Unlicensed artisan Sam Wurzelbacher, known to most Americans as “Joe the Plumber,” has gone from interviews on CNN/MSNBC/Fox News everyday and being the only talking point of a major party’s presidential campaign to much higher vistas: an interview with the Tufts college newspaper and the single most important journalist since Mencken, Michael Bendetson, “a freshman who has not yet declared a major.” Joe explains that he will never have any success doing anything popular again, except for that weird blog and book. MORE »

How many times has John McCain told this awful joke about sleeping like a baby? (He goes to sleep for two hours and wakes up crying, wokka wokka.) Answer: ONE MILLION TIMES. But now that he is not threatening to run our country, he does not seem so terrible! He is a pleasant, sassy older gentleman, the distant relative you like sitting next to at Thanksgiving dinner, until he has one too many glasses of sherry and starts telling you about the hot Jewess he dated back in Casablanca, during the war. [The Tonight Show]

Here’s jolly CNN anchor Rick Sanchez asking “Fast” Joe the Plumber a buncha questions he’s already been asked several times a day since he became the McCain campaign’s raison d’être. Talkin’ about taxes. Then, around 3:40, Sanchez abruptly lists every example of how Joe the Plumber is a lying fraud and a dick. He also makes fun of Joe for being poor on numerous occasions. MORE »

Hark, what arriveth in our inboxes? It doth verily appear to be a “peggy noonan” Google Alert! What pleasures cometh our way on this Holy Day of Eleckt. We all remember that fateful day in 2006 when Peggy Noonan first chanced upon a Mexican — how her quill flowed, then! — but now Ms. Noonan has broken another barrier: speaking with a Mexican. And not just any Mexican, either: Kathryn Jean “K-Lo” Lopez, the former office secretary of National Review! What results is a tempestuous sojourn into the black heart of the American bizarre. MORE »

The Republican equivalent of being sent to the gulag is babysitting Sarah Palin, and this thankless task has fallen to former Bush staffer and current McCain employee Nicolle Wallace. What unspeakable sin did Wallace commit in order to be saddled with this terrible burden? Only History will tell. But for now she insists it is awesome to hang out with Sarah Palin all the time, and also she did not buy her all those clothes like Fred Barnes said she did. MORE »

Wonkette videographer and local hero Liz Glover covered an Obama rally Wednesday in Leesburg, a rich person’s town in Northern Virginia. Who cares what Obama said — probably HOPE HOPE HOPE BLAH PFFT — Liz was more interested in the McCain-Palin fans who showed up just to stare at all of the liberals. Here’s one fella she met, a professional in the very reckless industry that is currently destroying the global economy, thanks. He is worried about “Socialism” and hates all of the Illegal Mexicans with whom he, uh, works. [YouTube]

After demonstrating her ability to flub an interview with literally anyone, including third graders, Sarah Palin made sure she had some backup in her talk with NBC’s Brian Williams. She took along her running mate, John McCain! But still, when Williams asked her, “What, in your mind, is a ‘precondition’?” as it pertained to meeting with dictators, she went all woogly about those who would seek to destroy America, blah blah blah. In other words, SHOCKER, she does not know what a precondition is. MORE »

If you haven’t yet read this latest Palin interview with conservative hack Hugh Hewitt, we have some advice: do not bother reading her answers, at all — only the questions. Unlike mean sexist Charlie Gibson, fiery “gotcha journalist” Katie Couric, or any other interviewer that Palin has made respectable, Hewitt’s questions are FAIR to the nice lady. Our favorites include, “Governor, your candidacy has ignited extreme hostility, even some hatred on the left and in some parts of the media. Are you surprised? And what do you attribute this reaction to?” and “Have you and Todd heard from your son? And how is it on your nerves having your son deployed?” [Hugh Hewitt]

A couple of days ago, Jonathan Martin mentioned a particularly disturbing SECRET video that CBS News was sitting on from the ongoing Couric-Palin Sessions. Palin, supposedly, was asked some question about the Supreme Court and couldn’t discuss any other case beyond Roe Vee Wade: “There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.” Of course Jonathan Martin and his media vulture friends are all rumormongering liar Muslims who like smearing Palin because of racism and blood fetish. Then again, CBS has released some of the questions Couric asks in tonight’s installment, and one of them is: “Why do you think Roe v. Wade is a good or bad decision? What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?” Ruh roh. Although maybe Palin was only silent because CBS then started airing the Michelle Obama Whitey Tape?? [TPM Election Central]

John McCain went to Iowa yesterday and talked to the editorial board of the Des Moines Register (why we don’t know, that paper is very important for about two months every four years and is otherwise just your garden-variety moon colony fishwrapper). The exchange gets testy over the issue of Sarah Palin’s creds, and we see what Jonathan Martin calls “an emphatic, combative and at times surly John McCain.” It’s clear that this Des Moines editor lady is in the tank for the black. Oh we remember this lady’s voice! She moderated those two INCREDIBLY BORING Iowa afternoon debates last December, remember? Alan Keyes was in one? No? We’ve been doing this too long… [Jonathan Martin]

Because she’s masochistic, Sarah Palin went back for more inquisition with her MORTAL FOIL, the ancient fire dragon Katie Couric. Of course this time she brought her actual father, John McCain, to come and sit in and change the subject when Katie Couric starts getting mean. Palin sounds, uh, better(?), and is able to not completely mangle her 2002-era platitudinous bullcrap about “the terrorists.” On the other hand, Palin comes off as extremely pathetic because JOHN MCCAIN HAS TO DEFEND HER CONSTANTLY FROM KATIE COURIC. [YouTube]