Harry Shearer / Le Show Receive Federal Bailout

Ahead of the nation's automakers and subprime mortgageholders, humorist Harry Shearer and his Le Show radio program have received a generous bailout package from President-elect Barack Obama. Heard locally on KCRW, 89.9, Santa Monica, Le Show has for the last 16 years depended on two recurrent serials, Clintonsomething and phone calls between 41 and 43 (the senior and junior Georges Bush) for much of its mirth, and audience.

With the election of Barack Obama, Le Show, however, appeared headed for comedic Chapter 11. After all, how far can one go airing Apologies Of The Week? Deprived of its two hit staples, the extent of Le Show's impending woes were only fully revealed this morning when the versatile voice-artist delivered an absolutely 'brown bag' impersonation of the new President. Hopeless.

The nondescript phone-distorted voice of the Illinois senator was heard successfully negotiating with Hillary Clinton to become the next Secretary Of State. The ever-resourceful Shearer, having prevailed upon friends Bill and Hillary to take the cabinet post, then used today's episode to launch a revamped version of one of his most popular long-running satires.

Clintonsomething: The Obama Years will, hopefully, provide Shearer's Sunday morning show with sufficient chuckles to bridge any laugh deficits before the next election cycle. Which begins in early March.

THE ANNALS OF POLITICAL INOCULATION -- The Clintons Soprano Spoof

You saw it here first! Running Obama's Campaign - The Clintanos --May 27th, 2007

Did the above photo and post inspire The Clintanos Spoof now running on Youtube?

They may have tons of political baggage, but you've got to admit they're smart!

In the above post the Weekly Green Planet complained (while posting the above photoshopped photo) that the New Yorker and Connie Bruck had conveniently, amnesiacally ignored a major Clinton scandal in doing its recent profile of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. We also suggested it was a self-interested 'oversight'. The New Yorker, we surmised, has reasons to keep its close ties to Bill and Hill.

But the photo hit home in so many ways. Like Carmela, Hillary is more admired and respected if less loved than her Mafioso husband. And Hillary has silently benefitted from his MacBeth-ian ruthlessness, overlooked his "whooring", hid the money -- Whitewater, the Rose law firm, the stock profits --and is every bit as tainted.

So, if you're a Clinton operative, what do you do to combat this? Remind people that you know and love these characters, flawed as they are. And do it first, before the opposition does!

That's what the Youtube "spoof" is about. It's phenomenal political theater.

Who knows, maybe Democrats "Don't Stop Believin'"and will take that Journey.

But it's a poor bet and a sure bumpy ride. So why, with Barack in the wings, or even John Edwards?

William Jefferson wasted four years of this planet's precious time explaining why he couldn't keep it in his pants and Hillary will spend four years jousting with a vast right wing conspiracy while making Margaret Thatcher look like the Ivory Girl.

The smart Dems are humming "Won't Get Fooled Again!"

RUNNING BARACK OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN (PT. 2) -- The Clintanos

Tony Bill Clinton Soprano and his lovely wife Carmelary

enjoyin' happy times in t'erapy together

Granted, Connie Bruck's "Fault Lines" article in this week's New Yorker is hardly a paean to Tony Villaraigosa. It paints Los Angeles' new mayor as a man terminally on the make. "They'll never get me," he's quoted as saying, "I'm like Bill Clinton."

But is it really possible to write a long profile about our new mayor without any mention whatsoever of his efforts to get Bill Clinton to pardon Carlos Vignali's crack dealer son? This incident was publicized even before Villaraigosa got the hots to run for mayor in 2001, and it may well have cost him that election. Perhaps it's an innocent omission.

Admittedly it's an "old" scandal and then you'd have to remind readers Hugh Rodham received 400,000 dollars as a fee for Vignali's son's eventual pardon (yes, of course, he did get it from Bill) and that Hugh is Hillary's brother and I suppose that might have tilted the article a smidgeon to far from the Left Coast, making it a shade too parochial, too local, too... New York.

So why annoy Bill, or readers who are Hillary supporters? (Do I smell a bigger profile in the works -- one of the New York Senator?)

Then don't raise an unpleasant ordure. Wait until she gets nominated and let the Republicans do it! This kind of wisdom has cost us winnable elections in the past. And some Democrats might prefer a candidate who doesn't have to continually rise out of the slime.

Is this being too hard on the Clintons? Well, did Monica, Whitewater, the Rose law firm and that messy bit with the pardons at the end have anything at all to do with Pope W's election?

The sarcasm, if you haven't noticed, is thick here. Today's Sunday New York Times notes that Hill was among the last of the major candidates to withdraw from the Fox News-sponsored debate planned for next September, and you need only look to last weekend's "Eco-Tecture" issue of their Sunday magazine for broad hints of how spotty the Clinton environmental record was, including extremely luke-warm support of Kyoto.

As was presciently suggested by the Weekly Green Planet months ago, yes, Fabian Nunez, one of the two prime movers in advancing the date of the California primary supports Hillary.

Trailing in Iowa, her staff cleverly leaked a memo yesterday so she could scotch the rumor she's going to ignore Iowa while laying the predicate for its irrelevance. Basically, she has to give it less attention because that's what the primary season is going to demand of her. Not that she had anything to do with it.

Harry Shearer's public radio show LeShow has long enjoyed twitting the C's with a sound-alike spoof he calls "Clinton-Something". I'm looking forward to their last installments, hopefully this year.

But if they, the Clintons, garner the Democratic nomination he should rename and reframe it for another soon-to-be-defunct TV show -- The Clintanos -- with B. eating big bowls of ice cream and taking care of the family business while Carmelary is off building her spec house, a white one, in Washington.