Obama on Letterman

Below is video of Senator Barack Obama on Letterman last night [transcript], which, despite my earlier criticism—and one more I'll make that he needs to stay the hell away from jokes like "But, you know, [lipstick on a pig is] a common expression in at least Illinois; I don't know about New York City. I don't know where you put lipstick on here," because, irrespective of intent, that sounds like some drag/transphobic shit right there—had some good moments.

His bit about how the McCain campaign has conceded Obama's framing, that the election is about change, was really strong—

[U]ltimately what we've seen over the last week is a concession on the part of the McCain campaign that this election is going to be about change. You'll recall, you know, for the last two years, we've been talking about needing to change how Washington works, how the country is managed and people were saying, 'No, it's about experience, experience, experience,' and over the last week and a half I think they recognized that, no, the American people want something fundamentally different and for a good reason. Because when you travel, it doesn't matter whether you're here in New York City or a tiny hamlet somewhere in the Midwest, what you find is people are just having a tough time right now. The economy is not working for middle class families, incomes have gone down, people don't have healthcare, you've got foreclosures all across the country, and so people want something different, and whoever makes the better case that we have had enough of the last eight years, we need something fundamentally new, whoever makes that case to the American people will be the next President

—as was the bit about how Bush told people to go shopping after 9/11 when he should have asked them to invest in alternative energy:

[After 9/11, in] the United States, there was just this outpouring—you remember, people wanted to do something, and, you know, George Bush asked them to shop, and if we had instead said, 'You know what, we are going to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil,' or, you know, 'We are going to create the kinds of energy-efficient economy that will allow us to weaken the forces of terror,' that could have made an incredible difference and I think you could have mobilized the American people around bold plans on energy that would make sure that we weren't continuing to be in the situation we're in today.

He needs to hammer those memes hard, and leave the lipstick jokes to Jay Leno.

And "It's Disneyland, man" totally made me LOL.

(See, that's the thing—he can be funny without the lipstick jokes.)

Watch if for no other reason than to remember a time when we had presidents who could speak in coherent sentences and string them together into fully-formed ideas that make sense—and ponder the possibility that day may yet come again. What a concept.