Well look who's still here! Anyway, I didn't see much wrong with Hillary's non-concession speech last night. It was brief! It was predictable! But no, the internet's throwing another one of its modifier death matches. Jeffrey Toobin: "deranged narcissism." Or, wait, "outrageous, delusional". Or "frighteningly sad." One Brit went the "damn her with hyperbolic damnation you (unconvincingly) pretend is muted" route, dubbing it "the most abrasive, self-absorbed, selfish, delusional, emasculating and extortionate political speech I've heard in a long time. And I've left out some adjectives, just to be polite." Whatever dudes, why not take a cue from your Casual Encounter-inclined seeking Obamabros and focus your attention on the cute redhead behind her if that's what it takes. Less Talking Points, more Craigslist. Less fulminating, more masturbating. We've got our guy. His Rockwellian family portrait is gracing Drudge as we speak. And it's the 19th anniversary of Tiananmen, as Megan and I will note briefly after the jump.

MEGAN: So, I felt like we should discuss something timely this morning, like how red wine might slow aging because it "exploit[s] an ancient biological survival mechanism, that of switching the body’s resources from fertility to tissue maintenance." And/or it makes you not mind living longer, unlike the caloric restriction diet that does the same thing.

MOE: Sorry, just back from a caffeine run. The new ethos is sort of wearing thin down at Starbucks. I feel like red wine mostly just switches my resources from "thought formation" to "oh god please just let me die," so it's ironic the stuff actually KEEPS YOU ALIVE. And hey…can inhibit fertility? Sign me up!
MOE: So man…slow news day eh?

MEGAN: Yeah, I mean, it's totally like pulling teeth to find shit to talk about. Hey, you might not get rice with your Chinese food now because of rising food prices!

MOE: Well, Wednesday is also Tom Frank day. Frank no likey Fareed Zakaria, check it:

The facts Mr. Zakaria adduces to prove this have an oddly size-ist bias, as they might say on campus. The tallest building in the world is in Taiwan, he writes; the richest human is a Mexican; and China has the world's biggest factories, biggest shopping malls and its biggest casino.

Wait, I thought the tallest building was in Malaysia?
MOE:

But don't be alarmed, senator. By this reasoning, one might just as well claim that British health care is better than anyone else's because London has the world's tallest hospital building. Or that Falangist Spain was the acme of piety since Generalissimo Franco built the world's largest crucifix. Similarly, Mr. Zakaria's observation that the world's biggest airplane "is built in Russia and Ukraine" – actually, as far as I can tell, it is a Soviet-era cargo plane, and only one of them was built – might demonstrate, by his logic, that the Soviets were the real victors in the Cold War.

MEGAN: I believe the Taiwanese built one just to beat the Malaysian one and the Malaysian answer to that isn't done yet or something. Thank God we as a country have gotten over building big crap to prove something about our, um, size. Now we just bomb shit. It's much more efficient and metaphoric because what's the use of getting a stiffy over something if it can't explode?
MOE: Well right and Taiwan's not allowed to build nukes right? They're not Israel for chrissakes. Anyway Tom Frank doesn't think that suave senator from Illinois is going to get anywhere reading that hack Zakaria and suggests a book by JK Galbraith.

MOE: Oh dude how did I miss the all-important George Lucas endorsement?
MOE: What ELSE did I miss?
MEGAN: Ok, I was going to say "It's hard to get anywhere when gas costs $4" and link to this story but then I opened it and, MY GOD, Ford is selling a fucking pickup truck for more than $100,000. The apocalypse really is at hand. I gotta go figure out how to build a bomb shelter in a one bedroom condo.

MOE: Oh God it's June 4. Remember June 4? Don't worry, most kids our age in China don't either.

Last year, Tiananmen Square was patrolled once again by plainclothes policemen, ready to quash any attempts to remember the victims of the massacre. People involved in the democracy movement were removed from the city or placed under house arrest. Three editors of a Chengdu newspaper that carried a tiny advertisement saluting the “mothers of June 4” were fired from their jobs. It turns out that the young clerk who had approved the ad hadn’t grasped the significance of the date. She, like the rest of her generation, had been robbed of her own history.

MEGAN: That's actually kind of hilarious! You can't tell them about it because they'll know, so you fire them over it so they'll know.
MOE: Right? And the curious paradox is not limited to that repressed society! The writer, Ma Jian, says he was recently asked to speak to a group in London, which advertised the appearance of a "banned novelist" — and asked him to refrain from criticizing China! Think Rupert Murdoch was involved? And speaking of Murdoch, how is his favorite rookie presidential candidate holding up?
MEGAN: Um, I think he's doing ok. He might've kind of had a long night or something last night.
MOE: Did you see this Hillary speech everyone is giving such rave reviews? Because I was singing "Say My Name" at Dodai's birthday. Never request that at karaoke. My roommate thought it would be easier than "The Boy Is Mine." BAD. CALL. But gargantuan respect for Beyonce now, not that I didn't have it before.
MEGAN: Yes, um, the last time I sang karaoke was with Angela and Spencer and some guy Mike and I rapped "The Jump Off" by Lil Kim and I fully encourage you to ask one of them about it sometime for your own amusement. Even better: I was sober.
MEGAN: Wait, people are giving her non-concession speech rave reviews? I kept being like... is she going to say it now? Now? Now?
MOE: Wait it wasn't Mike Madden was it? And re the "raves", I was deliberately mischaracterizing so the commenters wouldn't be able to say, "Well you would think that if you sought out sources of information from a spectrum slightly broader than the Talking Points Memo —- Matthew Yglesias one" Because they were not huge fans of the speech, to deliberately understate.
MEGAN: I mean, she did look very relaxed, I can't say I love the royal blue suit on first glance but with the full impact of the color minimized by the podium it set off her coloring quite nicely. She kept reciting these lists of blue-collar and lower-middle class people that voted for her which made me laugh thinking of this woman that I saw protesting on Saturday.

