How Often Can You Say 'beaten at the Box-office By a Hollywood Chihuahua'?

These are feverish times in American politics, and wild conspiracy theories proliferate. Usually, they're about Barack Obama, and how he's not really called Barack Obama, wasn't born where he says he was born ("Hawaii", which is obviously made up), faked his own birth certificate, isn't a US citizen and, indeed, may not be running for president at all, raising the chilling possibility that the man calling himself "Barack Obama" and running for president is a plant who really is called Barack Obama, really was born in Hawaii and really is an American citizen.

Even more brilliantly persuasive than any of these theories, though, is the sinister explanation being offered for the pathetic box-office performance of An American Carol, the "conservative comedy" released two weekends ago in the US. An American Carol had everything going for it: a director, David Zucker, whose credits include Scary Movie 3, Scary Movie 4, and Scary Movie 5; a cast comprising several notable Hollywood Republicans, including Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Hopper, and a killer premise: a portly, America-hating documentary-maker modeled on Michael Moore tries to ban the Fourth of July, with hilarious and patriotism-inducing consequences.

Yet it was beaten at the box office by Beverly Hills Chihuahua, a movie about an annoying talking dog, even though lexicologists have long assumed that the phrase "beaten at the box office by Beverly Hills Chihuahua" belongs to the very small class of word-combinations that would never occur in the lifespan of the English language. So there can only be one explanation: a nationwide conspiracy by America's teenage multiplex employees to artificially depress the film's takings. "We have heard from numerous people across the country that there has been some ticket fraud when buying a ticket for An American Carol," the movie makers reported on their website, announcing the creation of a special fraud investigation unit. "Please check your ticket. If you were in fact one of those people that were 'mistakenly' sold a ticket for another movie, please fill out the form below. Hold on to your ticket so we can have proof." The theory, eagerly amplified by numerous rightwing bloggers and news sites, goes like this: in a desperate bid to humiliate conservatives, cinema staff have been surreptitiously issuing tickets for other movies. Customers still get to see An American Carol, but the takings will go elsewhere and official attendance numbers will seem poor.

Now, a logician might protest that there's another, simpler explanation for An American Carol having bombed: according to critics, it's "painfully unfunny", "first and foremost a terrible piece of film-making", "idiotic, demeaning, and aggressively, persistently crummy", and "about as not-funny as a comedy can get". But everyone knows that logic is biased towards Barack Obama. William of Ockham? Notorious liberal.

• Consternation at Newsweek, which published a poll earlier this week revealing that 86% of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction in which the nation is going - a historic low, coupled with lower approval ratings for George Bush than Richard Nixon ever had to confront. A further 4% didn't know how they felt. So who on earth are the 10% who think everything's fine? "The obvious guess is that the responders misunderstood the question," one reporter for the magazine speculated. "So maybe a few old ladies thought the nice Newsweek pollster said, 'Are you sad it's tied?' And they said, 'Yes,' because they thought their guy had a big lead." Intrepidly, he headed for the streets of Washington DC to find some of these sunny optimists. In the course of much questioning, he found five, two of whom were pretty clearly relentless optimists - the kind of people temperamentally unable to feel depressed about anything, no matter how catastrophic the economic news. Another two were Canadian. The fifth was drunk.

• Time now to turn - if only in the interests of redressing the balance - to Joe Biden who, despite being the clear favorite for vice president, can go for days without any significant coverage in the US at all. According to a profile in the current New Yorker, Biden's traveling press corps frequently consists of a single print-media reporter: studies reveal that he was the subject of between 2% and 6% of all news stories during the month of September, while Sarah Palin never fell below 15% and sometimes rose above 60%. Meanwhile, there is, as far as I can ascertain, one single professional Joe Biden lookalike in the whole of the United States, a man named Frank King who, the employment market being what it is at the moment, only makes ends meet by also offering his services as an impersonator of John McCain, Bill Clinton and John Edwards. He looks, in other words, like an adult male, which isn't surprising because he is one, although you've got to wonder whether that really works as a unique selling point.

• This week Oliver watched, read and listened to wall-to-wall US election coverage until his ears bled and his eyes swam: "I still can't work out the difference between a 'News Alert', a 'Breaking News Update' and a 'News Flash'. And if I have to hear CNN's Wolf Blitzer say, 'Here's what's happening right now', one more time, I will not be held responsible for my actions."