When Rome burned people enjoyed watching the fiddler, and now that this country is more effed than ever before, we enjoy watching SNL. According to a new report in Variety, “SNL has experienced a hefty bump in the Nielsen polls this election season, boasting a 50% gain over last season’s first two episodes.” The political climate has to be the reason, because it certainly wasn’t Michael Phelps’s mush-mouthed delivery or the searing star power of James Franco that got people to tune in. No, it’s because the cast of characters who parade across CNN on a daily basis are so ripe for parody. There’s McCain, Palin, Hillary, and Obama, and all of them are just begging to be made fun of.In fact, SNL’s brand of political comedy is so hot right now, that NBC’s gonna give you the opportunity to choke on it. Not only are there four original episodes in a row to lead off the season, but starting on October 9th, there will be three special primetime Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday editions, which will run behind The Office. Will they really be able to get Tina Fey to do her Sarah Palin impression that many times before she has to return to 30 Rock? We hope so, because Darrell Hammond’s McCain and Fred Armisen’s Obama are kinda meh. Of course, it’s not just SNL that’s reaping the benefits of all the political insanity. Variety says,"The Daily Show is coming off its most-watched week in history, averaging 1.9 million viewers last week — up 28% from last year.” And Colbert and Real Time With Bill Maher are doing great too. At this point, network executives must be trying to get this election postponed indefinitely so they can keep making fun of it. Sound crazy? Well, McCain did just suspend his campaign. Hmmm...

Thank god John McCain solved the financial crisis! Earlier today his campaign was downplaying the importance of a debate, once again arguing that the fact that Barack Obama refused to do 10 Town Halls with him meant that it was Obama's fault that McCain was ditching tonight's debate, and they even floated the idea that an all-Obama interview/town hall would be illegal. But in the end, they blinked. The debate is on. The "suspended" McCain campaign is un-suspended. McCain's bizarre political "Hail Mary" accomplished nothing, except for pissing off a late night talk show host and maybe helping derail a bipartisan political compromise. The McCain campaign statement, after the jump:

Were John McCain's web team pulled away from their desks yesterday to throw their shoulders into the Wall Street bailout? The Popeye-like Senator's site still promises a debate with Barack Obama on Friday, and several more next week. I haven't been this stumped by a candidate's behavior since Ross Perot flipped out in October 1992.

Did you cancel your debate party? Ha, ha, you are a nerd. But wait, un-cancel it! Or, uh, postpone it? Honestly we don't know what to tell you. Yesterday, John McCain "suspended" his "campaign" in order to fix the economy, and as part of that suspension he backed out of tomorrow's scheduled presidential debate. But Obama said the debate is still on! And Ole Miss (they are sponsoring the debate) also said they are going to still sponsor this debate! So... what? They can't reschedule. The TV networks don't want to move their fall schedules around to accommodate John McCain's crazy whims. Further, the event itself is the result of months of planning and involves massive security and making sure the moderator's free that night and getting all the cameras there on time and so on. So, no, they can't just decide to have this another night. Unless, of course, they reschedule the debate to take place the night of, say, the Vice Presidential debate! DON'T DENY US THAT TREAT, JOHN MCCAIN. If McCain Doesn't Show? If John McCain doesn't show up tomorrow, Obama will just have an interview, by himself, with Jim Lehrer, or he'll have a townhall, or both. So. Now that the House and Senate have reached an accord on the historic bailout agreement, McCain is going to maybe have to make a decision of some kind, regarding this debate, lest he look like even more of a fool (seriously, no one but Bill Clinton thinks he looks like anything but a fool). Some people say McCain will probably show up to the debate now, but the man is stubborn and petty (which is why he did this in the first place!). And right now, he's not blinking (they NEVER BLINK at ANYTHING). "There's no deal until there's a deal. We're optimistic but we want to get this thing done," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said. Of course, there sorta is a deal, now. But maybe it's not a deal McCain likes! McCain Will Probably Cave So McCain will probably show up tomorrow, to debate Obama. Because if he doesn't it's free airtime for Obama alone. He's painted himself into the stupidest corner ever! Because this plan he had nothing to do with crafting might work, in which case he looks like a grandstanding idiot, or else it will fail (maybe because of Republicans!) and nothing will get done and he'll show up to the debate regardless and he'll look like a grandstanding idiot. Then Sarah Palin will accidentally answer a question again and America will cringe and weep. (Because we are a nation of whingers.)

