Since his entry into the national political landscape, most of us have been wondering when will the ultra smooth, never ruffled President Barack Obama lose his cool? Well, Saturday Night Live and Dwayne Johnson (”The Rock”) answer this question for us in a recent skit.  A staffer prods President Obama to get angry with Republican Senators who oppose his bills. After a round of questions peppered with baby insults, Obama finally gets mad (in a “Hulk-like” fashion). So now people know… when Barack Obama becomes angry — he really turns into the “Rock Obama.” Check out the video.

Who compares himself to another in one breath, only to whack the same person from behind in another? It’s low. It’s dirty. And this is the behavior of the Republican Party’s new wonder boy—the kid they’re supposedly grooming to run for the White House in 2012? Good luck.

And, uh, if the American people “can do anything,” then why the hell was Jindal talking to us like we’re a bunch of illiterate children? We. Can. Understand. You. At normal talking speed. Governor. (But if you feel the itch to dumb yourself down more in the future—by all means…)

Spy series Burn Notice (USA, Thursday, 10/9c) builds from the same blueprint that neo-detective dramas Life and Life on Mars follow: our hero competently pieces together his job’s puzzles while trying to solve his own greater mystery. But Zen and the nature of reality, time and consciousness—the respective obsessions of those programs’ metaphysical detectives—don’t concern Burn Notice’s Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan). He’s a protagonist fit for the New Depression, just a workingman trying to work, scraping together new freelance projects as he tries to figure out why his old long-term contract went bad.

Michael was a covert CIA operative until he was “burned”, spook-speak for downsized. Stripped of his cash and credit along with his profession, he finds himself back in his Miami hometown, hiring out his spy skills to the highest bidder as he tries to learn who got him ousted him from the world of intrigue—and why. The first season leads up to the answer to the who:  he was burned by the mysterious “Carla” and her cohorts, who then force him to work for him, threatening to harm his family if he ditches the job. The second season is spiraling closer to explaining exactly who this who is—but why is still in the distance. With two episodes left, it seems unlikely that we’ll get a full explanation before well into season three.

Meanwhile, Michael will surely keep working on the cases that come his way, investigating art theft, thwarting con artists, busting kidnapping rings. It’s all in a day’s work for a self-employed spy. And after a day’s work—well, this isn’t Law and Order with its self-contained workplace in which the protagonists’ personal lives are revealed slowly, through a cumulative and casual build-up. Michael’s personal and professional lives are inextricably intertwined, meshed in a way the rest of us might aspire to, or maybe fear. His spy work is the crux of his identity. Learning why he was burned—and potentially returning to high-stakes international espionage—is a search for self.  He wants to regain his place in the world and return to the image with which he identifies. And, as he struggles to reclaim this public identity, circumstances force him to also confront his roots and his personal life, or lack thereof.

Washed up in Miami, Michael is embraced by the neurotic, pushy mother he’s avoided for years, Madeline (a spirited and sparkling Sharon Gless, who imbues what could have been an annoying stock character with more charm than seems possible). He has a loser brother to contend with—and the legacy of an abusive father to sort out. Mom’s interference and his brother’s escapades mean Michael’s work and family lives inevitably intersect, and he’s ended up working with some old colleagues with close personal connections. Dangerous Fiona Glennane (Gabrielle Anwar) was an IRA operative, and an ex-girlfriend. Ragged Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell, finally grown from a brat into a likable character actor) is a former Navy Seal, and Michael’s only friend. They have their issues to work through—Michael once abandoned Fiona, Sam was briefly spying on Michael—but it’s nothing that this expansive protagonist can’t bring to light.

Film noir this is not. Blue skies, swift low waves, sweeping aerial shots—Burn Notice’s Miami is clear and bright, not a place of shadowy vices or dark ambiguities. Michael as often as not encounters his enemies out in the open on bright days. When the show retreats to indoor shots or night scenes, things are clearer still, the action and explication unfolding under even lighting that’s as revealing as yet a respite from the searing truth.

And Michael is no film noir tough guy, no ambivalent keeper of justice with a dark or amoral streak. There’s little romance or grit to him, just a solid competency ad professionalism that mask a sensitive yogurt-eater. His personal issues aren’t quiet core flaws; his interpersonal problems aren’t static givens. They’re things he’s working through—to become a better man, and, not incidentally, to become a better worker.

He’s not a metaphysical sleuth of the Life/Life On Mars mold, but a self-help or self-actualizing sleuth. His place is alongside The Closer’s Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick): she heads a high-profile homicide unit, but the show focuses as much on her relationships with her parents and with sugar, and her wedding is the center of the season finale. If noir played out the cold war and moral upheaval, these shows are trying to understand what we’re worth.

