Bush does not seem to have a bulge on his back.

In the last hour or so, I've watched every human being even vaguely connected to politics say what they expect will happen with tonight's debate. I have no idea but I'm getting really tired of the phrase, "…first president to create no new jobs since Herbert Hoover." It's true…but Hoover didn't get mentioned this often when he was in office.

Fred Kaplan dismantles Bush's explanation of why the war in Iraq was right even though all the original reasons for it have been discredited.

Quite a few of you have written to tell me of silly recordings that made it onto the charts. Dave Kovarik and Dave Rutman both wrote that Steve Martin's "King Tut" made it to #17 in 1978. Chuck Berry's "My Ding-A-Ling" reached #1 — his only record to do so, says Jon B. Knutson and Jon also mentions Ray Stevens's "The Streak" from 1974 and Rick Dees's 1976 "Disco Duck." John Moore reports that Weird Al Yankovic's "Eat It" reached #12 on the Billboard charts in 1984.

Pat Kelly says that Allan Sherman's "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" did not reach #1 and also writes…

The last straightforward "comedy performance" record to make the top ten that I can think of is "Sister Mary Elephant" by Cheech & Chong, a top ten single in 1974. The indisputably #1 comedy single would be "The Streak" by Ray Stevens also in 1974, and probably the unarguably comic novelty track to make the top ten was Dickie Goodman's "break-in" track, "Mr. Jaws." There are certainly top ten hits with aspects of comedy in them since, I'd include "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot and the recent "My Band" by Emimem's side project D12, but I don't think either would qualify for Dr. Demento play status.

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd call some of the above "comedy records." Maybe "novelty records" would be a better term. All of them — except maybe the Cheech & Chong one, with which I'm not familiar — are all or almost all music, whereas "St. George and the Dragonet" was basically a spoken word recording. (By the way, is anyone on this planet familiar with the content of any Cheech & Chong records? The folks who never heard them obviously aren't, and the people who listened repeatedly to them probably don't remember that portion of their lives, let alone the comedy albums they heard.)

I doubt we'll ever again see a best-selling comedy single, at least all audio. If it happens again, it'll be an online video like the new one from the JibJab boys.

Hey, guess what the Number One record in America was on this date in 1953. It was "St. George and the Dragonet," a parody of the Dragnet TV show, lovingly spoofed by Stan Freberg and Daws Butler. It was so popular that they (and their female co-star, June Foray) flew back to New York and performed it on Ed Sullivan's highly-popular TV show. Not only that but Freberg did a tour of Australia and crowds cheered the record, even though it was at least a year before Dragnet was even broadcast in Australia. Stan claims that when he later toured the continent, people were telling him, "Did you know someone stole your idea and made a serious TV show out of it?"

I'm not sure when the last time was that a comedy record made the Top 100, let alone the Number One slot. Allan Sherman's "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh," probably. Maybe Weird Al Yankovic got onto the lower levels of the chart with one of his songs. Anyway, it's been a long time.

How will George W. Bush do in the debate tonight? It will depend on the new monthly jobs report that will be released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics later this morning. If they're pretty good, Bush will be able to sell the notion of a real economic recovery. If they're as mediocre as they've generally been, Kerry will have a tremendous advantage. And if they're down from previous months, Bush might as well not show up.

Very late Saturday night — or very early Sunday morning, depending on your attitude about such things — NBC reruns the full, 90-minute versions of old episodes of Saturday Night Live. These give you a rare opportunity to see the whole shows, since the reruns that air elsewhere (on E!, these days) are trimmed to an hour. NBC jumps around from season to season and this coming weekend, they're reaching back to 2/8/86 for the episode hosted by Ron Reagan. It's a fun show, as I recall, with the then-president's son dancing about in his skivvies in a parody of the movie, Risky Business, and also going back in time to meet his parents in a spoof of Back to the Future. But my favorite moment — and it may be one of the cleverest things I've ever seen on TV — was the guest spot by Penn and Teller, making their third appearance on the program.

The first time on, they did the bit where Teller is locked in a water tank and fails to escape on time. The second time on, they did the routine with Teller in the electric chair. And this time, they did…well, I don't want to give it away if you don't know it so I'll just say it's the one where they demonstrate amazing magic feats and make a big deal out of how it's all being done "LIVE!!!" If you know the spot, you'll want to see it again. If you don't know, trust me and set the TiVo or, if you want to be absolutely Stone Age about it, your VCR. I think it comes around two-thirds of the way through the proceedings.

