid suggested that the war in Iraq had been lost…

I [Fred Thompson] asked [a former Army captain] what she thought about this. She said, "How in the world can anyone, any one of our leaders, declare war, declare that the war has been lost when we've got troops in the field? My friends are over there in the field. I know what they think about this."

And, of course, it's just like all other Americans think. The very idea that they would do this and undercut our efforts over there is unprecedented. And it's not only unprecedented; it's awful politics.

But this is different, you see, in so many ways.

When Fred Thompson tells us that the war in Afghanistan has been lost, he's making a legitimate if controversial criticism of specific decisions being made (or not made) by the Obama administration.

Whereas when Harry Reid did that, he was being a Democrat.

Right?

The poll asked this question: "Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?" The overall top-line is legitimately won 62%, ACORN stole it 26%.

Among Republicans, however, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% — an outright majority — saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided.

Yep, 52% of Republicans think ACORN stole the 2008 presidential election, using nothing but their patented stupidity to secure 53% of the popular vote for Obama. Another 21% of Republicans think, well, maybe. Yeah. That certainly sounds plausible, but… hmm, who can say for sure?

After all, if there's one thing we know about ACORN, it's that they're masters of getting away with illegal activity without anybody ever noticing.

The interview continues below.

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11pm / 10c.

Actually, no, it doesn't have to be…

Why so serious, puppets? Hasn't anybody ever told you that you're puppets?

Part 2 is over here (if you were even capable of making it to the end of Part 1)

(via Videogum)

This guy knows what I'm talking about…

(via Pharyngula)

The interview continues below.

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11pm / 10c.

This is kind of heartwarming. It looks like even the most xenophobic of American teabaggers have something in common with the average citizen of communist China…

The Chinese have learned English from his speeches and celebrated the way he rolls up his sleeves. Now President Barack Obama is finally coming, and he's being greeted with "Oba Mao" T-shirts and a statue of him that bursts into flames…

One Beijing shop owner wanted to see what Obama could do for sales. Liu Mingjie created "Oba Mao" T-shirts, with the president wearing the uniform of the Red Guards, who caused chaos during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s…

He sold hundreds of the shirts, to both foreigners and Chinese, until authorities told shops selling the shirts to stop.

It's so sweet to see such disparate groups of people finding some common ground, huh?

But, let's for a minute get back to that burning statue of Obama? How'd they get away with that in such a totalitarian state? We can't even burn Nancy Pelosi over here.