ANA MARIE: Good morning!

MEGAN: Hey there! How are you?

ANA MARIE: A little tie-tie and already tired of the fucking shoe story.

MEGAN: I am actually really impressed with Bush's reflexes. Like, for all those politicians that took cream pies to the faces, Bush was like, nuh-uh. In slow-mo, it's very Matrix-y.

ANA MARIE: I think this should put to rest the rumors that he's drinking again. You know what's really going to suck about this, right?

MEGAN: Other than everything?

ANA MARIE: Journalists no longer be allowed to wear shoes. We're living in a post 12/14 world. And in that world, shoes just aren't worth the risk.

MEGAN: Dude, no one is taking my shoes. I stop with the pedicures in, like, November. I can't afford otherwise.

ANA MARIE: I doubt if you're alone. Lynn Sweet does not seem like a regular pedicure girl.

MEGAN: Plus, not to be mean to the White House press corps, but I'm betting some of those dudes have some gnarly, smelly feet. I really think a room full of unshod reporters' stank feet is probably more of a risk to the President than a shoe.

ANA MARIE: (And I just want to note that I had to cycle through a few names before I got to a WH correspondent that might not get regular pedicures. But I suspect Jake Tapper does!) Yeah, see that is where we disagree! I think many WH correspondents take VERY good care of their tootsies. It's not like they're out there pounding the pavement. Very little reporting involved in covering the White House.

MEGAN: I don't know, it's not like Maureen Dowd is there and can go all Elvira, Mistress of the Dark on him. [Ed: For those with better taste in movies than me, Elvira dispatches the villain at the end with a stiletto to the forehead, killing him. ]

ANA MARIE: I had forgotten that Elvira had her own movie. Thanks. You will not be shocked to know that right now on Morning Joe Pat Buchanan is showing a rather... uhm... exhaustive knowledge of Nazi history. Seriously, though: Pat Buchanan showing up to out-Nazi-trivia Bryan Singer about his own Nazi movie.

MEGAN: Yeah, completely NOT surprised. At least I can blame my Hitler trivia knowledge on the fact that I was a German history minor.

ANA MARIE: FWIW, I sense that Pat, like the heroes of Valkyrie, thinks that Hitler totally ruined Nazism.

MEGAN: Is is strange that I'm surprised that Bryan Singer is kind of hot?

ANA MARIE: I'm a little surprised at how young he seems, but not that he's hot. Usual Suspects was, fuck, over a decade ago?

MEGAN: Directors are so rarely attractive, though.

ANA MARIE: I have not made enough of a study of that. But speaking of studying: Trying to make sense of this Kristol op-ed. Have you read?

MEGAN: I find it hard to read while his grinning pumpkin head stares at me. It's already hard enough to decipher.

ANA MARIE: He and Jim Webb should hire themselves out for Halloween.

MEGAN: Is there enough orange paint in the world for that?

ANA MARIE: I think he wants a bail out? Or he's knocking the GOP for something?

MEGAN: Actually, I am a little horrified that I'm agreeing with some of the things he's saying about Republicans. He's still a reflexive idiot about liberals.

ANA MARIE: He has been kind of an idiot about Republicans!

MEGAN:

But despite the fact that the government is partly responsible for the Big Three’s problems, the right hasn’t really been stirred to enthusiastically promote a deregulatory agenda to help the auto companies. What excites it is mobilizing to oppose bailouts for unionized workers.

Last week, Senate Republicans picked a fight with the U.A.W. on union pay scales — despite the fact that it’s the legacy benefits for retirees, not pay for current workers, that’s really hurting Detroit, and despite the additional fact that, in any case, labor amounts to only about 10 percent of the cost of a car. But the Republicans were fighting Big Labor! They were standing firm against bailouts!

ANA MARIE: I'm not convinced he's always writing this column himself. Not that he's farming it out, but just engaging in automatic writing or something. Letting the spirits speak through him. And this spirit happens to be different than the "I HEART SARAH" one.

