Bob Newhart Names Mad Kane Winner of 2008 Robert Benchley Society Award For Humor

An example of her recent humor.

Dear John McCain:

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Why am I, a liberal feminist, thanking you with such enthusiasm? Because by naming Sarah Palin to be your running mate, you’ve turned my life around.

I mean (and I say this with all due respect) I could have sworn that Ms. Palin was as unqualified to be Veep as I am. Maybe even less qualified, since I’m a lawyer and she isn’t.

But it turns out I was wrong. Why? Cuz she’s the Governor of Alaska, a state that’s really, really close to Russia.

And, as I’ve learned from you and your current wife, proximity equals expertise. Which means that Governor Palin’s already an expert on Russia. And anything else she needs to know in the foreign policy department she’ll absorb by osmosis, simply by hanging out near your knees.

Speaking selfishly (and who doesn’t?) here’s the coolest part of this whole osmosis thing: Without any additional schooling or training, I have the expertise to do a gazillion hard things I haven’t studied for even an hour. For instance:

1. Heart surgery. (A cardiac specialist lives two houses away, and we say “hi” at least twice a month.)

2. Gourmet cooking. (My home’s within three blocks of over two dozen great restaurants. From the smell alone, I’ve surely picked up culinary chops.)

3. Olympic swimming. (I live in Bayside. Need I say more?)

4. Podiatry. ( I know someone who knows someone who knows Dick Morris. Okay, maybe not podiatry … but certainly pedicures.)

I could go on forever, because osmosis has opened the doors to countless challenging professions. How many? I can’t count that high cuz I don’t know any mathematicians.

But I do want you to know how happy and grateful I am. In fact, I’m so excited, I’m having trouble deciding which high level profession to try out first.

Or maybe I should just wait for my future boss to come to me.

So thanks, Senator McCain. And please stay well … at least until that foreign policy osmosis thing kicks in for Ms. Palin and the pesky Axis of Evil.

Oh … and one more thing: Please keep me in mind if you ever need heart surgery.

Mad Kane

She won the award for her Guide for the Opera Impaired.