MEGAN: But then she delivered me the best. gift. ever. She asked all her supporters to leave her messages on her website telling her what they think she ought to do, and my bloggy heart sang a song of triumph.
MOE: Hahaha that lady is awesome. ARUGULA LOVERZ 4 HILL… BOHEMIAN BOURGEOIS FOR WHISKEY SPECIALS…BABY EINSTEIN BUYING AIMEE MANN LISTENERS FOR HILLARY CLINTON
MEGAN: Because, really, I think comments like this could put to rest that sense that people have that Obama supporters are the only ones who support their candidate without regards to logic or this issues. "I CAN'T BEAR THE THOUGHT OF HER NOT BEING IN THIS RACE...IT HURTS TO THINK ABOUT IT...I WANT HER TO KEEP GOING. HILLARY - WHAT CA WE DO? TELL US AND WE WILL DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!! WE ARE BESIDE YOU 100000% - SO WE ARE HERE FOR YOU, AND WE ALWAYS WILL BE. PLEASE TELL US WHAT WE NEED TO DO. I KNOW YOU WILL DO WHAT IS RIGHT, BUT FOR MANY OF US, THE ONLY RIGHT THING IS FOR YOU TO BE PRESIDENT!!!! HOW DO WE NOT CONTINUE THAT FIGHT WHEN WE BELIEVE SO MUCH THAT YOU ARE THE BEST CANDIDATE???? YOU ARE BETTER - IT'S THAT SIMPLE. HOW DO WE JUST STOP?????"
MEGAN: Damn, I should've blockquoted that.

MEGAN: Dude, I think I like this quote even better:

I know the Clinton's have a lot of money. But I don't expect them to give up it all up to pay off our campaign debts. Hillary and her family have given their all physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to her campaign.

MOE: Um, that is a real quote? Man, the internet takes all kinds, don't it?
MEGAN: Yes, it's a real quote! I can't even type in all caps for that long, my pinkie gets tired.
MOE: Oh HAH, David Granger came out and denied being the Esquire editor who told someone on the Clinton campaign Todd Purdum was a bigger embarrassment to the profession than Jayson Blair and Judy Mitchell and Bonnie Fuller combined or whatever that was.

MEGAN: Oh, totally, it wasn't him.
MOE: But it wasn't totally fabricated!

"I didn't say anything to him," said Granger. "One of my editors sent a personal email to Doug Band [a longtime Clinton staffer who is described in Purdum's story]. It was an editor who has a personal relationship with Doug. Doug emailed my editor who then forwarded it to me and he said he was sorry that his comments were taken in another direction."

MEGAN: Oooh, a personal relationship, huh? I love how an editor didn't say anything like "This is on background" and then proceeded to give ammo to someone.

MEGAN: Also, in case you missed it, just to give some people some red meat so we can continue discussing sexism in the media and the campaign and whatever, Jeffrey Toobin last night called Clinton's non-concession speech "deranged narcissim".
MOE: Yeah…well…email can be embarrassing. I think we've sort of made a profession out of that. Emails to potential sources intended to make powerful people believe a journalist is "on his side" would probably make a more worthwhile blog feature even than Crap Email From A Dude…in fact my old editor had a fucking gem he wrote to Allen Iverson's mother once to try and get her cooperation on his biography…which reminds me, just in a general way, did you check of the other links between sports and this campaign…
MOE: Oh! Deranged narcissism, as opposed to her husband's merely cavernous narcissism. Tell that to Joe Dumars! (Not to mention Gary Hart.)

Some in the media are declaring the series over because the Boston Celtics have won four of the six games played so far. But I don’t understand why, with a series this close and hotly contested, anyone would want to shut it down before we play a seventh game and have all the results in. As anybody who follows the NBA knows, a seven-game series would be good for the league, and the added competition would make the eventual victor, whomever it might be, a stronger opponent against the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals.

MEGAN: Dude, I know exactly nothing about basketball except that the orange ball goes in the hoop and I can't play it worth a goddamn.
MEGAN: So the whole thing is sort of over my head but I'm guessing it's mocking Hillary for staying in the race, right? Way to not play into a gender-based argument there... Oh, wait, it's The New Republic, I forgot.
MOE: Well you are not an urbane tomboy! Okay, I think I had better post this shit.

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