Opinion: Friday Tickets: Susan Boyle, Sean Hannity, Meghan McCain, Larry Summers, Larry King and Levi

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

It’s been such a confusing week. Fridays are always good times to straighten things out with questions nobody knew needed asking:

President Obama, a pedestrian commuter, flies a giant 747 all the way to Iowa to talk green about windmill power when the nation’s most powerful, perpetual collection of windbags is about nine blocks up Pennsylvania Avenue.

Susan Boyle, who has a beautiful voice and what Grandma B used to call ‘spunk,’ has never kissed Simon Cowell. And this is somehow bad?

Waterboarding, which used to be great fun behind speedboats, is now considered a torture that cannot be applied to terrorist prisoners but is given during training of U.S. military troops.

So Charles Grodin, almost forgotten for his inability to control a large dog in some movies about the famous music composer Beethoven, suddenly appears on the Hannity show because -- why? Is ‘Hollywood Squares’ on hiatus?

And because Grodin is so personally and strongly opposed to waterboarding, which Hannity considers merely an enhanced interrogation technique, Grodin offers to waterboard Hannity and the host agrees to do it for charity.

What?

Miss USA and Miss America haven’t mattered in America or the USA since Bert Parks died and currently compete for cable eyeballs with bass fishing. Now, a woman who wanted to be Miss USA but isn’t doesn’t want to marry another woman and anyone should care?

Meghan McCain, part-time blogger and full-time future beer heiress, tells ...

... the misnamed Joy Behar that Karl Rove, who orchestrated the thorough political waxing of her dad in the South Carolina GOP primary nine years ago, should go away. And anyone is surprised?

A federal judge thinks it might not be a good idea to allow indicted Democratic ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich to run off to Costa Rica to make some reality TV shows just because the Chicago politician faces 30 years of prison haircuts? What real North Sider would absent himself from those environs the year the Cubbies finally do it?

Many people forget, because it was before their great-great-grandfather’s time, that after the Second Battle of Manassas it was Larry King’s interview of Confederate Gen. Thomas Jackson next to a stone wall that gave the Southerner his famous nickname.

So the other night on national TV old Larry leans in to ask young Levi what’s-his-name from Alaska where he and his ex-future fiancee did it. And the 14- or 19-year-old ex-electrician’s apprentice declines to answer because he’s ‘a gentleman.’

Which doesn’t explain why he’s sitting there with Lar in the first place after being on every conceivable cable show recently, except bass fishing. Another hiatus.

Larry Summers, Obama’s top economic adviser who’s helping orchestrate the nation’s economic stimulus plan, didn’t drink enough stimulants and couldn’t stay awake when his boss started lecturing credit card companies about the fine print in their customer agreements.

If you’re among the millions who’ve visited Four Corners where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and that really well-organized Mormon state come together and took your photo with a body part in each state, sorry to say it turns out you were about 1,800 feet off .

But they’re not going to do anything about it. Good thing we fired those huge satellites into orbit and invented these precise GPS thingies. Well worth the investments.

From the right-hand lane, the Washington Times sends word that Obama’s choice to run the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is Chuck Hurley, who favors re-inventing the nationally mandated 55 mile an hour speed limit.

This makes eminent sense everywhere that’s called the East -- which is all that really matters, right? -- since no one can ever exceed 25 anyway because of all the other cars.

Besides, 55 worked so well under Bill Clinton and helped gel Republican political control of the Rocky Mountain corridor where the rural speed limit is N/A because no one’s around to tell. (Did you hear about the trooper who asked the Montana rancher why he was driving 95 on the interstate and the rancher said, ‘Because it was raining.’)

Talk about moving quickly, after those many, many, many long years of preparation in the Senate, Joe Biden is still being ready and keeping his schedule open.

Speaking of former vice presidents, can we make Dick Cheney vice president once more so he’ll stop talking to the press again?

-- Andrew Malcolm

Speaking of tickets, you can get automatic Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item by clicking here. Or follow us @latimestot