MEGAN: It's definitely written through his "all liberals are hypocritical" filter, though.

ANA MARIE: I think he's saying that they should do MORE to deregulate unions besides take on labor. Like, the problems of regulation go beyond unions. By saying that GOP shouldn't have gone after labor, he's NOT saying unions are good. And even though he likes the idea of the "car czar," isn't the car czar idea inherently anti-anti-regulation? My head hurts now. Let's move on

MEGAN: Well, I think he main point actually comes through at the end.

The bill would have allowed President Bush to name a car czar, who could have begun to force concessions from all sides. It also would have averted for now a collapse of the auto industry, and shifted difficult decisions to the Obama administration.

It's all about trying to make his Republican compatriots understand their role is to make Obama look bad.

ANA MARIE: AH! Ain't unity grand?

MEGAN: But let's talk cute: an Obama daughter-Chris Rock daughter playdate. That's a unity of cuteness.

ANA MARIE: But not BIDEN PUPPY CUTE!

MEGAN: Okay, the puppy is very cute, but: he used a breeder. Pound puppies, people, the nation is crying out for change.

ANA MARIE: And, seriously, who DOESN'T want a play date with Sasha and Malia. I mean, I want a playdate with them. I know, I would feel better about a rescue pup. BUT LOOK AT HIS EYES. The puppy's, not Biden's. Though I think that the national had a similar reaction when Obama picked Biden: "We would have preferred HRC BUT LOOK AT HIS EYES."

MEGAN: It is an extremely cute puppy, and the Biden granddaughters will, naturally, get to name him.

Originally, Brown said she was to bring two puppies to Biden, but Biden called and said he wanted to see all the dogs.

"He was very gracious," Brown said. "He hugged and kissed all of the shepherds."

There are also totally women in the world today wishing they were puppies.

ANA MARIE: I LOVE that detail.

MEGAN: Well, how do you not let puppies lick your face?

ANA MARIE: "He hugged and kissed all of the shepherds." Of course he did. That's the only part of the Vice President's job that Biden's not planning on eliminating.

MEGAN: I'm sure that's in the Constitution.

ANA MARIE: I am so glad I'm not in Chicago, btw. You can hear the chattering of teeth in the voices of reporters covering Blago/PEBO (PEBO = "President-Elect Barack Obama" I learned that very recently! Like, journo slang.)

MEGAN: I sort of love how more and more people are like, dude was craaaazzeee when he's obviously just sort of always been an asshole.

ANA MARIE: But you can't "plead asshole" in court.

MEGAN: Actually, I think that should be a legitimate defense. "But, Your Honor, I'm an asshole." I want to hear defendants say that, give 'em 30 days off their sentence or something.

ANA MARIE: I think that was Scooter Libby's first try.

MEGAN: Scooter left out the "stupid" part. Everyone already knows lawyers are assholes. That's the real meaning of "Esquire." Speaking of, I found Shep Smith's interview in Esquire kind of endearing but difficult to read in the absence of questions. Even writing that made me feel like I'd bought into something very bougie about writing.

ANA MARIE: Well it was like hearing one side of a phone conversation. A fascinating conversation! But still, a little disjointed. Maybe they're saving money by not printing the reporter's questions! Something that maybe places like the Tribune Co. and Newsweek should look into!

MEGAN: Less ink, less layoffs? Maybe they should look into this Internet thingie, where there's no ink and no layo... Oh, wait, never mind.

ANA MARIE: I was thinking more, like, how they don't have to pay extras in movies if they don't have lines. If you don't print the reporters' questions, you don't have to pay them.

MEGAN: Maybe we could just let all the people in the news write in the first person about what they're doing and just call it a day. The press is just like this unnecessary middleman in this day and age.

ANA MARIE: EXCEPT THEY'RE NOT, right? I was a conference last week and this guy from Google was all, "we hate it that the MSM is going under, because without them we're not going have quality information to index for people to search." So I was like, "You'll need to start hiring journalists then."

