Gossip BlogAds Network Bargain BlogAds Network

Archive for the 'Politicos' Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »
14
Oct

If Obama Can’t Beat Video Games…

By Simon Scowl 27 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Entertainment and U.S. Left-wing Politicos

Barack Obama, as quoted in the Washington Post, Feb. 2008:

I know how hard it will be to alleviate poverty that has built up over centuries, how hard it will be to fix schools, because changing our schools will require not just money, but a change in attitudes.

We’re going to have to parent better, and turn off the television set, and put the video games away, and instill a sense of excellence in our children, and that’s going to take some time.

Today’s Wired Blog:

In their eternal quest to capture the youth vote, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has taken to the streets of Burnout Paradise, filling the game with billboards promoting the presidential hopeful.

“I can confirm that the Obama campaign has paid for in-game advertising in Burnout,” Holly Rockwood, Electronic Arts director of corporate communications told virtual world fixture Wagner James Au.

“Put down that video game! But not until you’ve seen my ad…”

14
Oct

Vote! Just Not for McCain. If You’re Planning to Do That, Stay Home.

By Holly Won't 19 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists, Politicos, Teen Idols, Television Stars, U.S. Left-wing Politicos and U.S. Right-Wing Politicos

How many times do I need to say this?

Penn Badgley and Blake Lively from Gossip Girl star in a new McCain-focused ad from MoveOn.org, made in the style of an anti-drug commercial.

YouTube Preview Image

Yes, they really say, “Voting Republican even once can have disastrous effects that last for years.”

Now, before I get accused of being a “budding Republican” again, let me assure you that I am not. Deceiver is a nonpartisan blog but the accusation that I’m a Republican, budding or otherwise, is truly laughable.

That said, Dan and Serena would have been better off keeping their political views in their pants after appearing in this ad. Tell me, do they believe it’s still important to come out on Election Day if you’re voting for the other guy? All the dancing in the world couldn’t get me to buy that.

08
Oct

New Voting PSA Shockingly Features Left-Leaning Celebrities

By Holly Won't 21 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists, Movie Stars, Politicos, Television Stars and U.S. Left-wing Politicos
YouTube Preview Image

The Creative Coalition has been promoting an ad featuring tons of movie and television stars encouraging people to vote. (For those of you wondering, it’s similar in structure and production value to the one that Leonardo DiCaprio produced but the two are unaffiliated.)

It’s a point I’ve made before, but certain celebrities who appear in this video have a well-established record of supporting only Democratic candidates. Susan Sarandon, I’m looking at you. You too, Samuel L.

It’s one thing to get the word out and use star power to register young voters. But when the message comes from partisan players, it limits the PSA’s impact and makes it look like young people of a certain political persuasion are the only ones who matter.

Also, not a single Asian person to be found in the ad? Really? Yet they used Gossip Girl actor Ed Westwick — who I positively love, btw — and he isn’t even American.

03
Oct

Peggy Noonan Is Credibility-Ruinin’

By Simon Scowl 16 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Newscasters, U.S. Right-Wing Politicos and Writers

Just because the broads cupcakes girls over at Jezebel have gone bonkers at the very idea of a Republican woman in the White House (seriously: bonkers), that doesn’t mean they can’t sniff out a hypocrite who claims to be on Sarah Palin’s side. They’ve got a clip of former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan defending Palin and McCain on The Daily Show. Which would be nice if Noonan hadn’t gotten caught on an open mic last month saying Palin was toast. The same day she published a column in the Wall Street Journal praising Palin. Whoops!

Noonan has a point about professional political operatives. The latest unfounded Palin rumor that you can’t wait to drop in our comments at the mere mention of her? It didn’t just fall from the heavens, kids. You’re being manipulated. But for Peggy Noonan to complain about it? Look in the mirror, Peg.

01
Oct

Ashton and Demi Want You to Vote (for Obama)

By Holly Won't 23 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists, Movie Stars, Television Stars and U.S. Left-wing Politicos

Superstar marrieds Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are in the middle of a little tour of Iowa, that swing state with so many universities. Supposedly they’re doing a Rock the Vote type of appearance, just lending their star power to encourage college students to register to vote before the election.

Except then the couple put out this lame MySpace video, again telling people to vote … but this time, specifically for Obama.

I think if you’re going to be at all effective in registering more young people to vote, you have to be nonpartisan about it. You’re just losing credibility when you pretend like it’s important that all young people register and make their voices heard, and then you later come out and it’s clear you only care about one party’s members in particular.

Plus I still hate Ashton Kutcher for putting trucker hats on the map. Yes, I am a champion grudge holder.

