What's he talking about? The six groups who are benefiting most from the war on drugs? I don't even know. I couldn't hear anything he was saying over the sound of how much he probably smells like Patchouli.

Jeeze, if these Deadheads were half as good at keeping a steady job as they were at coming up with sensible, well-reasoned arguments for changing the way our country deals with its drug problem, they'd have enough money to join the establishment…

Get a haircut!

(via Dan Savage)

Understand? You will (kinda)…

(via The Daily What)

Hey, there's Dana Carvey as George Bush, Sr. and Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford! And Dan Aykroyd as Jimmy Carter! Oh, look, there's Ronald Reagan. Who's playing him? Why, it's classic SNL performer… Jim Carrey? Um, okay. Sure…

I know that I was probably supposed to be paying attention to some kind of message about how we should be giving the banks more (or was it less?) money or something, but I was kind of preoccupied with marveling at Jimmy Carter's amazing girth. I guess he must have eaten Walter Mondale or something.

Maybe the answer to that mystery is in this making-of video after the jump (Spoiler Alert: Don't count on it)…

Stephen Colbert's take on the Tea Party convention can be found below.

The Daily Show and Colbert Report air Monday through Thursday starting at 11pm / 10c.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said he opposes a proposal that would require candidates to back a set of conservative positions in order to receive party support.

"Ronald Reagan would be ashamed if the party moved in that direction," Steele told reporters in Honolulu yesterday, where the RNC started its winter meeting.

The so-called Reagan Resolution, named after former President Ronald Reagan, has been pushed by some conservatives.

As drafted, the resolution would require candidates seeking party contributions and support to agree to at least eight of 10 positions on issues including abortion, gay marriage and gun control.

Naturally, many hyperconservative tea party types are upset about this, because without a good litmus test all kinds of crazy pseudo-Republicans could sneak onto ballots and destroy the Grand Old Party from the inside.

And that's the last thing the tea party types want, right?

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.

Anyway, in response, BuzzFeed made a list of some awkward political family photos — even though the Zapateros seemed, to me at least, pretty comfortable in their wan, Twilight-loving skin — because this is the Internet and why not?

And now I'm highlighting my favorite one — the Reagans — because this is the Internet and why not?

No wonder they called him The Great Coordinator.

You get it? Because… you know, because "communicator" and "coordinator." And that outfit, and, well… Look at those pants, they're… you know, um…

Okay, I'm sorry.

The new plan that President Obama laid out for a missile shield against Iran on Thursday turns Ronald Reagan's vision of a Star Wars system on its head: Rather than focusing first on protecting the continental United States, it shifts the immediate effort to defending Europe and the Middle East.

Nooo! Not Ronald Reagan's vision of a Star Wars system! That's like snatching food from the hands of a starving orphan and then eating a pizza in front of him, just to spite Mother Teresa's ghost!

There's no time to read about how Obama's plan will replace old technology with new technology and realign defense priorities based on what Iran is actually doing with its short-range missile program. No time for that, we need a delivery of smelling salts to the Weekly Standard…

This is a decision based purely on ideology and the good soldiers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and and at the Pentagon have no choice but to go along for the ride. At least the president ought to be honest about what this means and stop the smears of missile defense.

Quick poll: Are Barack Obama's smears of our missile defense system motivated by race, yes or no?

Yes. I would love it more if Ronald Reagan were brought back to life so he could grace us with his zippy zingers in person. Until that technology is developed, however, Tim Pawlenty will have to do…

Republicans have been starved for leadership, so it’s exciting when a rising political star delivers a rousing address full of Reaganesque zingers.

"Our system in the United States isn’t cash for clunkers, it’s cash for flunkers. It’s a disgrace that anyone is forced to go to a bad school." The speaker was Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, who delivered his forceful remarks to GOPAC [during a GOP hobnob fest over the weekend] without notes and without a teleprompter.*

Hahahahaha, cash for flunkers! Zing, Tim! That'll show our stupid public education system, which just spends all its time in the alley outside the art room, smoking cigarettes and sulking.

Hey, I've got one: "Our system in the United States isn't cash for clunkers. It's No Child Left Behind, which prioritizes standardized test scores over actual learning, encourages schools to fudge their "improvements" to get funding, and imposes punitive sanctions on failing school districts, which helps them fail even more-unkers."