MEGAN: Oh, God, stop. I'm laughing so hard I'm crying. Or crying so hard I'm laughing, I can't really tell.

MEGAN: For a campaign that attempted to accuse everyone and anyone of sexism in regards to Sarah Palin, there's some sort of irony in campaign staff now calling her a "diva", I think. Also, I love the back-stabbing of the end of a campaign because it just shows you who is in it for the candidate and who's only in it for what the candidate winning can do for his/her career. And, yes, I'm looking at all the lobbyists in the McCain campaign.

LATOYA: I just feel like it's karma — you asked for a maverick, didn't you? Well now, she's just gone maverick on the trail. I watched McCain on Meet the Press on Sunday, he still says he's proud of her.

MEGAN: Not that her remarks this weekend were "the remarks [they] sent to the plane [that] morning."

LATOYA: I'm loving how some polls are calling Palin "a bigger drag on the campaign than Bush" — that's cold. Yet, there seems to be a strong push for Palin in 2012. (OMG, I am sleepy — I keep typing Plain when I mean Palin. Is my subconscious trying to tell me something?)

MEGAN: Apparently because she can deliver the xenophobes and the racists.

LATOYA: And the VPILF set.

MEGAN: Then Stephanie Herseth for VP in 2012!

LATOYA: Don't forget them. I was watching D.L. Hughley's comedy show on CNN on Saturday and Palin supporters were obviously playing bingo with the campaign buzzwords. "Maverick." "Real American." "Hot"

MEGAN: Palin supporters are the most boring people ever, like, how do you not just make that a drinking game?

LATOYA: See, I was thinking scrabble myself. I know I could hit a couple triple word scores with "RealAmerican", hit "maverick" with the M... I was amused at Hughley's sketch though — he kept telling the supporters that Palin needs a black guy to win, and handed out Palin/Hughley 2012 signs.

MEGAN: The only board game I am really good at is Trivial Pursuit, and even that I haven't played in years.

LATOYA: Response from the one guy — "We don't know you!" (Doesn't that sound familiar?)

Response from an angry woman: "Are you for abortion?"
DL: "I would never have one."

MEGAN: Maybe they're just worried that all black people aren't really Americans.

LATOYA: Neither are you latte-sipping coasters.

MEGAN: Screw lattes, it's all about the café au laits for me.

LATOYA: I think we need to start a campaign for fake America. American Faux. We need a tee shirt.

MEGAN: What would be our symbol? Lattes, arugula and diversity?

LATOYA: Oh, we should make a crest! "In cosmopolitia, we trust."

MEGAN: Do we still have to use the eagle? Could we go with the turkey like Ben Franklin, the ultimate latte-sipper if there ever was one? And then like in those old grade school drawings where you make it from an outline of your hang, we could put a different symbol for our cause on every feather!

LATOYA: See, this is shaping up nicely. I vote for Ben Franklin, Crispus Attucks, and Phyllis Wheatley as our symbols of American Faux. Though I think the first tee we make should be telling K. Rove to sit his ass down somewhere and stop being Captain Obvious. I thought he was a strategist. Who changed the job description?

MEGAN: A strategist is something even other Republicans think McCain lacks. Rove's a pundit now and so like Bill Kristol he has to walk that fine line between a level of intellectual honesty that can leave his job intact and party loyalty, so that's about all he can say. At least David Frum had some helpful suggestions, even if they were basically to let McCain continue to run his campaign into the ground on his own and start fighting to keep some Republicans in office.

LATOYA: Yeah, well it looks like they switched strategies — maybe they are hoping that they can just stop people from voting outright. Or that the election boards will do their work for them:

Berry is one of more than 50,000 registered Georgia voters who have been "flagged" because of a computer mismatch in their personal identification information. At least 4,500 of those people are having their citizenship questioned and the burden is on them to prove eligibility to vote. Experts say lists of people with mismatches are often systematically cut, or "purged," from voter rolls.