We all know that hair weaves are the latest beauty craze. From Beyonce to Britney Spears, most celebs are donning hair extensions to look even more fab (which is highly debatable). But what if weaves served a greater purpose? Like saving someone’s life? That’s what a Kansas City woman claims. After ending an eight month relationship with her boyfriend, Briana Bonds says he tried to shoot her after an incident in a grocery store parking lot. Instead of the bullet reaching her head, it got lodged in her tightly woven weave! “I now believe the weave paused the bullet, and didn’t let it go any further. Really I think God was in my passenger seat. He protected me,” said Bonds to police officers on the scene. This whole story is just unbeweaveable…

Look. We all bow down to Obama. He’s THE MAN right now. The big enchilada. The head honcho. Numero uno. A kick-ass politician with a bold, bad-ass plan to get this country back on track. He’s the ultimate Daddy Mac.

We. Get. It.

But there’s getting it, and then there’s killing it—which is exactly what a supporter at last week’s town hall meeting in Florida did. She was never singled out to have a moment with the mic, but she stood up anyway and let the creepiness creep on out.

There’s a fine line between sincerity and psychosis.  Watch this chick skip over to the other side with three short words and a long, uncomfortable stare. As they say—it’s the quiet ones we need to worry about…

The opening skit of the recent Saturday Night Live show featured Dan Aykroyd as Senate Minority Leader, John Boehner (R-Ohio), in a funny Republican “meeting of the minds.” These GOP leaders sit around the table to discuss the so-called Republican agenda. Their top priorities were disowning the Obama Stimulus Package (to excuse themselves from any blame about the economy), complaining about the Obama girls sleepovers and plotting to get the President impeached after only three weeks. Their resounding chant: “Majority here we come!” With the recent negotiations surrounding the stimulus package, it makes you wonder if there is any truth to this skit! Check out the video.

As if Obama’s rise to the presidency needed anymore excitement, the folks over at Newsweek took a cue from MTV and gave the good prez his very own reality show. You might think The District wouldn’t be as juicy as The Hills or The City, but let’s remember—this is Washington, where congressional cat fights and shit-talking senators abound. Purrrfect!

Episode One (below) follows “Team Obama” as they man up to attack the economic crunch “Team George W. Douche” left behind. Don’t be fooled by Obama’s long, blank stares—that’s just the reality show way of indicating that drama is upon us—because the man is always up to the task. One trillion dollar stimulus bill at a time.

Eat your heart out, Lauren Conrad.

Weird Al Yankovic has some competition. The guys behind Saturday Night Live (SNL) skits are dropping their own album, Incredibad, on February 10. Their latest video, “I’m On A Boat,” features SNL staffers, Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer, and hip hop, megastar T-Pain (You have to include “The Pain” on the track because his sound equals instant hit.) The video is ridiculous and it’s nice to know T-Pain can laugh at himself (because we sure are).

One of the strange things about being in the news business is that you are constantly developing a personal relationship to stories that have nothing to do to you. You can talk about “objectivity” all you want—and even get close to that mythic ideal—but if you’re like most reporters I know you will be touched by everything. I still remember the mother of this one murder victim and the way she had picked at her hangnails until her entire nailbeds were bloody. I remember two murderers who I interviewed in a women’s prison. I didn’t have any connection to them before I walked in, but I still feel connected 20 years later.

On the other hand, there are stories where I get a teeny window onto a big story from some small, random connection.

There was a horrible murder-suicide last month where a man in California killed his five young children, his wife, and himself. He happened to have just lost his job at the Kaiser facility where I used to go for all my doctor’s visits. To quote the AP story:

But even more incomprehensible to some was the story that emerged after the bodies were found Tuesday: A father who, after he and his wife were fired from their jobs, killed all six family members before turning the gun on himself.

In a letter faxed to Los Angeles television station KABC before his suicide, Ervin Antonio Lupoe blamed his former employer for the deaths, detailing his grievance against Kaiser Permanente’s West Los Angeles Medical Center, where he and his wife Ana had worked as technicians.

Lupoe, 40, claimed the couple was being investigated for “misrepresentation of our employment to an outside agency for the benefit to ourselves’s [sic], childcare.” He said the initial interview was held on December 19, and when he reported for work on December 23, “I was told by my administrator … that ‘You should not even have bothered to come to work today. You should have blown your brains out.’”

“Oh lord, my God,” the letter concludes. “Is there no hope for a widow’s son?”

