MCCAIN CAMPAIGN CENSORING REPORTERS The Straight Talk Express has apparently been derailed: "Reporters weren't permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park in Clearwater to talk to Palin's audience, the St. Petersburg Times reported. When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head to where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out, confront him or her and say, 'Can I help you?' and turn the person around, Times staff writer Eileen Schulte wrote on the paper's Web site. When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn't allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written, Schulte reported."

Which godawful stunt did you watch last night? The one in which David Blaine, notorious cheat, hung on the monkey bars like a weird, magical third grader, or the one in which vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin tried to dodge Katie Couric using every last trick in the "Unprepared Student" handbook?

Click through for the highlight reel.

Our favorite parts are at :50, when a toughie from Couric is met with complete silence before Palin then repeats her previous answer, and at around 4:30, when, after Couric asks Palin to give specific examples of the famously anti-regulation McCain "reforming" Wall Street, the Alaskan Governor literally says: "He's known as THE MAVERICK, though." (SERIOUSLY, THIS FREAKIN' LADY SAID THAT UNIRONICALLY!) When Couric very reasonably asks Palin to quit dodging and give some examples, Palin replies, all folksy, "I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring 'em to ya." Thanks, Sarah! You do that; we've got all the time in the world.

CONTINUED »

Hey, Megan McCain, before ever again going on national television to say things like "No one knows what war is like other than my family—period," you should pick up a newspaper and read about the thousands of other people – both Americans and foreigners – killed and wounded in America's wars. And then you should find a book about how most veterans don't come home to piles of money and tremendous power like your brothers and father did, and how some of them have to cope with this while on street corners, begging for change. Finally, seek out a magazine article about how some people go and risk their lives for a college education similar to the one you no doubt considered a foregone conclusion. Once you've done all that, shut your fucking mouth.

Seriously, are these people just trying to see how much they can insult the intelligence of the working class and still get its vote? Is this a goddamn game to them?

OK, we know that by now everyone's as tired of Sarah Palin as the wolves the Alaskan governor uses airplanes to chase to the furthest reaches of her snowy state. But this Daily Show clip – an infuriating tally sheet of conservative mendacity – is simply too good not to post.

And before anyone starts to complain about how we've grown into single-minded meanies, note that this clip knocks the media much more than it does Sarah Palin.