It's a scenario that's being repeated all across the country, with cases like Berry's raising fears of potential vote suppression in crucial swing states. "What most people don't know is that every year, elections officials strike millions of names from the voter rolls using processes that are secret, prone to error and vulnerable to manipulation," said Wendy Weiser, an elections expert with New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. "That means that lots and lots of eligible voters could get knocked off the voter rolls without any notice and, in many cases, without any opportunity to correct it before Election Day." Weiser acknowledged that "purging done well and with proper accountability" is necessary to remove people who have died or moved out of state. "But the problem is it's not necessary to do inaccurate purges that catch up thousands of eligible voters without any notice or any opportunity to fix it before Election Day and really without any public scrutiny at all," she said. Such allegations have flared up across the United States during this election cycle, most notably in Ohio, where a recent lawsuit has already gone to the U.S. Supreme Court.

MEGAN: I love how even Scalia was like, oh, Christ, fuck off, Ohio Republicans.

LATOYA: I feel like I need to call the election board and make sure I'm on the guest list. I didn't know voting was like clubbing — "I swear I'm on the list! I registered on Thursday! Can I please get my free drink ticket?"

MEGAN: Well, even if they purged you, they have to let you cast a provisional ballot.

LATOYA: Yeah, like someone is going to count those. And those ballots are shady anyway.

MEGAN: Well, I mean, that is the issue. I think, though, if they have purged so many people that the provisionals could make a difference, Obama's lawyers will probably have your back. I saw Recall. God, I love that movie.

LATOYA: One would hope. In good news, it seems that a lot of former felons have been re-enfranchised.

According to advocacy groups, about 5.3 million Americans, or 1 in 41 adults, have lost their right to vote because of a felony conviction.

"The issue here is really if someone should have a permanent scarlet letter on them — if there are certain offenses for which there is no redemption," said Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who played a lead role in revising Tennessee's voting law in 2006.

The suffrage laws vary by state and often by felony, with violent crimes incurring greater restrictions. Only two states — Maine and Vermont — permit voting by all felons, including those still in prison. California, along with states such as New York and Colorado, automatically reinstates voting rights to felons once they are released from prison and are off parole.

MEGAN: I think that if you've served your time, you've served your time, you shouldn't have to re-apply for citizenship. But people on probation and parole aren't done repaying their debt to society.

LATOYA: But unfortunately, we're still hating on Native Americans. And, um, Ohio voters.

MEGAN: I mean, there are reliable voting blocs that go Democratic, right? Why does the GOP not try to systematically disenfranchise groups of white people? Why is it always people of color?
Why do they hate your freedom?

LATOYA: Because, obviously, I'm not a real American. Therefore, it is obvious that I should only have fake rights and fake freedoms.

• John McCain's had some more time to think about John Lewis's words of caution about the level of racial intolerance and violence coming out in this election season. He thinks John Lewis' words were unacceptable. [CNN]
• Of course, he probably didn't read this article about how calling an African-American political figure a socialist has a long and unfortunate history dating back to efforts to make African-American political leaders — and their fight for equality — seem foreign and scary. [American Prospect]
• Or this one about how too many white people subconsciously associate white people with America and black people with foreign stuff. [Washington Post]
• Or this one, about how people think only the white working class voters of the Midwest count as an authentic political coalition. [American Prospect]

• Meanwhile, Barack Obama's got a new economic plan that involves you being able to access your retirement savings more easily and puts a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures. [NY Times]
• But the McCainiacs definitely read that because their on-again-off-again new economic stimulus plan is back on again for tomorrow, which is totally the way to avoid looking erratic. [TPM Election Central]
• And Nancy Pfotenhauer Pfuckingsucks still fucking sucks and is forced to, giggling, accuse über-conservative Bill Kristol of buying into Obama's hype. [Think Progress]
• Oh and, yes, Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in economics. I sort of feel bad now that I skipped reading his book in college. [NY Times]

SPENCER: So should we go forward with Crappy Hour or can you tell Anna that the seriousness of the financial crisis merits a suspension of the feature?