Late-night host David Letterman—who dropped his usual Midwestern bonhomie to drub John McCain yesterday evening—is not the only national institution to be overtaken by partisanship this election season. If only in jest, the New York Times crossword makers are being accused of favoring McCain's Democratic rival. While "Obama" has appeared as an answer several times, the Republican candidate hasn't been honored once. What's the Times' excuse? "It is because ‘Obama’ is a five-letter name that alternates vowels and consonants," a spokeswoman tells Politico. "It’s got three vowels out of five letters, starting and ending in vowels. So it is much more crossword-friendly than ‘McCain,’ which is a harder word to put in a crossword." And that explanation will do precisely nothing to mitigate conservative suspicions of a newspaper so rooted in New York that even the crosswords are liberal.

Rupert Murdoch seems to have transferred his politician crush from Barack Obama to Sarah Palin. His tentative support for Palin (and her obscure running mate) on the financial meltdown tonight evolved into a "quite chummy" run-in at a charity gala for the Manhattan media elites Palin claims not to care about. Murdoch gave Palin a pat on the back and said "thank you very much" as Palin left the gala, while Palin wore the "radiant smile" of not caring, according to a media pool report summarized by Politico. And to think that just four months ago Murdoch called Obama a "rock star." What happened?

Hey mister ever heard of the LAW??! Okay, so if you want to really hurt your brain, try to figure out why some rogue trader(s) on the fun "bet on anything" site InTrade would be purposely spending good money to drive the price of Barack Obama Victory stock down? To a price that anyone who pays attention to the prices of Obama contracts on all the various meaningless virtual internet stock markets could easily tell you was a suspiciously low one that in any sane rational world would be quickly bid back up by arbitrageurs?? FiveThirtyEight suspects a "degenerate idiot" who obviously doesn't take the efficiency of liquid markets seriously enough.Manipulating markets for the LULZ, perhaps? We'll keep you posted.

Obama on tv earlier responding to the McCain debate stunt: dangerous crisis, lots of blame to go around, everyone has to help this crisis, swiftly. It seemed like the joint statement he was supposed to release with Maverick McCain before McCain ran away to Washington to get in the way! Obama said he had a conversation with McCain today about the joint statement. "When I got back to the hotel, he was already on tv." Jesus Christ. In re. debate suspension: "I thought this was something he was mulling over, it sounds like this is something he was decisive about." Obama sounded like he's going ahead with the debates. More (paraphrase): "We both have big planes, they can get us from Washington DC to Mississippi pretty quickly." FURTHERMORE: John McCain's at CBS right now! No time for debating, always time for Katie Couric!

Ok, so this is sleazy, right? Barack Obama and John McCain were on the phone today trying to put together a genuinely non-partisan joint statement on the economy and the necessity of some sort of "package" to fix this mess we're in. Obama called McCain to suggest this at 8:30 this morning. NBC: "McCain called back six hours later and agreed to the idea of the statement, the Obama campaign said. McCain's statement was issued to the media a few minutes later." That is seriously a dick move! Hey: "'The debate is on,' a senior Obama campaign official told ABC News." So there's that. [Earlier]

