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The Daily Show opens Panderer’s Box (strong language):

The Daily Show goes to the Pollies — the Oscars of political advertising.

John Oliver: A candidate like Barack Obama has a hopeful glow about him. How would you extinguish that?

Ben Chao: It’s pretty simple. The first thing you would have to do is to undercut people’s ability to truly hope for his vision. So, if you undercut the vision of Barack Obama, you take away hope.

Stephen Colbert says McCain and Clinton’s “gas tax holiday” doesn’t go far enough.

I’m sure you’re asking, folks, how will we pay for unlimited free gas? Well, the answer is simple: I don’t care. Besides, have you forgotten about a little thing called our grandkids? Because they are very generous, even though they don’t know it yet.

Imagine, if you will, that it is January 20, 2001. Inauguration Day. George W. Bush is beginning eight years in the White House.

Now, imagine that you have a pair of magic binoculars, that let you look into the future. While Bush is taking the oath of office, you sneak a quick peek, and what you see is this Newsweek cover:

In America, we are still debating the nature and extent of anti-Americanism. One side says that the problem is real and worrying and that we must woo the world back. The other says this is the inevitable price of power and that many of these countries are envious—and vaguely French—so we can safely ignore their griping. But while we argue over why they hate us, “they” have moved on, and are now far more interested in other, more dynamic parts of the globe. The world has shifted from anti-Americanism to post-Americanism.

Okay, now imagine that it’s January 20, 2009, and that John McCain is being sworn in as president. Once again, you’ve got the magic binoculars. Do you really want to look into the future and see what America will look like after another four or eight years of Bush policies?

Amazingly, we still have power to change that view of the future.