This campaign commercial, from 1976, seems to sum up President Gerald Ford pretty accurately. Ford was a football star, a veteran, a hardworking scholar, and managed to become both vice-president and president without ever winning an election for those seats (perhaps that last fact wasn't in the ad.)

Ford succeeded Spiro Agnew as vice president after the latter resigned amid a bribery scandal. The Senate confirmed Ford by an overwhelming vote: 92-3. After Nixon resigned, Ford took over the presidency and strove to end an era of corruption, scandal, and back-room dealings.

Although remembered, and often criticized, for granting Nixon a full pardon, Ford also began many symbolic gestures that are now forgotten, but still important. When he announced the Nixon pardon, Ford also introduced amnesty for Vietnam draft dodgers and opened up the office of President to public inspection. Still, the Nixon pardon haunted him (and the rest of the Republican party) and he lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976.

These days it's always a bit disconcerting to see a comedy sketch with a right-wing bent -- not because anything's wrong with that point of view, but because political satire usually takes aim at the party in power. And that still isn't the Democrats. However, after the midterm elections, perhaps Republicans are running scared?

That's one explanation for this over-the-top reaction to the Iraq Study Group's findings. The report, released earlier this month, recommends a massive scale-back in troops and starting a dialogue with Iran and Syria -- and maybe Naked Gun director David Zucker really believes that talks with the Iranians will lead to ruin and despair. Depicting the President of Iran as a three-card monte dealer and Hitler wannabe is an extreme take on the subject, but Zucker is developing a reputation for needlessly over-the-top reactions.

Despite the lack of subtlety (and getting mad at the director of Airplane for not being subtle is like getting mad at water for being wet), the point raised is worth a thought. After all, we don't want him to be right -- especially if he's not wrong.

David Duke, former KKK leader and Ethnic Studies "specialist," discusses the Zionist conspiracy with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

The fact that David Duke is allowed to be a "pundit" on any subject anywhere is an amazing thing to me. Holocaust deniers are by and large, not funny and I would never encourage laughter AT the Holocaust. But, I'm just putting this out there... deniers of the historically proven genocide sound like absolute idiots, right? I can't listen to David Duke without a little chuckle at his expense. Part of me really, really wants to believe that at night Duke wrestles with all the overwhelming evidence that 6 million Jews were, in the words of Gawker, "gassed and stuffed into easy-bake ovens."

CNN should really get credit for keeping Duke in his place. Not only do they mention his KKK affiliation 11 times (by Duke's count), but they also keep juxtaposing Duke's live feed from Tehran with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-- America's new nemesis-- because one Jew hating nut deserves another.

Nothing marks the transition from one political age into another quite like the passing of a former dictator. With Fidel Castro nearing the twilight of his life and the political career of Vladimir Putin under intense scrutiny for the mysterious poisoning of an ex-KGB spy, the death of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet seems like a gentle passing by comparison.

Pinochet, who died yesterday of heart complications, ruled Chile with a tyrranical and often violent regime. After seizing power on Sept. 11, 1973, he led Chile into economic prosperity while simultaneously murdering thousands; Pinochet left the presidency in 1990 but continued to serve as commander-in-chief of the Chilean army until 1998.