A little while ago, we linked to a story in which conservative pundit Glenn Beck attempted to justify the egregious atrocities inflicted on the Constitution by George W. Bush by way of comparing his actions to those of a comic book character in the wildly popular and awesomely awesome movie The Dark Knight. (And, no, not The Joker.)

Well, Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy — who happens to be a huge Batman fan and actually has a bit role in The Dark Knight as a guy who supposedly looks like The Joker's father — has responded to Glenn Beck's very-well-thought-out argument…

Sorry Glenn but that's not just a stretch, it's a hoot. But I do grant the parallels between Superman's nemesis Lex Luthor and the Vice President.

Hear that? It's a "hoot." Vermont representatives don't get much more scathing than that.

I'm not sure about that Lex Luthor comparison, though. I think I would'a gone with Darkseid.

And, for Bush, I've have gone with Gleek.

If you saw The Dark Knight (and, if you haven't, why not?!) and noticed some similarities between the film's titular character — a psychotic outlaw who dresses in a costume and uses his vast wealth to exact his own form of justice — and President George W. Bush, then you're not alone.

Lots of right wing pundits feel the exact same way. In fact, here's radio host Glenn Beck on CNN…

But Batman goes into another country and with a C-130 snatches a guy out, and then throws him back here into Gotham. So there's rendition. At one point the Morgan Freeman character says to Batman, wait a minute, hang on, you're eavesdropping on everyone in Gotham? And Batman says, yes, to stop this terrorist.

Morgan Freeman says, I can't be a part of it. And yet Morgan Freeman does become a part of it, and they find the Joker. One of the ways they find the Joker is through eavesdropping. I mean the parallels here of what's going on is to me stunning…

Beck also said that Bush's willingness to "die as the worst president ever because of the war on terror" is "exactly the message that Batman carries."

Well, at least he got the "worst president ever" part right.

Anyway. So, what? Now we're drawing our collective morality from blockbuster movies with fictional characters about completely made-up events instead of from best-selling Bibles with fictional characters about completely made-up events? I suppose it's a fair trade off.

But you know what? I think the conservatives are choosing the wrong movie at which to look for guidance. I think we should be looking for the deep meanings and lessons of Step Brothers.

Yes, what I'm saying is that George Bush should go over to Iran and rub his sweaty balls all over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's drum kit.

Can you guess which of these quotes — provided by Philadelphia sketch group, Secret Pants — belong to our president, George W. Bush, and which belong to Batman from his 1960s TV series?

It's harder than you think…

The old guy came closest to getting a perfect score.

Update for all citizens of Diggachusetts: Yo! Be a paison and check out the Secret Pants website for lots more fantastic videos, including one of my personal favorite sketches of all time.

Somebody just made a really good point about this Batman-related post from earlier today…

I had avoided seeing what Two-Face was going to look like in The Dark Knight because it was something that I thought would be much more enjoyable to see only when and how Christopher Nolan & Co. wanted to present it on the big screen… Until exactly two minutes ago. When it was ruined for me. By Comedy Central's Indecision 2008 blog.

Thanks a lot, jerks. Seriously, you couldn't have waited three days for this mediocre joke?

Oh my God, this is so embarrassing! We didn't think about that at all!

When we called up our good friend Christopher Nolan and asked if he could send us an actual still of the highly-guarded make-up effects for Two-Face from The Dark Knight, we didn't even consider the possibility that we might completely ruin the movie for everyone in the world. Our bad.

Jeeze! Why didn't we just type the phrase "two face" into Google (not Google Image Search, but Google) and find the first picture that some 14-year-old kid photoshopped in his bedroom and use that? Some people just aren't very smart, I guess.

By the way, since we already blew the lid off this one, I might as well tell you that the image comes from a scene in which the recently-mutilated character Harvey Dent is sitting at a picnic table in front of a perfectly white glacier, having a head shot taken at the request of his supervillain agency.

Update: Sometimes, I can be a jerk. (And by "sometimes," I mean "usually.")