Josh Brolin sounding ridiculously defensive over a two-year old movie on Jimmy Kimmel:

“They want to criticise it because you think it’s Oliver Stone, it’s Josh Brolin, who people perceive as very, very left wing, which I’m not necessarily. They think it’s gonna be heavy hitting; it’s gonna be, like, a sledgehammer on George Bush and we didn’t do that.

“We wanted to know the guy that never should have been president and probably should have run a baseball team – and been very happy doing it.”

Brolin insists the Republican friends who did see the film were surprised by it: “They were like, ‘It’s kinda sad, isn’t it?’”

The actor has heard that Bush himself saw the film – and liked it. ….

“I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I love him, like, two in the morning in this blue glow of sitting at home and, like, maybe tears coming down his face.

Like, why does Brolin, like, talk like a fourteen year-old girl?

And wasn’t it just yesterday he was gushing like a groupie over Howard Zinn’s smile?

Anyway, if I remember correctly, the real problem with “W.” is that it sucked and that Brolin sucked in it.

Josh Brolin’s plays impersonates Bush in a way that’s off the chart silly and stuck on swagger and nervous chuckle. One-dimensional doesn’t begin to describe it. How could any serious actor or director miss that one of Bush’s most impressive strengths as a politician has always been how comfortable he is in his own skin. Brolin’s playing some other man, someone tightly wound in dire need of Ritalin.

The performance isn’t bad, it’s just … odd.

In a polmic filled with forehead slapping moments, Dick Cheney’s (Richard Dreyfus) speech in front of a Middle East map making the case for war in Iraq is the topper. All that’s missing is a white cat for the Vice President to stroke. Yes, Cheney’s portrayed as a Bond villain plotting the takeover of the world and its oil supplies (I wish).

Second place in the Inane Department is the normally reliable Jeffrey Wright who plays Colin Powell as an automaton of virtue. Powell’s futile but impassioned war room speech warning against the pre-emptive war (with Karl Rove in the shadows behind him) would’ve been a howler of bloated self-importance without the tinkling piano score backing it up, but with it I could’ve sworn I heard the ghost of Stanley Kubrick groan.

Yes, I remembered correctly.

Of course David Letterman did jokes on it almost every single night. Conspicuously absent on Letterman this week were the Ruth Madoff jokes about switching to Geico® and California Pizza Kitchen®.  The Bernie Madoff joke this week (Monday and Friday) was how a call girl is the only person who actually made any money off of Bernie. He also jumped on the joke Jimmy Kimmel started last week about Obama’s Bingo Pants, but of course, Letterman’s joke was at the expense of people who might look more appropriate in Obama’s pants (Hillary, Rosie O’Donnell, Chastity Bono). Kimmel did a redux, and claimed he doesn’t want a President in tight jeans, he just wants a President that shops in the men’s section.

I’m debuting a new award this week, The Heartbeat Away from a Joke Award. Since most comics have been taking the safe route when going after the Administration, I’m no longer crediting Joe Biden jokes as Obama material. Instead, there will be a separate category for Biden jokes disguised as Obama jokes. Jimmy Kimmel claimed, that after Obama’s health-care press conference, Joe Biden filled in the other 59 minutes making balloon animals.

Funniest Obama Lines of the Week: Surprisingly this goes to David Letterman: A woman in Mexico was arrested for practicing dentistry in the Garage, “Welcome to the Obama Health Plan … only a trillion dollars in three easy payments of $333 billion a month.” He also claimed that of the 14¢ a day Bernie Madoff gets for sweeping floors, “8¢ goes to pay for the Obama health plan.” “The original Astronauts of Apollo 11 visited Obama in the White House and said claimed the moon was ‘cold, desolate, barren, foreboding, it was creepy..’ Obama said, ‘You don’t have to tell me, I’ve got my mother-in-law living in the White House!’”

