TV hosts make the news
First, Stephen Colbert of the Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” coined the word “truthiness,” which ended up being the American Dialect Society’s word of the year for 2005. The AP tried to ignore the role the fake TV newsman played in inventing the word and Michael Adams of NC State claimed that “truthiness” was already a word, but Colbert fought back by putting the AP in the top spot of his “Threat Down” and putting Adams “on notice.”
Now comes word that NBC late night talk show host Conan O’Brien could help elect the president over in Finland.
O’Brien has thrown his support behind Finland president Tarja Halonen (pictured) ever since noticing she’s an exact clone of him, except for the male-female thing.
“Why do I support Tarja Halonen? Because she’s got the total package: a dynamic personality, a quick mind, and most importantly — my good looks,” the comedian, whose show is broadcast on cable in Finland, said in a statement to The Associated Press.
O’Brien has been running a bunch of mock campaign ads on his show trumpeting Halonen and bashing her opponents, and it’s supposedly helping her image and numbers in the polls, and ticking off her opponents. (view video here)
Halonen was hugely popular even before O’Brien discovered their similarities, but Jaaskelainen said hits on the campaign website have quintupled partly because of O’Brien’s shows.
As ABC News reports, Finland’s election took place yesterday and Halonen came up just short of garnering more than 50 percent of the vote, which is necessary to win. So Halonen now faces a runoff and O’Brien faces more time to campaign for his candidate.
Should be an exciting Finnish.