Kaiser Permanente said in a statement Tuesday night that while the company is “saddened by the despair in Mr. Lupoe’s letter faxed to the media … we are confident that no one told him to take his own life or the lives of his family.”

The Lupoes’ employment was terminated over a week ago “after an internal investigation,” the company said.

In  a completely different intersection with the news, I found myself sleeping in the Detroit airport after an entire day of trying to get out of Louisville, Kentucky—where I was supposed to be giving a speech. I spent all day traveling there, and then the event AND my flights were canceled. Over the next few hours I got on and off planes and spent the night at the Detroit airport. In Louisville, they ran out of de-icing fluid TWICE. As one person said, that made it not an “act of god” but a mechanical error.  But I’m back home. Here’s what’s going on in the ice belt.

Well over a million people shivered in ice-bound homes across the country Wednesday, waiting for warmer weather and for utility crews to restring power lines brought down by a storm that killed 23 as it took a snowy, icy journey from the Southern Plains to the East Coast. But with temperatures plunging, utility officials warned that it could be mid-February before electricity is restored to some of the hardest-hit places. The worst of the power failures were in Kentucky, Arkansas andOhio.

Just getting to their source was difficult for utility crews. Ice-encrusted tree limbs and power lines blocked glazed roads, and cracking limbs pierced the air like popping gunfire as they snapped.

Some of these folks could be without power for two weeks! And the weather is freezing!

I hope they get some relief soon.

That model of totally unbiased and legit broadcast news reporting—Fox news—has done it again. When the network’s Detroit affiliate called in its resident “Love Doctor” to discuss the ins and outs (so to speak) of Barack and Michelle Obama’s relationship, the sexpert backed into a Freudian flip. Pay attention MSNBC. Lookee here CNN. This is “hard-hitting” journalism at its finest:

Even though I’m not a big football fan, the Super Bowl last night was a lot of fun. In addition to the suspenseful, action-packed game, I watched all the great and not-so-great advertisements. Even in these tough economic times, there are companies shelling out the three million for a 30-second Super Bowl ad slot. (I’m not mad at them. Maybe these companies can teach the others some fiscal lessons?) And the ad themes have changed from luxury and free spending to budget cuts and few perks at the office. Even the car ads have seen a big shift, namely American cars are out (no bailout money spent on ads) and Japanese and German cars are in.

Speaking of German cars, Audi had a great ad, “The Chase,” using the Back to the Future movie theme. (The A6 is such a gorgeous car!)

And the Doritos “Crystal Ball” ad plays into the hard economic times and the lure of getting free chips! Don’t we all wish we had a crystal ball to predict the future.

And if you missed the Super Bowl ads, you can visit Super Bowl FanHouse, Super-Bowl Ads.com and even TIME magazine’s piece to see the crazy ads that provided just as much entertainment for some of us as the game.

That’s what Microsoft did to push their Songsmith music maker program. I must admit, the following ad made me want to go out and get a bootleg copy of the program so I, too, can sing painfully off key to a bad ass Barney beat. But I later realized that I don’t know anyone lame enough to have a version of Songsmith hiding up inside their computer, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna pay to get my copy the legit way. So, I guess I’ll just have to become a failed musician the good old-fashioned way.

Guitar Hero, anyone?

(And yes, This. Is. Real.)

While hoards of vendors are frantically trying to capitalize on the Obama-mania that’s sweeping the streets of D.C.— “Commemorative buttons? T-shirts? Ball caps? Condoms, anyone?”—one good-looking Indonesian stud needn’t lift a finger to bank on the inauguration of our 44th president. Why? Cuz he’s the spittin’ image of Obama.

Ilham Anas was an ordinary magazine photographer until Obama took the world stage, and now — he’s famous. People reportedly stop to take pictures with him all the time. In the following commercial, we see “Obama” get served up his fave anti-diarrhea medication. (Hey—given the enormous amount of responsibility the real Obama took on today, you understand . . .)

When Watergate rocked the country thirty-five years ago, at the center of the turmoil, anonymous to everyone but Woodward and Bernstein, the President, and the President’s top aides, was W. Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat.

In 2003, the Nixon tapes were released to the Library of Congress, but it wasn’t until 2005 when Felt’s family announced his identity that America became aware of his role in our nation’s biggest scandal.

Felt passed away this week at the age of 95. Bob Woodward wrote his Washington Post obituary.

In the classic movie All the President’s Men, Woodward, played by Robert Redford, meets Felt, played by John Robard, in a dark alley. Please enjoy:

RIP, Mr. Felt.