Lamest Attempt at Obama Jokes: The clear Winner was Jon Stewart: “Obama has been President for six months, and the Fairies that we were sure would ride on his wings and solve all the worlds problems have failed to materialize. Where are the world-fixing fairies, Obama?!”

Most Overused Person as a Punchline: Gidget, the Taco Bell Chihuahua, whose passing was marked by Letterman: “Died of a ruptured Chalupa.” Craig Ferguson: “Laid to rest in a crispy tortilla with a scoop of sour cream.” And Jimmy Fallon: Last words were: “Yo Quiero Morphine!”

Runner-up was Amy Winehouse, whose new perfume raised some uncomfortable odiferous metaphors from Ferguson: “Just go sleep in a dumpster, for a week.” and Letterman: “In case you want to smell like a holding-cell mattress”

Second runner-up was Sarah Palin. Her resignation twice inspired Letterman to do the joke about her “waving” to Russia. She also took heat from Kimmel who said, “She will be leaving us completely unprotected from the Russians …she said she is going to divide her time her time between traveling to support Conservative causes and learning how to pronounce the g at the end of words…I admit I’m going to miss her, for a late-night talk show host, a woman like Sarah Palin only comes around once in a lifetime.” (Gee Jimmy, have you noticed that the current occupant of the White House likes to drop his “g’s,” as well? Especially when he wants to pretend he was actually raised on the South Side of Chicago.)

I’m also debuting the Missed Opportunity of the Week, which goes to Kimmel. Jimmy completely ignored a press conference incident where Obama called on a Steve Koff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, got a question from Steve Thomma of McClatchy, and read his prepared answer for Steve Koff. Kimmel could have nailed the President, (or ignored the incident completely like all the other hosts did). Instead, Kimmel ran a video of Obama calling on Steve Koff, who was depicted as a man who couldn’t stop coughing. (I’m STILL laughing at that one!)

The Most Interesting Interview this week was not an interview but an appearance. I’m going to give props to my buddy Dobie Maxwell, who made his network television debut on the “Craig Ferguson Show.” Bias, you betcha! Self-serving? Well, if you mean because Dobie is part of the Comedian News Panel, Jerry’s Kidders, every Saturday morning at 11am Central on WGN AM 720, the Voice of Chicago – along with Tim Slagle, Ken Sevarra and Jerry Agar? Certainly! You think I’m a trusted newsman like Jon Stewart? I’m a shallow opportunist!

And speaking of opportunists: It seems that a lot of the late nights can still only find humor in the opposition party. Which segues nicely into the Writers over Shoulders Award. Letterman and Kimmel both claimed that the opposition to Obama’s health-care reform was solely from the Republicans because there was no coverage for breast implants on their mistresses (Letterman) or girlfriends (Kimmel).

Runner up goes to Maher and O’Brien, who both suggested that Sgt Crowley tried to arrest Barack Obama (because he’s BLACK, get it?) Maher went the furthest, claiming Air Force One was pulled over for a broken tail light, and Sgt. Crowley asked to see Obama’s birth certificate.

Oldest Presidential Joke: This again goes to Stephen Colbert who claimed, “President Obama associates with burglars (Skip Gates)… he’s a much better President than I thought (show picture of Richard Nixon). Which leads us to…

The Angriest White Man: Bill Maher who devoted his entire monologue to the Skip Gates arrest. Strange that he claims to be against racial profiling, but his entire monologue was based on a straw man profile of a typical white (meaning: racist) police officer. Would someone please send a copy of the police report over to Maher’s writers? His “comedy” was based entirely on untrue suppositions:

He was coming back from China–who breaks in to a house with luggage? (Gates was inside when police arrived). Crowley said Gates was threatening him — of course he was threatening, he was an educated black man. (The police arrested him for creating a disturbance, not threatening a police officer.)

Maher continues, “Barack Obama apologized for saying the officer acted ‘stupidly.’ What he meant to say was ‘retarded.’”

Once again, I envy the Left for their ability to use words that have been banned from my vocabulary. Especially when I’m reviewing someone like Bill Maher.

