Obamacane: Is NBC's Sandy Benefit Really an Obama Commercial?

In just a few hours, most every functioning television screen on the Eastern Seaboard will be showing NBC’s new mid-season replacement reality series, Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together. And we aren’t the only ones who smell an entire river of dead rats. Fox News, for example, has an interesting take that is mostly “interesting” for its picture of Kanye at the top of the story. (Kanye West isn’t scheduled to do the benefit tonight, but he did say something about George W. Bush at another hurricane benefit, seven years ago. And Kanye is also black … much like Obama.)

But with the Presidential election just days away, and the notion that a number of those in the lineup are outspoken Democrats — such as Springsteen, who recently endorsed Obama, and is scheduled to play at his final rally Monday night; Fallon, who has interviewed Obama on his late night show; and Billy Joel, who joined Springsteen to proudly endorse Obama in 2008,some critics have expressed concern that the telethon will become a politically-driven Obama rally.

Is that a white woman with Kanye West? And who is that angry old liberal yelling in the picture, Howard Dean or somesuch? Let’s say “Howard Dean.” He is hosting tonight’s Obama Benefit.

Because our sister blog Idolator got washed away by the Frankenstorm, we will be unable to liveblog tonight’s benefit concert, which will be broadcast at 8 p.m. Eastern time. But maybe you can liveblog it, or type comments? Or not? You might just want to figure out how to get home in the dark, on all these weird streets that are apparently over the subway tunnels.