mac.thumbnail.jpgI know we’re not supposed to directly quote AP stories without paying them serious cash, but this story is so important and has such major ramifications for this election — which will of course decide the leader of the free world — that I feel it vital to get this information out there immediately. The AP is to be praised for their tough-minded professional journalism.

Bernie Mac makes off-color joke at Obama event

Comedian Bernie Mac endured some heckling and a campaign rebuke during a surprise appearance Friday night at a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Chicago, the 50-year-old star of "The Bernie Mac Show" joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language. "My little nephew came to me and he said, ‘Uncle, what’s the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?’" Mac said. "I said, I don’t know, but I said, ‘Go upstairs and ask your mother if she’d make love to the mailman for $50,000.’"

This is potentially game changing. Who would ever have expected such stuff from Bernie Mac? At any rate I don’t see how Obama can possibly win in November in the aftermath of this catastrophe.

However, this story does go some distance towards silencing another controversy that the Obama campaign has been desperate to quiet (MORE AFTER THE JUMP!):

Mac’s appearance was Obama’s first celebrity event of the evening. Later at a Lincoln Park nightclub, Obama spoke to a raucous crowd of music fans, who paid up to $500 per person to see a performance by Wilco lead singer Jeff Tweedy, and two other band members.

"Before these guys go, I want them to know that I had heard a rumor
that they had suggested that I had nothing by them on my iPod," Obama
said. "That is not true. I love Wilco."

Nevertheless, political observers are certain that the Obama camp is having a great deal of trouble staying on-message, and the candidate himself is prone to terrible gaffes just like "BernieGate." Mac is just the latest in the long line of embarrassing associates Obama has had to throw under the bus, giving rise to speculation that he is a flip-flopper who cannot produce a Sister Souljah moment. Without a doubt, John McCain has once again won the week.