The big topics of the week were Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the presidential fly killing:

The election of Mahmoud was compared by the talk show hosts alternately to the 2000 Presidential and the 2008 Minnesota Senate elections. Fallon claimed that now that his opponent lost, he’ll go on to make a documentary about Global Warming.  David Letterman actually did a joke almost every single night, changing the punchline from Florida voting machines, to Pat Buchanan, Al Gore, Al Franken and Jeb Bush.  Bill Maher used Norm Coleman then criticized his audience for not knowing who he was talking about. The funniest line was Ferguson’s who claimed that Iranian politics have finally gotten as corrupt as Chicago.

Ferguson and Conan get the Writers Over Shoulders Award for making a joke about the fly being eaten like a lizard.  Ferguson speculated that it would be done by Cheney, while Conan put a computer animated tongue in the president’s mouth, snapping the fly off his wrist. Kimmel gets an honorable mention for putting a sound effect of flatulence behind the video so it looked like the President was trying to fan the odor away.

The Most Overused Person as a Punchline goes to Thomas Prusik Parkin, the man who dressed up like his dead mother to collect her social security check. David Letterman accused both Elton John and Barry Manilow of dressing like their mothers on alternate nights. The funniest line he said was that he was so good at dressing up like an old woman that Ashton Kutcher wanted to date him. (He told a similar joke the following night, saying if he wanted to look like an old woman he should have dressed up like Madonna.)

John McCain buying a hybrid was another big story of the week getting attention from Conan, Fallon and Letterman who used it for ageist jokes. Letterman claimed that a Hybrid to McCain would be a horse and buggy while Conan claimed that to McCain, hybrid meant an AM/FM radio. Fallon claimed that seven months ago he couldn’t use a computer, but now he’ll have a hybrid and a twitter account; perhaps he’s the new Benjamin Button.

Jimmy Fallon reached all the way back to an administration that predated his talk show career to deliver the Lamest Attempt at an Obama Joke, claiming that George Bush tried to one-up the new President by killing a fly himself, but it took 20 minutes of clumsy two handed swatting. There were also a couple Bill Clinton as a predator jokes during the week. But the Oldest Presidential Reference goes to Stephen Colbert, who ran Richard Nixon’s quote about Bohemian Grove being “faggy.”

Most of the week’s Obama material centered on the fly. One exception was Jon Stewart who derided the President for trying to fix Health Care in the middle of a war on two fronts and trying to keep the nation from looking like it did in the Grapes of Wrath. But the Funniest Obama Line goes to Conan who claimed that while President Obama was on the phone talking to Phil Jackson and Dan Bylsma, Joe Biden got to talk to Tito Jackson and a real penguin.

The Most Interesting Interview of the week was Governor Mike Huckabee on the Jon Stewart Show. Governor Huckabee very clearly laid out the constitutional pro-life position for the Daily Show audience. Stewart, was defenseless against a rational case for the rights of the unborn, especially since Huckabee’s position was not based in religion, zealotry or misogyny–the straw men Stewart usually attacks. His audience also appeared stunned, as they were not able to perform their trademark trained seal-clap more than a couple times during Stewart’s humiliation.

The Angriest White Man is still Bill Maher, who after a brief flirtation with moderateness, struck back at those of us who congratulated his criticism of Obama. In a remarkably unfunny rant, Maher warned Republicans:

And as far as you folks on the right, who think that we’re now somehow in league: we’re not in league. I was criticizing Obama for not being hard enough on the corporate douchebags you live to defend.  I don’t want to be on your team, pick another kid.

Gee, all we did was compliment him for being fair.

Besides Letterman, perhaps there might have been another threat issued down to a host last week. It seems David wasn’t the only one, who had to apologize to his “sponsors.”

