Gov. Sarah Palin (WDCpix)

The stunning run of leaks against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from the anonymous ranks of McCain campaign aides has finally elicited a response in kind. Members of the Palin entourage, who, while stunningly garbed in Dolce, would not allow their names to be used, have fired back against charges that Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent nor the names of the members of the North American Free Trade Association.

Sen. John McCain, several of these sources now confide, could not tell the difference between a coho and a chinook salmon, even when they were plainly broiled with no sauce. In addition, angry Palin aides charge, he has no idea of the location of the Tlingit Indian reservation, nor any idea how, when or why the Eagle Dance is performed.

McCain, Palin confidantes also charge, while their Franck Muller watches sparkle in the light, is absolutely clueless as to the route of the world-famous Iditarod sled-dog race.

Chinook salmon (Flickr: mgjefferies)

Palin had not been aware of McCain’s near-complete ignorance of basic Alaskan subjects before she agreed to sign on to his campaign, these sources tell people they meet, and had she known, she would have demanded even more expensive clothes to compensate for the embarrassment.

Harry Shearer is the host of the weekly radio show “Le Show,” the co-writer of “This Is Spinal Tap” and a musician and actor. His new album is “Songs of the Bushmen.”

These guys will all soon be the personal property of Harry Shearer. (Flickr: Trainman74)

He doesn’t know this yet, but I’m putting in a bid to purchase Bruce McCall.

I like and admire Bruce, but that has nothing to do with my plan. I happen to know that he’s up to his ears with a mortgage on his condo. Since that mortgage has long since been securitized and sold to a Singapore bank that’s about to fail, I can swoop in and get the whole package on the cheap.

Hey, vultures gotta eat, too.

As fine a purchase as that will be, it’s just the opening move of my plan.

I’ll leverage my Bruce property to the hilt, and go on a comedy and humorist buying spree — Joy Behar, Steve Carell, Chris Buckley, Sandra Bernhard, Craig Ferguson. They’ll all fit nicely into my portfolio. Leveraging them will net me Dave, Jay and Conan. Maybe even Matt Groening.

This isn’t about the hang, interesting as that prospect might be. My purpose is to create a corporate humor leviathan. Maybe we’ll call it American International Comedy, or AIC.

Old-school thinkers might surmise that my ultimate goal is to create a kind of monopoly, and raise everybody’s price — what you might call the Mike Ovitz approach. But this is now, and what I’m after is simple: a comedy combine that’s too big to fail.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

That’s only the beginning. More leverage brings more talent, and more connections to media leviathans worldwide — how many countries does Ricky Gervais entertain? How many state-owned TV networks have millions tied up in “Simpsons” reruns?

There’s no point in being too big to fail unless you can tiptoe or tapdance right up to, or just over, the edge of the cliff.

We’ll invest everybody’s earnings in perfectly wonderful financial instruments that the humorists themselves will invent. Then, boom! Or, strictly speaking, whatever the opposite of boom is.

Sure, there will be those outliers who think the government has no business bailing out a collection of laughmasters. Do they understand how much property Will Ferrell owns in Mexico? If all those haciendas get dumped on the market at once, ay caramba!

Once the government gives us a multi-billion-dollar bridge loan — cynics will call it a “bridge loan to nowhere,” but let them laugh — the feds will own 80 percent of all of yoksters, and we can relax.

Just like, let’s say, FEMA.

Harry Shearer is the host of the weekly radio show “Le Show,” the co-writer of “This Is Spinal Tap” and a musician and actor. His new album is “Songs of the Bushmen.”

Former White House Strategist Karl Rove (WDCpix)

The Obama campaign’s mantra is that Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, represents the third term of President George W. Bush. But, judging by the convention they’ve organized, they don’t really seem to believe it.

Starting early this summer, however, when three high-ranking acolytes of Karl Rove were injected into the top echelon of the McCain campaign, that organization has literally become the third Bush campaign — run by the same principles, using the same weapons. Now, in pure Rovian jiu-jitsu style, McCain’s TV ads have attacked the Democratic opponent’s strength — his very popularity — the way Kerry’s presumed strength — his military record — was shredded four years ago.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Yet the Obama campaign fails to acknowledge they’re no longer running against a McCain campaign that is high-minded (?) and civil. They are, for better or worse, running against a Rove campaign. If you play defense in that kind of campaign, be sure to get the license number of the truck that runs over you.

McCain’s strength is a reputation as a maverick who opposes the sway lobbyists hold over Washington. So why is the Obama campaign so reticent to mention that, two days after McCain’s chief foreign-policy adviser got his lobbyist check from the nation of Georgia, McCain delivered a speech strongly endorsing — the nation of Georgia?

Has the Obama campaign been so transfixed — like most of the news media — by the Clinton psychodrama? Has Obama’s team been so obsessed with micro-managing media coverage of the veep choice, that they could let precious weeks go by when the candidate was on vacation and no No. 2 was available to take the attack to the opposition?

The only justification for the stupefying length of American political campaigns is that they serve as a dress rehearsal for a candidate’s ability to mobilize and manage a large, complex, chaotic organization. The Obama primary campaign passed that audition with flying colors, while the Clinton — and early McCain — campaigns dissolved in rivalries and discord.

But this ain’t the primary, and the opponent isn’t McCain. It’s the same apparatus that elected Bush twice.

As Al Gore proved eight years ago when he argued for “counting all the votes” in Florida, but just sued to count the votes in his four strongest counties — sometimes it pays to believe your own speeches.

Harry Shearer, the host of the weekly radio show, “Le Show” is a writer, musician and actor. His new album is “Songs of the Bushmen.”

Democratic National Convention stage (Photo by: Jason Kolera)

So the Democratic convention has been about catharsis.

We’ve been told that this was what Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, her husband, former President Bill Clinton and the Clinton delegates were seeking — what they came to the Mile High City to get. As if the Pepsi Center needed to be fitted out with more than a thousand analysts’ couches — in addition to Arianna Huffington’s meditation-and-yoga oasis just outside the hall.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Harry Shearer, the host of the weekly radio show, “Le Show” is a writer, musician and actor. His new album is “Songs of the Bushmen.”