MEGAN: Oh, sure, I mean, you and I really need to get up in the Hill this morning and involve ourselves in negotiations for the bailout package that we've been heretofore uninvolved in, because our presence and our presence alone will resolve the 3 days of negotiations. It'll just take a few days. She'll understand. It's a crisis after all. And totally unlike the mortgage crisis that spawned legislation that we ignored a couple of months ago. This one is important.

SPENCER: Country First, goddammit.

MEGAN: This is not a time for partisan politics!

SPENCER: I think in 42 days, we're going to look back on this as the day McCain lost the election. A more massively unforced error I cannot imagine.

MEGAN: I guess it depends on whether you're Steve Schmidt and think that debating Obama on Friday (or having Palin debate Biden next week) would be a bigger error.

SPENCER: While I was watching Bush's speech last night, a whole other dimension of error occurred to me: why does it benefit McCain to go meet with the least popular president in history, the one whose legacy McCain has to distance himself from?

MEGAN: The only thing I can think is what some Republipundit said last night, which is that it forces Obama to interact positively with Bush, inoculating McCain to a degree, and it might allow McCain to call a shitty bailout bill a "Bush-Obama" bill. If that's the actual thinking — if there is actual thinking involved in this decision — then kudos.

SPENCER: No, that doesn't match the timeline. Remember, at 8:30 a.m. yesterday, Obama called McCain and proposed a joint statement. McCain responded affirmatively around 2ish, and then an hour later announced this no-debate stunt. The likeliest explanation is that McCain huddled with Davis and Schmidt and thought about how to throw the ball further downfield. But here they miscalculated almost completely: SurveyUSA found only 10 percent think the debate should be put off.

MEGAN: Well, at least Schmidt and Davis managed to find some people in the tank for them.

SPENCER: I guess the Bush thing could have been trying to bind Obama, but he can't turn down a presidential invite, and could just as easily put out a release as tepid as... the joint statement he did with McCain.

MEGAN: According to Obama, though, McCain brought it up at the 2:30 conference call and Obama said, let's have our people discuss it when they're talking about the joint statement. So it was on McCain's mind before. But, yeah, they were in the midst of negotiating that statement when McCain made his announcement. So, it's unsurprising that the statement is tepid.

SPENCER: Meanwhile McCain looks like a complete pussy. He's too chickenshit to debate Obama — dude, al-Qaeda bombed the fucking USS Cole in October 2000 and Bush and Gore still debated! — and now looks like a supplicant to Bush. One unforced error on top of another.

MEGAN: Oooh, nice catch on the USS Cole. Also, I'd like to point out the absurdity of the idea that Congress will be negotiating this at 9:00 on Friday night.

SPENCER: Here's another unforced error! If you're suspending the campaign, don't send out talking points on suspending the campaign! Sorry to make you open a PDF.

MEGAN: I love how we can fix the economy by the time the markets open on Monday with legislation. Presto-chango! It's fixed!

SPENCER: We don't even really need to comment on the transparent foolishness of this stunt. Within 30 minutes the bigfoot journalists on secret listservs I'm on digested it and became immediately appalled. It's a waste of time to even treat the idea seriously.

MEGAN: Dude, I started laughing hysterically when I heard. Like, it might have been the 3 cups of coffee, but I was wiping away tears listening to it, I was laughing that hard.

SPENCER: The only right-wing journalists still shilling for this are at the Weekly Standard. Even NRO readers aren't buying the dog food. Look at what Bill Kristol wrote:

As for the question of Friday night's debate, which some in the media seem to think more important than saving the financial system—if the negotiations are still going on in D.C., McCain should offer to send Palin to debate Obama! Or he can take a break from the meetings, fly down at the last minute himself, and turn a boring foreign policy debate, in which he and Obama would repeat well-rehearsed arguments, into a discussion about leadership and decisiveness. And if the negotiations are clearly on a path to success, then McCain can say he can now afford to leave D.C., fly down, and the debate would become a victory lap for McCain.