Since my last review, we saw: A stand up comedy routine that was apparently gleaned from the mistaken assumption, that jokes about President Bush were standard Correspondent’s Dinner protocol. President Obama also announced his plan to save the auto companies by forcing them to raise their prices thirteen-hundred dollars (proving He has less business sense than the cartoon Wal-Mart slasher). He appeared on stage with a handful of people beholden to bailout money in a photo-op that looked very much like a hostage situation. Photographed on stage with Governors’ Granholm and Schwarzenegger, you had to guess which leader actually had a US birth certificate. He also broke his promises to end military tribunals, release the interrogation photos and suspend don’t ask don’t tell. He proved that He had as much problem speaking “Mexican,” as he has with “Austrian,” and promised to drastically slash the overdrawn budget by a whopping 1/2 of 1 %.

(BTW: Blogger Jim Blazik has been compiling a list of Presidential gaffes since He took office, and you can really get a sense of how much the Late Night Comedians are ignoring just by the amount of time this page takes to load.)

Something strange happened this week. Neither Letterman nor Ferguson made any reference to anything really political. Ferguson did a couple fluff jokes about making Presidential candidates sing rather than debate and that Larry Craig never hit on him. He also intimated that the show was filmed a week ago, to air last night, so perhaps Worldwide Pants gives everyone the week before Memorial Day off and neither host wanted to do any material, that might date the show. Strangely, Kimmel avoided political material as well. Jimmy Fallon did only one mildly political line about Obama and Cheney giving competing political speeches: “It’s kind of like American Idol, except one of them got voted off months ago.”

There seems to be some sense throughout the talk shows that hosts are perceived as partisan hacks. Not only did many of the shows avoid political topics, Bill Maher had TWO Republicans on a panel for the first time in my memory (Amy Holmes and Richard Brookhiser). The audience seemed quite off balance, since two well-spoken conservatives are awfully hard to shout down. Left-wing weekly writer Dan Savage was able to get a few clap lines in by calling Bush and Cheney war criminals from time to time, but it almost seemed forced and pathetic.

There were two twofers Wednesday night: Stephen Colbert, was a guest on Letterman and Bill Maher was on Leno. Colbert avoided any political jokes on Letterman filling his time with lighthearted chat about an upcoming USO tour and growing up the youngest of 11 children.

The other two-fer was Jay Leno (whose reign in the Tonight Show chair is rapidly coming to a close – Last Show, May 29th) who hosted Bill Maher. Bill seemed perplexed. He implied that his audience on HBO is a monster he can no longer control: ”Every week I get booed. I get booed by my own audience, constantly. Because, you know, I don’t know if they really follow politics that closely. What they know is Obama good, Bush bad…Obama is not some infallible Chocolate Jesus. That’s Kanye West you’re thinking of.” (He also referred to the President as The Chocolate Jesus on his Friday show, a reference that I would like to see a Republican attempt to get away with).

The Most Interesting Interview of the evening was on David Letterman. GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, came on the air to rebut some of the false accusations made about GM three weeks ago when Tesla inventor Elon Musk was on the show. Lutz stated that despite contrary opinion, GM’s electric car program was suspended because it was a technological and financial failure. He also said that GMs problems have nothing to do with their inability to make economical cars because:

“The way you create shareholder value is to produce vehicles that people want; and at two bucks a gallon, you couldn’t give small cars away in the United States; and this fiction… where the American public wanted small highly fuel efficient vehicles, that happened for four months during 2008 when gas was over four dollars a gallon… this idea of the government mandating strict fuel economy standards, at the same time that we have the world’s cheapest gasoline is like combating national obesity by forcing clothing manufacturers to make only small sizes.”

Jon Stewart handily took the Lamest Attempt at an Obama Joke with the only other real Obama line of this review, claiming that Obama is the only President that can turn a speech about fuel economy into the Gettysburg Address: “Mileage? Save it for when the Chinese invade!”

“Saturday Night Live” wrapped up their season Saturday by bringing in some of the more popular cast members from the days when it was funny. Will Ferrell and Darrell Hammond reprised their Bush and Cheney shtick, taking this week’s Oldest Presidential Joke Award.