Nah, you're right. Tim's is better. That's why he gets paid to write jokes and I don't.

^{* Note for nitpickers: Yes, I know. In the picture to the right, you can see notes and a teleprompter. It was the only recentish photo I could find of Tim Seinfeld-Pawlenty at a podium. Clearly Mr. Pawlenty-Carlin has used notes and a teleprompter in the past… perhaps he just got better at hiding them, hmm?}

* Oh, like the president in the $3,000 suit is gonna listen to this guy? Come on!

* I've got an idea! Let's dig up Ronald Reagan's putrefied corpse again and ask him what he thinks about socialized medicine! (Spolier alert: He doesn't like it.)

* And, while we're at it, let's drag the ghost of Terri Schiavo into this. (Spolier alert: Barack Obama wants to kill her grandmother.)

* And, finally, this article from Esquire is the next worst thing to actually hanging out with Orly Taitz for the day.

But you may be asking yourself: What's wrong with my old Bible, the one that Jesus descended from Heaven to hand over to George Washington after he crossed the Delaware? Nothing. That's Bible is fine. But this one's better. Because it comes with conservative talking points!

"This Bible is designed for the decent, hardworking core of America, the ordinary man or woman who loves this nation and believes it springs from godly roots," says Richard G. Lee, a Southern Baptist pastor from Georgia who served as the Bible's general editor.

"Christians have believed all along that this nation sprung from Judeo-Christian ethics. Now they can say, "Oh, now I know where this uniqueness comes from in our nation's history."'…

Lee sprinkles his Bible with some 300 articles about "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," the right to keep and bear arms, the war in Iraq and religious broadcasting.

It's so sad how many people forget that Jesus died on that cross to protect the 2nd Amendment. And his apostles could have shot him out of there if only they were allowed to carry a fully automatic assault rifles.

Anyway, I don't know about you, but I'm getting a kind of heavy bi-partisan — really, "non-partisan" — vibe off of this Bible which is so obviously trying to tear down the wall between church and state. Do you think that was Lee's goal? I'll bet it was…

His goal was to create a "non-partisan" Bible, but he quotes Republican Ronald Reagan more times than Democrats Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy combined.

In an interview, Lee said he doesn't even know if Carter, a fellow Georgian and longtime Baptist Sunday school teacher, is a Christian. As for President Obama? "I haven't seen any patriotism from him yet."

Plus, isn't he a Muslim? So, can he even be patriotic?

(via Pam's House Blend)

Gingrich: "I am not a citizen of the world. I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous."

Me neither. Because, really, who gives a shit what that guy says?

I'll tell you who gives a shit what that guy says. Media Matters for America gives a shit what that guy says…

In a July 2008 speech in Berlin, Germany, Obama described himself as "a citizen — a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world." In a June 17, 1982, speech to the United Nations General Assembly, [Ronald] Reagan similarly said, "I speak today as both a citizen of the United States and of the world."

Aha! So, Newt Gingrich wasn't actually just grasping at straws and turning whatever Obama quote was readily available around in an effort to do what he does and be a partisan blowhard. No! He was accidentally admitting that he actually hates Ronald Reagan and conservative ideals and America and God.

Good catch, Media Matters!

There’s plenty of blame to go around these days. But the prime villains behind the mess we’re in were Reagan and his circle of advisers — men who forgot the lessons of America’s last great financial crisis, and condemned the rest of us to repeat it.

Now, of course, this outrageous blasphemy is drawing fire from the patriots at the National Review…

[Krugman's] argument hangs on an obscure piece of legislation called the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act. In Krugman's imagination, this bill is the key to understanding "the mess we're in."

As he usually does when he is shading the truth, Krugman argues via assertion and the repetition of assertion ("the bill turned the modest-sized troubles of savings-and-loan institutions into an utter catastrophe" … "The immediate effect of Garn-St. Germain, as I said, was to turn the thrifts from a problem into a catastrophe," etc.). He throws out lines that beg for substantiation and follows them with non-sequitors.

In other words, "boo." (Also, Paul Krugman gets a D for composition.)