Seriously? Seriously. Fuck, okay: the country sits on the precipice of the Greatest Depression and Barack Obama is slated to share his elliptical regimen for a Men's Health cover story. Yes, the presidential candidate Barack Obama; yes, the magazine edited by the guy who can't spell Barack Obama but that totally doesn't matter because his diet book is becoming a multimillion dollar lifestyle brand, dudes! Um, congrats Obama Campaign! You have officially (through no fault of your own) reached a nadir, no "ha."STOP TALKING ABOUT HOW YOUNG AND VIGOROUS YOU ARE. For one thing, the American public does not be able to read above a second grade level to notice that John McCain is fucking old. For another thing, a lot of them do not know how to read above a second grade level so you are going to have to work extra hard to explain this financial crisis to them. McCain just backed out of your Friday debate; good, no one wants to watch that shit on Friday in times like this anyway. Use this time. Remember all that crap you said about Ronald Reagan being a "transformative" candidate the way he shifted the national debate so irretrievably to the right? You got shit for that, but you were right. Never again would a federal government possess the ideological capital to tax the wealthy or regulate their engines of wealth creation to a societally optimal degree. UNTIL NOW. But no one's making sense right now. No one is capturing this quite clearly. No one is capable of synthesizing this particular historical watershed in way that can build the political capital necessary to reshape American ideology the way you can. And we have to reshape our ideology, in order to get Americans on both sides of the aisle to get on the same page about the gravity of national problems more complex than, like, the Obesity Epidemic. So please, DO IT. Write a speech. Make it good. I know you are tired; I know you are worn out. But so was John McCain when his plane got shot down and he broke those three limbs and he had to swim eleven miles so the North Vietnamese could commence refusing to set his fractures and shit! Don't forget that! Get a good night sleep, and focus! And think about skipping the workout. People always say working out "gives" them energy but actually scientifically that is less true than saying that cutting capital gains taxes and repealing short-selling regulations "helps" the working class.

The League of American Patriots, a New Jersey-based white supremacist organization, is apparently distributing these leaflets in Roxbury, New Jersey. "Do you want a black president," the paper asks, noting that Haiti is very dangerous. Sigh. The Smoking Gun has the full-sized copy of the flyer in case you want to get pissed off at some barely relevant neo-Nazis. THEY JUST WANT ATTENTION, GUYS. You know, like the attention we're giving them right now! This will probably help Obama, because it's basically the literal version of the subtext of a million "legitimate" conservative anti-Obama lines (lol inexperienced). Ha ha MEANWHILE the United Auto Workers is maybe (maybe!) sending out literature to Michigan union members announcing that Obama "was raised by all white people." Which, uh, at least the union is... factually more accurate than the internet rumors, right? National conversation on race time! Those always go well!

Barack Obama is ahead by nine points, according to a new poll by ABC News and the Washington Post: "The tanking economy is fueling a surge for Barack Obama, who has jumped to his biggest lead of the race yet over John McCain." [NYDN]

After giving short shrift to Barack Obama on two major broadcast TV shows Tuesday, Bill Clinton could hardly mention the Democratic presidential candidate's name enough on the basic cable Daily Show Wednesday. Perhaps comedian Chris Rock's well-aimed barbs in Clinton's wake on Late Show With David Letterman got through to the ex-president. But when host Jon Stewart brought up the Letterman incident, Clinton said Rock and other critics miss the point.

This really weird ad decrying "The New Communism" ran on A17 of the Times today. It was paid for by some plutocrat in Houston named Bill Perkins who supports Obama. I think it advances my general contention that some of the fiercest critics of the Washington-Wall Street complex are actually beneficiaries of that whole scam, because Perkins's firm Crystal Energy LLC would appear to be precisely the sort of outfit to which God instructed Sarah Palin to fast-track lucrative contracts decimating the environment in pursuit of cheap energy.But I don't actually know because today's Senate hearing cut his CNBC interview down to about one and a half seconds. In any case, I hope the Times still has a Houston rep who can take this guy out to dinner. Who knows, maybe he can rustle up some other likeminded rich guys with money they'd be wiling to give newspapers now that capitalism as we know it has been suspended.