Amy Poehler dropped by to do another “Weekend Update” with Seth Meyers,and reprised their “Oh Really” segment. What sparked their outrage last Saturday? The fact that Arizona State University refused to give His Presidency an honorary degree because they feel he hasn’t achieved enough.

Writers looking Over Shoulders Award  went to Both SNL and Bill Maher for highlighting this presidential snub, both complaining that ASU is one of the biggest party schools in America (Maher: “This is the school strippers are referring to when they claim they are working their way through college.” ). Both shows laughed off the claim that he hasn‘t achieved enough by pointing out that Obama is the first black president.

Wow, that’s an achievement? Being president certainly is, since only 43 Americans have ever held the title, but being black is simply an accident of birth not an achievement. Unless of course, you are the administrator of an affirmative action program.

The only other mention SNL made of Obama the entire night was during the “Jeopardy” sketch (which was actually quite funny) One of the categories was “Current Black Presidents.” (That was the entire joke, the category was never even selected).

Most Overused Person as a Punchline was a tie between Nancy Pelosi (Collbert, Maher Leno) and Michael Vick, who found his way into 3 different talk shows. Leno said he has to stay 100 yards away from Snoop Dog; Fallon claimed that he hated jail, being locked in a cage where everyone is fighting; Letterman said while he’s under house arrest, he’s going to have to STAY…STAY.

Carrie Prejean gets an honorable mention as she was used for a punchline several times on Bill Maher’s show alone. (She’s becoming Maher’s new Bush.) She was also brought up on SNL: “Who would have thought Donald Trump would side with a hot lady who likes to take her top off?”

The Angriest White Man Award  goes to Bill Maher for the second week in a row for a couple of mean ignorant lines. In his New Rules segment: “Joe the Plumber and Carrie Prejean must have a one night stand in order to produce the ultimate Right Wing icon, a born-again, anti-gay, war-mongering blue-collar beauty queen. Oh, they’ve already got one? (picture of Sarah Palin).” He also called Miss Prejean “retarded” (and suggested that she might be Sarah Palin’s daughter because of that.) He also called President Bush retarded on Jay Leno, and was bleeped out.

The Grand Prize goes to Jay Leno, who started off his set by hitting three lines clear out of the park: “‘I watched the season finale of “24″ with Nancy Pelosi. You know? She couldn’t remember the first 23 hours …didn’t remember any of the torture …NONE of it! — Hey, President Obama has found a way to quickly close Guantanamo Bay. He’s going to turn it into a Pontiac dealership. — Oh, and a Vice President Joe Biden is on a trip to Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo. The White House is calling it ‘Operation Keep Biden Away From the Microphone.’ I think he goes to Antarctica next.”

What a strange day it is when Jay Leno is most political comic on Late Night.

Is the honeymoon over? Have we perhaps entered into the phase of His Administration where the satirists feel comfortable enough to resume the grand tradition of mocking the President? Indications seem positive. Pajamas Media pointed out that John Stewart actually ripped the President fairly good over his Iraq policy (and made me wonder why Code Pink has vanished from the scene). David Letterman actually delivered a good Obama line on March 4, but then followed it up with a series of Dick Cheney jokes (shot in the face, waterboard, pacemaker…) and a Rush Limbaugh pain killer joke. (full monologue here.) Strangely, he  repeated two of the jokes the following night ( Bernie Madoff saved money at Geico®, and the octo-dad should get out).

On Monday March 23, I did a review of the Late Nights to see how much things have changed, and whether anyone wanted to take a stab at Obama’s “Bowling in the Special Olympics” joke. I reviewed   Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, and Craig Ferguson, (Mercifully,  Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert both had the night off, so I didn’t have to watch either.)

The Octo-mom is still a big topic for humor (Kimmel, Letterman, Leno) as are the AIG bonuses (Leno Letterman, Fallon, Ferguson). Both Jimmy Fallon and Jay thought that the 114 year old man arrested for marijuana was a good topic, and not surprisingly, both Letterman and Ferguson talked about Letterman’s recent wedding.

