Ed Koch, lovable weird old probably gay former New York mayor, is a Democrat, yes, and wrote a book about how much he hated Rudy Giuliani, but lately he's been talking a lot about how great the Bush administration is (when he is not reviewing movies), so most people assumed he'd endorse ol' John McCain for president this year. But then something funny happened! McCain selected this woman named Sarah Palin to be his Vice President. So today, Koch endorsed Barack Obama! What's up with that? Koch's written statmeent says Barack Obama will protect us from terror, and help the poor people, but to really understand why he endorsed Obama we turn to his statement to Politico's Ben Smith: "Any time someone goes to the library and says, 'I want to ban books,' and the librarian says 'no,' and she threatens to fire them — that's scary." She's speaking of Sarah Palin, of course. But it might not be just the book-banning that turned ol' Ed off! See, Sarah Palin is a super-Christian self-described "pitbull" whose church is maybe trying to convert all the Jews. Also Ed Koch just proved us 100% correct. She terrifies the old Jews who might otherwise be wary of that Obama kid. Time to invest in more Florida air time, Axelrod! Even more awesome: according to Radar, Koch had the best critique of Giulinai's Republican National Convention speech ever:

Koch said he had noticed a "verbal tic intruding" into Giuliani's speech at the Republican convention last week: "a kind of maniacal laugh appearing before or simultaneously surfacing as he delivered his slashing attack" on Obama. Suddenly, Koch realized where he had heard that laugh before: it was from Richard Widmark, "carrying out his role in the movie Kiss of Death. I saw once again the scene in which Widmark, playing Tommy Udo, a killer, pushed a wheelchair in which an old woman was sitting and, laughing maniacally, shoved it off the top of the stairs with its occupant still in it."

Hah! Koch '08!