Howard Fineman, whose past contortions to not criticize Republicans could earn him a featured spot in Cirque du Soleil, writes that George W. Bush is in trouble. Since I don't trust Fineman when he says things I don't think are true, I'm not sure I should put much stock in what he writes just because it agrees with me. But the mere fact that he's not out there spinning on Bush's behalf should cause someone to worry.

In the meantime, Benjamin M. Friedman delivers a cogent (I think) analysis of how the Bush economic plans differ from what Senator Kerry is offering. You might want to read this one as background material to tomorrow night's debate.

You may note that it's been a while since I linked to a political article that was not critical of George W. Bush. I haven't come across one that I felt was worth suggesting. But since I never think one side is wholly in the right, I'm open to nominations.

Here's a Windows Media File video of Ohio Congressguy Tim Ryan speaking on the floor of the House. He was voting in opposition to the bill to reinstate a military draft in this country but wanted to explain why so few people, himself included, are satisfied by Bush-Cheney assurances that it will not happen. It's a short clip so if you can play asx files, take a look. This is what Kerry and Edwards should be saying.

Fred Kaplan gives some hard data on how things are going in Iraq. If Bush and Cheney think they're going to sell our country on the idea that all is peachy and under control over there, they're wrong.

The Shubert Organization is renaming two of its Broadway theaters. Okay, that may not be a bad idea. Some of those hallowed shrines have names that are pretty meaningless and have no real connection to the art form. It was nice that the Martin Beck Theater, for instance, became the Al Hirschfeld Theater. No one even knew who Martin Beck was, whereas Mr. Hirschfeld was an important contributor to the history of the theater.

(In case you care: Martin Beck was a theatrical impresario, distinguished mostly in the area of vaudeville. But near the end of his life, he turned to Broadway, built a theater and named it after himself.)

Unfortunately, the Shubert executives have decided to rename those two theaters after…other Shubert executives. The Plymouth Theater will become the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. The Royale Theater will become the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater. While neither the Plymouth nor the Royale have been sporting names that mean anything in the theater, the new monikers won't mean much to anyone, either. (Mr. Schoenfeld is the chairman of the Shubert Organization. Mr. Jacobs was its president for 24 years, up until his death in 1996.)

These two men may be wonderful, important folks who made great contributions to the theater…but really, no one cares about executives. If theaters are named for people, they should be named for authors, actors, directors…maybe even producers.

How about naming some theater for George S. Kaufman? Or Alan Jay Lerner? Wouldn't you like to see a musical at the Ethel Merman? Or a serious drama at the Arthur Miller? They named a theater for Richard Rodgers…how about one for Oscar Hammerstein? They named one for George Abbott…how about Jerome Robbins or Harold Prince? And everyone hated David Merrick but he was responsible for a staggering number of shows ever existing. I'd go see a show at the Merrick.

The other day at a big memorial service for Tony Randall, Jack Klugman concluded his eulogy with the fervent hope that New York would someday have a Tony Randall Theater. He's right. It should. It would remind me people of a fine actor and a great supporter of Broadway, whereas looking at the marquee of the Jacobs isn't going to remind anyone of anything.

Quite a few folks have written to argue that Cheney's claim of never meeting Edwards before the debate was a more consequential and deliberate falsehood than I think it is. I picked this message from Richard Bensam to represent this sentiment…

Gotta disagree with you on this one. Cheney saying he had never met Edwards wasn't a meaningless fib or glossing over some trivial detail or even an honest mistake. His allegation was intended as the capstone of Cheney's argument that Edwards is supposedly lacking in legislative experience, and has been largely absent from the Senate, in contrast to Cheney's purportedly tireless service to the nation. Cheney was trying to build a case against Edwards and used this claim they'd never met before as the clincher in his argument. It was no small matter, but immediately relevant to tearing down his opponent. But it was a lie.