Fallon and Ferguson were mostly apolitical, Fallon told eight jokes, only one vaguely political, about Michelle Obama growing a vegetable garden: “You KNOW the economy is bad, when the Obamas are planting vegetables.” 

Craig Ferguson’s only political joke (besides a mock interview with a Governor Schwarzenegger impersonator) was about the President’s appearance on Leno: “I’m bitter ’cause he did Jay. What the hell was wrong with you? You seemed so smart!” (I’m fairly certain, he was referring to the Special Olympics remark there.)

Nobody else mentioned that remark. Even Jay Leno completely ignored that he had created a controversy. He mentioned the “60 Minutes” interview, but with a lame joke about how every time Obama mentioned the Great Depression, the CBS correspondents would break into a grandfatherly lecture about how you kids don’t know the Depression: “I’ll tell you what it was like during the Depression… we ate sandwiches made of DIRT!” Jay’s only acknowledgements about the Presidential interview was, “The Stock market is up 500 points. I guess Obama listened to the economic advice I gave him. Got a call from Joe Biden. He asked me ‘What’s it like to talk to the President?’”

Jay did do a couple of rather funny lines about AIG: “..the bonuses were actually $218 million, they misplaced $53 million. Senator Chris Dodd said, ‘That wasn’t a campaign contribution?’…Congress is now investigating special treatment. Senator ‘Dodge’  (that’s what we’re calling him now) got from Countrywide Mortgage. He didn’t know he was getting special treatment. Gee, how would the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee KNOW what the lending rate would be?”

Marginally funny, but I give Jay’s writers a lot of credit for starting to pay attention to some of the things the Right has been railing against for months. Leno also hit the funniest Obama joke of the night with: “He filled out his NCAA bracket, got 14 out of 16 right. That’s better than his cabinet appointments!”

He then followed it up with a bit called “What’s George Bush Doing Right Now” and ran a video clip of a George Bush impersonator, having a plastic light-saber fight with a Dick Cheney impersonator in a Darth Vader cape. Cheney grabs his chest and falls over, Bush looks both ways then high-tails it out of there.

Jimmy Kimmel opened with four mindless jokes about contestants on different reality TV shows, then came down fairly hard on the President. (The LAST President, of course). He claimed that George Bush would now be giving speeches for 150 thousand dollars each, “A lot of money for a guy that can’t speak… well it’s actually 125 thousand, and 25 thousand if you want to throw shoes.” He then introduced a video gag where the president was now part of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, as “George the President Guy.” He showed clips of the President’s misstatements in between clips of  Ron White and Jeff Foxworthy, and a wildly laughing audience (Coming to a Red State near you!)

Letterman  mentioned Obama’s appearance on “60 Minutes.” He apologized profusely for His Presidency, since the stresses of the office were beyond the ability of any human to bear (“I wouldn’t give His troubles to a monkey on a rock!”) He showed a clip from the “60 Minutes” interview, with a balloon animal hat superimposed over Obama’s head to make it look like he was going crazy. 

He startled me for a second, when he mentioned the teleprompter: “Critics are now criticizing his use of a TELEPROMPTER [mouths a silent WOW!] Okay, maybe he should think about stepping down!”

He introduced a new video bit called “Teleprompter vs. No Teleprompter.” First he showed a clip of the President eloquently reading a speech from the teleprompter. For contrast he showed a clip of a helpless stuttering President, clearly at a loss for words. President BUSH, that is. I was incredulous. There is no reason to mine the past administration for comedy, since that hole has been stripped dry for quite some time. Especially with such a plentiful reserve in the current administration. In five seconds, I can find at least three videos of the new President stuttering off teleprompter miserably.

