On Super Tuesday, Silence Is Golden

Katherine Mangu-Ward | February 5, 2008

Comic genius and surprisingly savvy political observer Harry Shearer is the voice of Principal Skinner on The Simpsons, and the face of Derek Smalls in This Is Spinal Tap. He was also the impresario behind a video art exhibit consisting of dead time on cable satellite news feeds called Raw Feeds--the most famous clip of which was the infamous "John Edwards fixes his hair with a compact mirror" sequence. Now, he brings us the first in a series of Silent Debates between major presidential contenders. Shearer asks incisive questions and the candidates sit and fidget. Brilliant. Below, Hillary and Romney face off in a flurry of dead air and distracted looks:

Cross posted on reason.tv

Comments

|2.5.08 @ 4:23PM|#

I just realized how much Romney looks like Matthew Fox. Could someone please alert the Dharma Initiative?

|2.5.08 @ 4:27PM|#

The first? He's been making these for a while now.

javier|2.5.08 @ 4:27PM|#

I don't see the resemblance. Plus, I don't get why this is funny.

Brett|2.5.08 @ 4:35PM|#

It's not quite the international philosopher's soccer match between the Greeks and Germans.

|2.5.08 @ 4:46PM|#

Hmm . . . Telling.

|2.5.08 @ 4:47PM|#

Jebus H. Crimestoppers, check out the bags under Der Fuhrer Clinton's eyes.
If she filled them up with dead flies, she could feed an African village and still have enough left over to fish with.

T|2.5.08 @ 5:03PM|#

If she filled them up with dead flies, she could feed an African village and still have enough left over to fish with.

That is quite possibly one of the most surreal, bizarre and unsettling images I've ever heard. Are you drinking already, Jamie?

|2.5.08 @ 5:05PM|#

Are you drinking already, Jamie?

Never stopped.

|2.5.08 @ 5:06PM|#

Stoneheeeengee.

|2.5.08 @ 5:12PM|#

Hilary looks almost good there, but I think that's because she's wearing enough makeup to rival a Kabuki dancer. If she tried to do anything other than blink, it would crack and fall off like that hooker Winston Smith encounters in "1984".

|2.5.08 @ 5:20PM|#

Nice imagery atavist. I was thinking the same thing, although she reminds me more of the clockwork midget who lives with the odd chap in Bladerunner.

Talking of midgets, I have a stag do on Saturday, and the best man has ordered a dwarf for £400 (two hours) to be handcuffed to the stag. My karma is at an all time low.

Apparently the little man's going to be dressed in leiderhosen. Sigh.....

|2.5.08 @ 5:20PM|#

Hillary Clinton could kick your butt in a staring contest, but you already knew that.

Mitt Romney has flesh-tone lips.

ChrisO|2.5.08 @ 5:30PM|#

That's about the most sense that either of them has ever made.

|2.5.08 @ 5:36PM|#

Hillary Clinton could kick your butt in a staring contest, but you already knew that.

Well, shyeah. Anyone Hillary stares at turns to stone. Everyone knows that.

stephen the goldberger|2.5.08 @ 5:46PM|#

I dont get it.

stephen the goldberger|2.5.08 @ 5:47PM|#

so the joke is that politicians say so little of substance during debates they might as well say absolutly nothing?

Kolohe|2.5.08 @ 5:49PM|#

Harry Shearer came to Blacksburg about a year or two after the Simpsons premiered (full shows not Tracy Ulman). He was booked in a ~300 seat auditorium. But so few people showed up, that everybody just went to bar in town (about a block away) and he did his schitck there. It was awesome.

|2.6.08 @ 12:24AM|#

the best man has ordered a dwarf for £400 (two hours) to be handcuffed to the stag. Apparently the little man's going to be dressed in leiderhosen. Sigh.....

400 pounds sounds like a fair bit of money. And all you get is a male dwalf for only a couple of hours? I would've thought you could an attractive, nude female dwalf for that amount.