That explains Hillary Clinton's really confusing line at last night's debate:

"Abortions for some, and minature American flags for others."

Chris, how could you go so far in making such an extraordinary Simpsons connection, and not point out the most delicious part of all: Kang was disguised as BILL CLINTON when he made that riff!!!

Next he'll have Hillary promising abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.

Bah, VC beat me to it.  Damn slow updates.

I think that episode had some of the finest commentary on American politics in anything I have ever seen.  However, the part that made me laugh the most is when the aliens are sucking Bob Dole into that tube and he says "what the hell is this, some kind of tube?"   I am giggling right now thinking of it.

Fine then. I'll be watching for Hilary's stump speech after Ohio and Texas, in which she announces "It doesn't matter which one of us you vote for - your planet is doomed!"

Interestingly enough, that line was also my senior quote.

Another great line from the same episode:

Homer: Oh no! Aliens, bio-duplication, nude conspiracies. Oh my god, Lyndon Larouche was right!

He was behind that ghastly campaign that he calls "Tony Blair's last successful campaign"? The one in which Labour barely scraped in a majority, at the shag end of the Blair era, with a shameful 35,3% of the vote? As Wikipedia points out, "the lowest share of the popular vote to form a government with a majority in the UK House of Commons in history", in "the first General Election since 1929 that no party received more than 10 million votes"? And he's boasting about that?

The only reasons Blair still scraped by were that a) he promised not to stay too long, riding on Gordon Brown's then-popularity to eek out a victory instead; b) the Conservatives were still in such a shambles that many voted Lib Dem, and more people then ever voted for a fourth party, spreading the vote; and c) the electoral (district) system favours Labour, as decaying industrial Labour strongholds with waning populations are proprtionally overrepresented in Westminster while burgeoning Conservative-leaning districts in the South are underrepresented.

"Forwards, not back," meanwhile, must have been one of the most lethally lampooned slogans in recent UK history. Can't believe he actually sees it as symbolising a feather in his cap!

(Though in fairness, it was still outdone in lameness by the Conservatives' slogan: "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" Er, no.)

You can tell Kang apart from Kodos?

Dear God, how I love that episode.  Particularly the "abortions for some; miniature American flags for others" line that's already been referenced.  But there's also the bit when, after Kang and Kodos are unmasked, a voter says that he'll support a third party candidate...at which point Kodos says "Go ahead, throw your vote away" and they cut to Ross Perot punching a hole through a campaign hat.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- "The Simpsons" (prior to season 8) is the best show TV has ever offered.

bcbaird: Kang is slightly larger and has a deeper voice, I believe.

The Kang and Kodos names don't actually originate with "The Simpsons".  Both are named for old-series Star Trek characters. Kang is a Klingon (bad-guy) captain, and Kodos "the executioner" was the governor of a colony who killed half the colony population in order to ensure the survival of the other half during a food shortage.

It's a brilliantly geeky homage, and I mean no disrespect to Matt Groening, but their provenance is especially noteworthy in a discussion about plagiarism.