Perhaps their connections to CBS news could have found the missing tape of Him thanking Himself for inviting all the wonderful people to the St. Patrick’s event, or even a clip of his Special Olympics joke. But no, the writers over at Letterman, decided the funniest contrast, would be to resurrect their old “Great Moments in Presidential Speeches” shtick. It is my opinion, at that exact moment David Letterman officially became a hack. (Perhaps HE should think about stepping down.) Or he could slide into retirement gracefully. We could find a theatre in Branson Missouri, where he could toss out gags alongside other comics who have also found it difficult to update their acts.

Acts like George Wallace. In his embarrassing set on the Craig Ferguson show, he raved about the historic change that America saw on January 20th, then led the audience in a chorus of “Na -Na Na-Na, Hey-Hey, Goodbye” in honor of the departing President Bush (This wasn’t a rerun by the way; I do know that Ferguson does tape the comedian spots well in advance of their actual airing, but by all indications, this show was taped yesterday afternoon.) After that, Wallace launched into several George Bush jokes that were already quite old when Bob Hope was telling them about Gerald Ford: “George Bush got this country so screwed up, people sneaking INTO Mexico. … (They’re paying him) 7 million dollars to write a book. Largest amount of money ever paid for a pop-up book. … All you white people, y’all were laughing at Aretha Franklin’s hat. Never been to MY church, have you?” 

Wow. For all the criticism that Jay Leno gets for pandering to the lowest common denominator, it is amazing that only Jay is keeping his monologues relatively current.  

And for the second time since I’ve started these reviews, the award of the week goes to Jay. 

Check out Tim Slagle’s CD “Europa” on Amazon and iTunes

The Pelosi video never made the mainstream press, but it did make YouTube. Today, the Internet is a great place for comedians to find set ups. The Christian Bale video was such a hit on TMZ that six out of seven Late Night shows used it for jokes last night (Ferguson abstaining), as was the story of Sheyla Hershey, the woman with the 38KK breasts (Ferguson, Letterman, Conan and Leno all bagged this one). Letterman was so smitten with those pumpkins he used them as an excuse to tell another George Bush joke (Texas now has the world’s three biggest boobs).

The old ways are dying hard. Colbert went into the vaults, all the way back to 2000, for a Bush/Gore joke. Jon Stewart did a Bush joke, as well. Ferguson set a record for Day 15; going way last century with a Bill Clinton joke (Clinton will lead the investigation into the accidental showing of porn during the Super Bowl). Stewart and Leno did Joe the Plumber jokes, Letterman did a couple Dick Cheney jokes and a Sarah Palin joke. 

The tax situation has been a godsend to Late Night writers. Now they can make fun of the administration without having to actually go after Him. Six out of seven hosts (Kimmel abstaining) found humor in the tax problems of Obama appointments. The funniest was Conan, who suggested the stimulus package could be cut by $50 billion if Obama’s cabinet just paid their taxes.

Also, Joe Biden is shaping up to be a favorable target for the Late Nights. Jon Stewart dropped a line (“How can Obama be any more embarrassed over his appointments? He picked Joe Biden as the Vice President!”), and Craig Ferguson did an extended interview with a Joe Biden impersonator who couldn’t help but make politically incorrect remarks, one of which was a joke about the size of the President’s ears. This was one of the few jokes made about the President that night.

Kimmel did a sight gag about Obama trying to quit smoking (and failing miserably). The boldest attempt at an Obama joke was Letterman’s “A Day in the Life of Obama,” a formula bit, where he breaks down the President’s day, hour by hour:  ”1 PM: Smokes in bed. 2 PM: spends forty -five minutes, just being cool. Man that guy is cool. He’s the new Steve McQueen!” The strangest part of Letterman’s take on the President’s day was “11:30 PM: Checks out Late Show’s lame piece: ‘A Day in the Life of Obama,’ and concludes comedians still can’t write a decent joke about him.” I congratulate the writers for at least acknowledging their deficiencies.

So what about the Pelosi video, the one that originally forced me to sit through six hours of Late Night “entertainment?” Leno’s was the only show that noticed it. He said it was obvious that someone must have shot the Botox a little too deep. Congrats Jay, you get the star.