I read that and thought of the scene in Boogie Nights when a coked-out Dirk Diggler tries desperately to get erect, tears rolling down his face, talking to his cock like "come on... come on..."

MEGAN: Um, I can't believe you just made me think about Bill Kristol's cock just there. I love this part, though, Country First my ass.

Of course his motives were partly election-related. But "the interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place."

McCain is America! America is McCain! What's right for him is right for everyone! Quick, everyone swap spouses! Call your wife a cunt!

SPENCER: I call Kim Kagan. I will sex her up like Color Me Badd.

MEGAN: Will you give her your dick in a boxx?

SPENCER: Ohhh, maybe Noemie Emery. I hear she crazy. Like, files-her-pieces-on-legal-legal-paper crazy.

MEGAN: Oh, her poor interns.

SPENCER: Should probably record a take-off on a Biggie song. "Dreams (Of Fucking A Right-Wing Bitch)." Noemie, I'm just playing! ... I'm saying!

MEGAN: Man, I think we could totally make a YouTube video out of that.

SPENCER: Back to McCain. (Yo, Meghan, don't take me seriously girl. I know you're reading. Don't mind what I say about your dad. Hit me up. 281-330-8004. My girlfriend doesn't have to know.)

MEGAN: Hey, look, Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are offering their services. I think that should be McCain's punishment if he bails on Friday. He should have to debate them, and Obama gets a night to himself.

SPENCER: How does McCain dig himself out of this? The debate is clearly going to happen tomorrow.

MEGAN: If it doesn't, he's cost the taxpayers of Mississippi $5 million for his little stunt. Oh, how do you like your low-spending Republicans now, Red State Mississippi? At least Obama gives a shit about how he spends your money.

SPENCER: He's going to have to slink down to Mississippi, backtracking on all this, an object of total ridicule for Obama. And McCain's temper cannot handle ridicule.

MEGAN: Yeah, I don't think him showing up tomorrow is going to be some big victory lap around Ole Miss, Bill Kristol's masturbatory epistles aside.

SPENCER: I'm kind of expecting Nancy Phflorfhfthflhflfhthloger to put out a statement about how McCain spent FIVE AND A HALF YEARS not being able to debate anyone.

MEGAN: He was just doing what he always does! Like with the Surge, he was doing what he thought was right, electoral consequences be damned!! Nancy Pfuckingsucks actually said that yesterday.

SPENCER: No! She did????

MEGAN: Yes, I heard it on MSNBC, but I was already laughing so hard I couldn't laugh any harder.

SPENCER: Republican pollster Scott Rasmussen has Obama up two points in... North Carolina. End times! This guy is fucked. He just lost the election. McCain better pray for a terrorist attack or some shit.

MEGAN: I think he already masturbates to that. I don't think you can pray one-handed.

