The race to fill Ted Kennedy’s ample seat in the Senate is heating up like a corpse in the summer tide! (Sorry, Denby.) Curt Schilling, world champion quarterback for Boston’s “Mighty Ducks,” loves George W. Bush and jacking off in bloodstained sock, so he is qualified to be the Republican candidate. Schilling, heir to his family’s spice fortune, joins a crowded Republican field that includes former Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey and pretty much nobody else. MORE »

DENBY ON THE OFFENSIVE: Hey, England! Don’t let the Bearded Sack of Lies pull a fast one on you, too, with this secret “U.K. release” of the tragic fapping pamphlet Snark. We would never make a joke about Ted Kennedy or Chelsea Clinton! [Guardian]

By the Comics Curmudgeon
If there is one thing guaranteed to enrage America’s arbiter of good taste, it is making any kind of snide remark about Ted Kennedy when he is ill or, in the current case, dead. Naturally, this rule has been flouted relentlessly for the past two days by the crassest, most awful people in the world, which is to say political cartoonists. Who are these heartless monsters, and why do they try so very hard to ruin our national conversation about how much we love Ted Kennedy? MORE »

Have you ever had a holiday vacation on Martha’s Vineyard? So boring! Once you get over the “Ah and there’s where Ted Kennedy crashed his car and drowned that lady” historical thing — sorry, Denby! — you realize it’s just a place full of crappy tourist shops and terrible humid boiling weather and a bunch of ugly gated beach mansions surrounded by swamps, bogs and discarded “lobster rolls.” How to jazz it up? Barack Obama decided to go on the teevee to announce what everybody already knew he was doing: giving Ben Bernanke another term. MORE »

We will tread lightly here, lest we fall beneath the Malignant Eye of Denby, but: Christopher Dodd has early stage prostate cancer. The good news: if you had to have your pick of cancers, “early stage prostate” would probably be right up there on the list, as it is highly treatable and pretty much every human male, if he lives long enough, eventually gets prostate cancer anyway. So fear not, Connecticut! You will likely have a Senator Dodd for many years to come, particularly if you re-elect him. [Washington Post]

WELL THAT IS PRETTY GODDAMN SNARKY: “[H]e looks like a dumpling in a wig.” What an awful thing to say about Russell Crowe, the Ted Kennedy of acting! [The New Yorker]

Everyone remembers Dallas, Georgia’s mayor, Boyd Austin, whose wacky friends are always fiddlin’ with his Facebook status and posting confusing jokes that are just comprehensible enough to be considered in poor taste. Boyd: be warned that there is this uneducated boomer film critic in New York who will probably write a book about you when he sees this. [Creative Loafing]

Did Rachel McAdams grow a terrorist neck-beard for her role as newspaper “gossipeuse” Ken Layne? These questions, and more: “Russell Crowe is in strong form as a star investigative reporter definitely of the old school, deftly handling the time-honored cliches of being poorly-dressed, ultra-messy, overweight, and driving a decidedly unstylish car. Rachel McAdams plays up the clash between the classic newspaper culture and the blogosphere as the Washington paper’s political gossipeuse a la Wonkette. Crowe nails her with some apt zingers about blogging stereotypes — all attitude and opinion, sensationalism and shallow facts — and they develop into a good team.” MORE »

Just two weeks ago, fancy “old gray woman” the New York Times produced a comical document instructing its various blog editors to Avoid Snark Or Die. Really, they did this, at the NYT. “What should be avoided in all of them is any hint of racist, sexist or religious bias, or any suggestion of nasty, snide, sarcastic, or condescending tone — ’snark.’ If something could easily fit in a satirical Web site for young adults, it probably shouldn’t go into the news pages of nytimes.com.” Ahem. MORE »

Doctor Howard Dean got a new job! He will be a “regular contributor” on CNBC, the important business channel which features idiots screaming at each other all day as the stock market does whatever it does — up some days, down some days, etc. Today he did a guest-hosting deal, on some CNBC show. Maybe he’s on right now, who knows! You see, only idiots watch CNBC. It’s a place for cocaine addicts and self-hating day traders and insane old people who think they can “beat the market” and actual retarded people who grab the phone away from the nurse and yell “BOO-YAH.” In other teevee shout-y news, Chris Matthews will be on MSNBC for another four years, which means he won’t be running for the Senate or whatever. [Sam Stein/New York Times]

Let’s look at Commentary magazine, the famous neocon rag now edited by John Podhoretz, who can be easily analogized to Bill Kristol, I guess, for having a much more intelligent and talented father and then sort of soiling the family legacy in the name of pride and stupidity. Or hey, for a more zeitgeist-y example Ms. Meghan McCain is also a good comparison. So, John “Blogette” Podhoretz is the Meghan McCain in this situation and Commentary is his monthly Twitter. What has Meghan Podhoretz been tweeting about as of late? Foreign policy, the economy, and, what’s this, long-time New Yorker intern David Denby, whose first foray into cultural relevance has been an unmitigated disaster. MORE »