Literary quibbles aside, Krugman shows no sign of backing away from his argument that President Reagan and his villainous economic advisers wilfully destroyed the American economy because, whatever, it was the '80s and everyone was high. Grody to the max! If only Paul Krugman could travel back in time, to 1982, and set Reagan straight with some real economic advice.

Oh yes, that's right. He already did.

Nancy Reagan tells Vanity Fair special correspondent Bob Colacello that "it sounds strange, but… I see Ronnie. At nighttime, if I wake up, I think Ronnie's there, and I start to talk to him. It's not important what I say. But the fact is, I do think he's there. And I see him."

That's all you need to say, Nancy Reagan. Newt Gingrich and Michael Steele are, I'm sure, already setting up Portable Ecto-Containment Units all around the Reagan estate.

One of these nights, the incorporeal form of the Gipper will come back home to comfort his poor grieving widow, and he'll stumble over one of them ghost traps, and then — BAM! — all of the GOP's problem are over!

Dreaming Of Ronald: While Dick Cheney and Colin Powell duke it out in Thunderdome over the future of the Republican party, lone columnist Frank Donatelli meekly pines for a return to Reagan-flavored conservatism. Here is another right-leaning scribbler penning love letters to a man who's politics were inclusive, optimistic, and devoid of alienating wedge issues. Big hearts to The Gipper, yo? [washingtontimes.com]

Jesus Chansaw Massacre: Conservative blogger Steven Crowder goes trolling on the interwebz with a post that declares all Christians are serial killers. Of course, this is all rhetorical derring-do. What Steven is actually saying is the evil, liberal Hollywood goes out of it's way to portray Christians in a negative way. Which might or might not have an itty-bit of validity. Although I take issue with his thesis that all movie baddies are Christian. Hannibal Lecter was certainly a secularist, for instance. The Christian cross is a time-honored weapon against Hollywood's favorite monster — the vampire. See, Steven, not all Christians are serial killers. They're pedophiles. [bighollywood.com]

Left-Wing Loonybird Weeps For Terrorists: Radio Free Europe interviews a godless hippie liberal who thinks Terrorist Club Med should be closed, and that captured evildoers shouldn't be "extreme shampooed." Why does this prancing fruit hate America so much? Also, the man who expresses these opinions is none other than US Central Command commander and Iraqi "surge" architect General David Petraeus. What the hell is going on? What next? Cats and dogs living together? [rfel.org]

Then, last night, he swung by Sean Hannity's sound stage*…

.
And then, this morning, he was on Fox and Friends…

.
So, he's obviously making the media circuit in descending order of intelligence. I wonder what's next on his schedule? Too bad The Tony Danza Show isn't still on the air.

.

* Watching that clip made my brain hurt. I can't even imagine what it must be like to get your world view from Sean Hannity. With the sense of reality you'd be left with, how would you even manage to perform basic everyday tasks?

The Colbert Report airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30pm / 10:30c.

That bit of disappointment aside, Nate Silver looks at how his approval ratings so far match up with other presidents this far in…

Wow, this is really telling. Only two slots below the great George W. Bush. That's pretty badass. On the other hand, he's just one slot above Ronald Regan. Yuck.

Check out JFK all the way up top with a 73 percent approval rating. Now there was a guy who knew how to make a house out of fellatio.

Delicious fellatio.

…a panel that isn't aimed at creating American jobs, or helping people stay in their homes, or improving national security, or supporting the troops, or holding bank executives accountable for their actions…

…a panel whose only task is to plan a "celebration" in honor of a celebrity who died a few years ago…

…a celebration with an estimated price tag of $1 million…

…would you be outraged? Up in arms about the porky waste?

Of course not!

It's for Ronald Reagan.

When The Harris Poll asked a cross-section of adult Americans to say whom they admire enough to call their heroes, President Barack Obama was mentioned most often, followed by Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King.

Wow, that's pretty impressive! He's up there with JC and MLK. President Obama should consider that a real honor.

I mean, it's not like he's also up there with people like the worst president in modern American history, an airplane pilot who's most famous for crashing a plane into a major city's river and an egomaniacal holy woman who built her reputation on the backs of the poor people she was supposedly helping?

Others in the top ten, in descending order, were Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Abraham Lincoln, John McCain, John F. Kennedy, Chesley Sullenberger and Mother Teresa.

Oh.

Well, it's still pretty cool to be named, I'm sure.