29
Sep

Not Everybody Is as Impressed with Tina Fey as Tina Fey Is

By Simon Scowl 35 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Sports Figures and U.S. Right-Wing Politicos

Over the last few weeks, Tina Fey has managed to parlay her slight resemblance to Sarah Palin into something that has eluded Fey for at least 10 years: fame. And you know who doesn’t like it? Her fellow Greek-American Pete Sampras!

I know, I had to Google him too. He used to be a professional tennis player, and now he’s… a former professional tennis player. The other night some kid from TMZ followed Sampras around the streets of Malibu with a camera, because that’s what TMZ does, and Sampras raised the kid’s ire by yelling, “Go McCain!” Here’s the ensuing conversation:

TMZ: Alright, so you’re, like, one of my first people to ever get… say they were a Republican, or goin’ for McCain and Sarah Palin. What do you think about, uh, Tina Fey playing her on Saturday Night Live?

Sampras: I, I didn’t see it.

TMZ: You haven’t seen it?

Sampras: No.

TMZ: It’s all over the Internet, man.

Sampras: Really? I don’t know Tina Fey. Is she a Greek gal?

TMZ: No, she just won, like, 20 Emmys the other night for 30 Rock.

Sampras: What’s an Emmy?

TMZ: [laughs] “What’s an Emmy.”

Sampras: Well, I don’t, I, listen, listen, okay? I’m an athlete. I win or I lose. I’m not objective in votes and all that crap.

TMZ: Right, it’s all based on your skills.

Sampras: You figured it out.

TMZ: So, what do you think about the acting role? You think that it’s not based on her skill at all?

Sampras: They’re very skillful. I admire all actors. I just don’t believe in their political views.

TMZ: You don’t believe in their political–

Sampras: I don’t.

TMZ: You think, uh, sports people should take more of a political view?

Sampras: No, I don’t. Watch the car.

TMZ: You don’t think sports people should speak out? Nobody should speak out.

Sampras: No.

TMZ: Kinda like Kid Rock. He recently said that he doesn’t value any of their opinions.

Sampras: I don’t.

TMZ: Alright, man, well… I wish–

Sampras: Got that? You take that to the bank.

TMZ: I wish you, John McCain, and Sarah Palin all the greatest luck.

Sampras: Hey. Experience.

TMZ: Experience. Alright, man. Have a good one.

I’m not even sure what the point of all that was, but I just spent way too much time transcribing it, so I might as well post it. Maybe TMZ is saying that if you’re a former pro athlete walking down the street, and some dude from a gossip site starts bugging you and puts it up on the Internet, that’s the same as doing a sketch on SNL? Well, why not. Makes about as much sense as anything else this election season.

24
Sep

Lynne Spears Calls Public Treatment of Sarah Palin ‘Hypocritical’

By Holly Won't 58 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Bad Boys & Girls, Teen Idols, Television Stars and U.S. Right-Wing Politicos

I’m certainly no Lynne Spears apologist, but when she’s right, she’s right.

From a new interview with Newsweek:

You and Jamie Lynn got some negative press when she got pregnant so young. But more recently, 17-year-old Bristol Palin, and her mother, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, found themselves in a similar situation. And the public reaction has been different.

It’s a totally different reaction. It’s as if [Sarah Palin] became celebrated. I mean, the mother, Palin, was celebrated for this. Every woman in the world has applauded her strength and her convictions and poor little old Jamie Lynn—you saw how she was crucified. Everybody did, firsthand … I just feel like it’s been a very hypocritical situation.

Woman has a point. But I’m willing to wager that without a Jamie Lynn Spears gobbling up the headlines and tabloid covers last winter, the knocking up of Bristol Palin wouldn’t have gone over nearly so well. (Not that it went over perfectly smoothly, but the general reaction I witnessed seemed to be more along the lines of “oh, another pregnant teen in the spotlight,” instead of the collective disgust and horror that JLS endured.)

I disagree with all the media critics who said JLS glamorized teen pregnancy by talking about all the fun, cool parts of being a mommy, but she may well have legitimized it.

And of course, the Palins had the added benefit of some very media-savvy PR gurus masterminding the whole press rollout. Something that even Britney Spears bucks couldn’t buy.

21
Sep

John McCain Can’t Decide If “Greed Is Good”

By The Oversneer 22 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: U.S. Right-Wing Politicos

This week John McCain is convinced “greed” and “recklessness on Wall Street” are what appear to have replaced an awful lot of our currency with Monopoly money.

YouTube Preview Image

Enter Paul Krugman at The New York Times. Krusty the economic clown is usually not my favorite muckraker, but he has a point today. Apparently, before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took their respective dives, McCain wrote (or at least signed — you know some staffer actually drafted the thing…) a column for this month’s issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Here’s McCain’s money quote:

“Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”  [emphasis added]

More vigorous competition = the free market doing its thang, right?