Did Cheney himself feel that his case against Edwards was so weak that it needed to be bolstered with a lie that he imagined no one would bother to check? It's hard to imagine this could have been an honest mistake, given how long Edwards has been in the race, and how long Cheney has known he'd eventually be facing the senator in a televised debate. Can we really believe that he never once sat down and thought about any past encounters he'd had with Edwards, or asked an aide to research any past dealings they may have had?

And will Cheney step forward, now that the world knows he met Edwards on at least three separate occasions, and admit that he said something that was untrue, deliberately or not? That in itself would be a big step forward. Bush and Cheney have set themselves up as the people who never make mistakes, who never misstate things, and who would do everything exactly the same if they had it to do all over again. This has become their trademark. They act that way whether the topic is Iraq or Osama bin Laden or meeting John Edwards.

So, it's not some theory about small lies being equivalent to big lies that makes this important. It's important because this is what Cheney does every chance he gets.

Actually, I think Cheney might admit his mistake on this one. If I were slimy and in his position, I'd apologize for the error and say something like, "I guess I only remember Senators who've actually accomplished something in their terms of office." Then I could stick the knife in again and at the same time, maybe counteract a bit of the claim that I never admit mistakes. It would enable my supporters to say, "Hey, when Dick Cheney makes an error, he owns up to it."

Yes, I absolutely believe Cheney said it to tear down his opponent. But I also don't believe he said it, knowing it was untrue and that no one would bother to check. First of all, both men had to know that every syllable they uttered in that arena would be checked, cross-checked and placed under an electron microscope. Cheney especially knew that because his crew did that to Al Gore and succeeded in convincing much of America that innocent, accurate statements were "character-defining lies." Secondly, John Edwards was sitting right there. If Cheney thought, "Hmm, I'll pretend I never met this guy before tonight," he was running the risk of Edwards responding with something like, "Gee, I guess your memory is going, Mr. Vice-President. Let me list a couple of the times we met…" and making him look foolish or senile or just plain bad at facts. (One assumes Edwards didn't do that because he knew there were plenty of pictures and that he'd sound less wounded by the barb if he let others refute it and instead changed the topic.)

People lie either because they think they can get away with it, or because the truth would be more damning than being caught in a lie. We can all understand how Cheney, who is not a stupid man, would figure he can't say, "Well, yes, I have spent a lot of time suggesting that Iraq was deeply involved in 9/11." So he denies it. But no one asked him if he'd ever met Edwards before. He didn't have to say that. He could have insulted Edwards in dozens of other ways that couldn't be turned back on him with an old photo or file videotape. I think Cheney just got reckless, forgot he'd met Edwards before and said something he thought would have an impact in a debate where he wasn't doing as well as he'd hoped.

My other point is along the lines of those bumper stickers that say, "No one died when Clinton lied." No one will die as a result of Cheney's misstatement about meeting Edwards. Even if Cheney deliberately lied about that, it's not even in the same hemisphere of importance as lies relating to the wars in Iraq and on terrorism (and I think, by the way, Democrats should be making the point that those are really two separate wars). Look at the new revelations of how many administration officials knew those aluminum tubes were not related to any Iraq nuclear weapons program. So far, the kindest interpretation one can put on this is that a lot of senior officials in the White House staff knew they were spreading a justification for war that might well be false, and now they're lying about what they knew and when they knew it. Those are lies of the "truth would be more damning" variety.

It might well be that it will have more impact with the electorate for the Dems to sell the "never met Edwards" thing as a lie because they can show photos and footage that prove it isn't true. But if I'm going to get incensed about Dick Cheney lying, I'd prefer to be incensed about the statements that don't have any possible innocent explanation and that plunged us into a war under false pretenses.

I mentioned earlier that someone would surely make a commercial juxtaposing things Cheney said in the debate with footage of him saying the opposite. Sure enough, there's one now up at www.democrats.org. It's called "Cheney vs. Reality" and I wish they hadn't included the part where he says he never met Edwards. Even if it is lie (as opposed to a simple memory lapse), it's not in the same category as denying he ever spoke of a link between Iraq and 9/11.

The premise is that an administration that would lie about the small things would not hesitate to lie about the big things. I think they have that backwards. A lot of us will lie if a friend asks if we like their new haircut…but we'd never lie about something that might get someone killed. Or in this case, thousands of someones.

Coming soon to this weblog: Chapter Two in Mark's problems with the home delivery service of Albertson's Markets.