This Friday marks the first presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. Debate previews are available pretty much everywhere (this one's fine) but honestly you should probably just watch this clip. It's from the 2004 Illinois Senate race, when Barack Obama was up against Maryland talk show host and certified insane genius Alan Keyes. Keyes is talking about gay adoption, and how it leads inexorably to incest. Nothing on Friday will be this entertaining. Oh, those debate preps they're doing? Obama is practicing against some ancient lawyer dude. This is maybe a mistake because the lawyer dude is probably way more well-spoken and, frankly, Obama-like in his answers than McCain will be, but whatever. McCain is debating Michael Steele, who is entirely unlike Barack Obama in every way except for one important thing: his time spent as a college professor. Ha ha ha, just kidding, it's because he's black. This is to teach John McCain not to seem quite as contemptuous of the black guy as he actually is. (Oh wait, update—McCain says now they won't use Steele! We're sure Alan Keyes is available! Do it!)

As in his appearance on the View, Bill Clinton offered the most tepid support possible for Barack Obama's presidential ticket on David Letterman's Late Show last night. After repeatedly invoking his vanquished wife Hillary, Clinton said the typical American voter will recall John McCain's heroic torture in a Vietnamese prison camp before deciding to "go the other way" and vote for... whoever that other candidate for president might be. In an inspired feat of booking, Letterman had comedian Chris Rock lined up to follow Clinton and, uh, remind him who won the primary. Video after the jump.

Bill Clinton will appear on David Letterman's show later tonight, but he gave a sneak preview of what he might say earlier today on the View. Don't expect the former president to come out swinging against Sarah Palin the way he did against Barack Obama during the primary. Asked a question that tied sexist treatment of his wife during the Democratic primary to supposedly sexist treatment of the Republican vice presidential nominee now, Clinton didn't utter a peep to challenge the shaky premise that Palin has been seriously hurt by a sexist media. Instead he talked about what a powerful force sexism has become — more ignored than racism, even! (Click the video icon to watch the clip.) But this doesn't necessarily mean Clinton is still bitter toward Obama.

♦ Vanity Fair's Dominick Dunne was taken to a Las Vegas hospital today after he fell ill while watching the O.J. Simpson trial. [AP]
♦ People.com passed TMZ last month for the first time with 11.5 million visitors, thanks to pics of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's newborns. [WWD]
♦ Hard to believe it if you've been watching the news this past week, but financial journalists say they're "parsing their words with unusual care." [NYT]
♦ MTV has given the greenlight to a "sex-themed series for teens and their parents" featuring Dr. Drew Pinsky. [THR]

This ridiculous gun-owning man whose voice sounds like Keith Olbermann's crappy Bill O'Reilly impression, is concerned that Obama will tax his guns and ammo, which has something to do with gas prices. Obama voted to ban deer-hunting ammunition! "Where is this guy from?" gun guy asks, in what is the single least subtle attempt to paint Obama as a Muslim foreigner ever. (Where is he from? Canada? Saudi Arabia?? San Francisco??) This is a real-life NRA ad that will run in Colorado and New Mexico. Our favorite part is the Dick Cheney-looking guy loading up a rifle as a fat kid stares at him. Enjoy your precious freedoms, assholes!

Media gargoyle Rupert Murdoch is savvy enough to run News Corp.—one of earth's premiere evil empires—like one of your more aggressive 19th Century robber barons, and he's savvy enough to pretend that he's in favor of government oversight when that's the thing that obscenely rich people have to say. Despite the fact that Murdoch hates any kind of regulation almost as much as he hates sunlight, he went on his zero-credibility Fox Business Network network to half-heartedly support horror-eyed Veep hopeful Sarah Palin's equally half-hearted calls for increased government regulation of the nation's financial institutions. “I think they have been sending out different signals, but I think what she says is right," he said. "Clearly, there has to be some more regulation, but we have to be careful what that is. It could make things a lot worse. The more you get the politicians in that don't know the first thing about banking, even less than me, and God knows what might come out of it.” As for Barack Obama's calls for regulation? Well, he's just being silly. "[H]is policy of anti-globalization, protectionism, is going to be—and card checks—are going to do two or three things. It's going to give us a lot of inflation. They're going to ruin our relationships with the rest of the world. And they are going to slow down the rest of the world, too. And they're going to make people frightened to add to employment. You are going to find companies leaving this country if it's—if you put a protectionist wall around it. You're going to get—his policy is really very, very naive, old-fashioned, 1960s." [THRFeed]