Or, in the immortal words of Michael Douglas’s Wall Street character Gordon Gekko:

“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.”  [Click here for the video, and scroll to 02:41]

Yessir — greed and unfettered economic competition rock! Except when they turn out to suck, you’re running for President, and you’ve just written that they totally don’t suck. Then you have to kinda get all flip-floppy and hope the mere mention of fiscal policy makes us all reach for the remote.

Krugman nails Johnny Mac anyway (he doesn’t watch TV): “So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago.”

Fair enough. Although I note in the interest of completeness that since Barack Obama has apparently gotten $9.9 million from securities and investment firms, and McCain has raked in another $6.9 million, any time either one dares to bite the hand that feeds them, there ought to be a quiet little place inside each of us that cries: “Balls! I recognize those!”

19
Sep

Elizabeth Edwards Feeds the Monster Whether She Likes It or Not

By Simon Scowl 23 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: The Naughty Bits, The Washed Up and U.S. Left-wing Politicos

Longtime readers know I’ve been following the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter story closely, since way back when the “news” was refusing to talk about it for weeks on end. And you know I’ve tended to stay away from Elizabeth Edwards in this whole thing. Just a gut feeling. But the things she’s saying now…

When asked if she forgave her husband, Edwards said, “I don’t want to feed the monster, if you don’t mind.”

So that’s a no. If she forgave him, all she’d have to say would be “Yes.” She’d back up his claim on Aug. 8:

“With my family, I took responsibility for my actions in 2006 and today I take full responsibility publicly.”

Mm-hm.

18
Sep

Brad Pitt Likes (Approved) Gays

By Simon Scowl 18 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Movie Stars, The Naughty Bits, The Washed Up and U.S. Right-Wing Politicos

Variety reports — or, to use Varietyspeak, “Vari reps”:

Brad Pitt has donated $100,000 to fight California’s November ballot initiative that would overturn the state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage…

“Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn’t harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8,” Pitt said Wednesday.

Let’s hear it for our Homosexual-American brothers and brothers and sisters and sisters! Such is Pitt’s dedication to the idea of gay marriage that he and Angelina have vowed not to marry until everybody else can. (They’re not married, right? Or are they? It’s tough to keep up.)

But hold on a sec. What’s this?

YouTube Preview Image

That’s from some sort of tribute to Julia Roberts last year. Because obviously she hasn’t received enough accolades for movies like Runaway Bride, I Love Trouble, and Mary Riley.

Now, we here at Deceiver are hardly fans of Larry Craig. His public, um, stance on homosexuality is obviously at odds with his private, er, stance. But it hardly seems sporting to mock the guy for struggling with his deepest urges, when you’re throwing so much weight into, um, backing up gays everywhere. How about trying to understand what he’s going through and, in a manner of speaking, seduce him to seeing your side of things? If Larry Craig would pay attention to anybody, it’d have to be Brad Pitt. (A check for one hundred grand probably couldn’t hurt either.) Or are gay people worthy of respect only when they do exactly what you want them to do?

Still, that was pretty funny. Brad really can act when he puts his mind to it. Save something for your movies, Brad!

(Hat tip: Anonymiss)

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »
January 2009
M T W T F S S
« Dec    
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  

Months

Bookmark and Share
About Deceiver
CafePress

Top Ten Deceivers

Categories

Recent Entries

Track the Deception

people like you crave deceiver

  • "When it comes to rounding up John Edwards news and links, I can’t hope to compete with Deceiver." – Mickey Kaus, Slate

  • "Thank you for your awesome posts. Deceiver is by far the best new blog I discovered this year." – Yeeeah!

  • "I love you. This site is like Dlisted if MK read newspapers."  – reader Nanners

  • "Thank you for having the balls to cut through the spin and hype" – reader Kim Hee

  • "OH … MY … GOD … Can I come and work for you people?" – reader Spengman

  • "There must be some hardcore vegans running this site" – reader David

  • "It is nice to get intellectual about something that really has no bearing on anyone’s life" – Normality Restored

  • "Another blog filled with the angry ramblings of the jealous and envious" – reader wfc123 at Metafilter

  • "Interesting that most of the hypocrisy comes from popular and attractive women" – reader Joey at Metafilter

  • "Our new guilty pleasure blog" – BigHeadDC

  • "Love your site btw, i’m so through with all that nasty perez-like gossip based on nothing…" – reader Nathalie

  • "How did I ever live without the keen insights and cutting observations of Deceiver!? And I mean that sincerely... I love your blog. " – reader Teresa

  • "Deceiver.com is our newest obsession" – reader Judi

  • "I don't visit Perez Hilton anymore. I like Deceiver for the solid content, and the lack of spelling errors. Deceiver has a head on their shoulders, whereas Perez Hilton just has head!" – reader Stella