Nov. 11, 2008

HOLLYWOOD--God bless America, and how’s everybody?

• Sarah Palin brushed off gossip by anonymous McCain aides Thursday. They called her a hillbilly who spends money like crazy and thinks Africa is a nation, not a continent. It’s the best impression of a Powerball Lottery winner anybody ever saw.

• San Francisco officials decided Friday to build a suicide prevention net under the Golden Gate Bridge. There are environmental concerns. Between the stock market crash and the ban on gay marriage, all the splashing has begun to annoy the sea lions.

• Quantum of Solace with Daniel Craig as James Bond opens Friday. It tells why the spy became a womanizer. James Bond became a womanizer for the same reason Clark Gable and Errol Flynn became womanizers, because respect for women doesn’t sell tickets.

• London attorney Fiona Shackleton was hired by Madonna last week to represent her in her divorce from director Guy Ritchie. She also represented Paul McCartney and Prince Charles. The only way to beat an attorney that good is to die with nothing.

• New York’s disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer was spared federal charges Thursday over his hooker scandal. We all owe him an apology. Eliot Spitzer was the top cop on Wall Street, and as soon as he was forced to step down the thieves ran wild.

• Barney the Scottish Terrier bit a White House reporter who reached down to pet him Thursday. The doctor immediately put the reporter on antibiotics. Barney must be a chemical or a biological weapon because President Bush is about to be overthrown.

• President Bush met with Barack Obama in the Oval Office for official briefings Monday. It made quite a picture. The most unbelievable thing about Barack Obama’s election as president is that my hedge fund manager correctly predicted it a year ago.

• Barack Obama’s election as president was hailed by newspapers in world capitals last week. It certainly sends a different signal to our adversaries in the Third World. Fidel Castro has outsmarted 10 presidents but it’s gotten progressively easier.

• Rahm Emanuel was named the next White House Chief of Staff Friday. He delights in his reputation as a bare-knuckle partisan infighter. He’s been called vengeful and mean and temperamental and foul-mouthed, and that’s just his mom bragging about him.

• Antigua’s President Baldwin Spencer renamed the highest point in his island nation Mount Obama Friday. That country has always revered Democrats in the White House. Once they wanted to name the peak after President Clinton, but Mount Anything That Moves didn’t fit on the map.

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai blamed Taliban gains on the record poppy harvest Friday. Opium profits give them more money than they can spend. California’s budget problems would be over if we could just loosen up a little and let farmers be farmers.

• Dick Cheney went to Andrews Air Force Base’s medical center on Saturday to get his knees X-rayed. It’s the falling price of oil. He just heard from his blind trust and they advised him to get everything taken care of while he’s still got insurance.

• Guns and Ammo magazine reported Friday there’s been a surge in sales at gun stores this fall leading up to the national election. It’s pop culture. When Paris Hilton was hot, women everywhere wanted a Chihuahua, now they want to shoot moose and get pregnant.

Argus Hamilton is the host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. He can be reached for speaking engagements by e-mail at [email protected].