1. That protester that was above my head during McCain's speech (that I was frankly worried was going to get tossed from his perch by angry Republicans) was Adam Kokesh from Iraq Veterans Against The War.
2. The infamous balloon drop was pretty cool, but it only hit the delegates on the floor and none of the people in the stands, which I thought kind of lame. I don't know that it was so cool that it was worth the whining that I heard about it not happening at Invesco, especially when people started popping the balloons and I was all thinking, yeah, that part of it would've totally freaked people the fuck out in Denver.
3. The swag bags, like in Denver, were mostly filled with things I wouldn't bother paying an extra fee at the airport to carry home (like fake Nalgene bottles, which I assume a legion of hotel maids in Denver, Minneapolis and St. Paul are currently enjoying or selling on eBay), but the RNC had the single best piece of swag of both conventions: RNC-branded Kraft Mac and Cheese. Also, as I mentioned once, here is John McCain's head-on-a-stick, a stress ball piggie (make your own jokes) and the 50 zillion press credentials the RNC insisted I carry around with me. But the really, really excellent part of the RNC Mac&Cheese? Yeah, elephants and pentacles are the shapes.
4. Overheard at the RIAA's Daughtry concert on Wednesday, from a girl drinking a Heineken while I partook of one of my several glasses of Korbel champagne, "They don't have any real American beers down there, like Bud or Miller. This is such an un-American party."
5. The Real Baberaham Lincoln. Look, the RNC was some slim pickings. Plus, you're notice that he was there pushing for D.C. voting rights, so I had to shout the boy out.
6. The story no one reported on: the logistics of this thing were a complete clusterfuck. The convention center wasn't near any of the other events, and the other events were miles away. One friend of mine never bothered going to the convention, whereas I spent 30 minutes (minimum) getting to the convention or an event from my hotel at the ass end of nowhere in the suburbs. The only people that made real money from this were cabbies.
7. Actually, there was one thing that worked far more smoothly than at the DNC — security. It was so much easier to get through security in St. Paul than it was in Denver even though all the procedures were the same, which made me wonder if the Secret Service had it out for Democrats.
8. The Hurricane Information Center was this really great idea when it looked like Gustav was going to be really bad, and they basically plucked this woman, Emily Roberts, from convention-volunteer obscurity and made her run it. By the time I dropped in on Tuesday, most of the conventioneers using its services (TV access, computer access, phones and fax machines) seemed to be regular people checking their email. The people who made the best use of the services provided by the RNC? The contracts from New Orleans who set it up the weekend before the RNC and were desperately trying to get home and get information to and about their families. So, the RNC did help some regular people out.
9. Thursday night was the best people watching of the night, where sightings included Henry Kissinger, Rosario Dawson's ass, every reporter I'd ever met and some I hadn't yet and Wonkette creator Ana Marie Cox, who actually recognized me when I introduced myself and who was exceedingly nice to me. We watched Kissinger together for a while, as though we'd be able to tell what he was talking about with the creator of YouTube. Her guess? China.
10. One person who thankfully didn't recognize me or the grin that says, "I really shouldn't be doing this"? Bill Kristol, who was actually incredibly gracious about it unlike Randy Scheunemann.

MEGAN: You know, it's only Tuesday and already I am really, really tired.

ASMA: Hey. I was wondering where you were!

MEGAN: Curled up under the covers having fallen back asleep despite no less than 3 alarms because I was tired and had the AC on too high!

ASMA: Ha ha.

MEGAN: Anyway, so, the RNC: far more protest-licious.

ASMA: Yeah, cool! I heart protest.

MEGAN: I heart protests, as long as they don't gas me at the same time.

ASMA: Did you get gassed?

MEGAN: No, but a friend of mine was leaving the convention center yesterday and saw it, so he barely avoided it, too.

ASMA: Whoa!

MEGAN: Tear gas is not a smart weapon... Anyway, so, what's been your experience so far?

ASMA: Denver was definitely mild protest-wise. I was kind of of disappointed actually. I wondered if it meant that the protestors were actually somewhat content with Obama being the candidate and thought that he would do his best.

MEGAN: I think it probably had more to do with the fact that they all came here on Wednesday because the protest organizers and leaders were all, "Leave if you plan to commit violence." In fact, Jello Biafra told the crowd last week in the Iraq protest to leave if they were drunk.

strong>ASMA: Well, I only just reached here last night. I then rushed off to do an interview. The funny thing is that everyone is all spread out between Minneapolis and St. Paul and everywhere in between. It's a bifurcated convention, with the actual convention being in downtown St. Paul and many of the events being in downtown Minneapolis. I did have a ticket to the Smashmouth concert but had to take an interview instead. So I missed it. But I am already in the throes of convention scheduling madness, with a blog due yesterday (still trying to get to it) and also a full day of events all over the place.

MEGAN: Ooh, I made it to the concert, though! There was a lot of white man overbite! Also, I met the biggest and least gracious Republican of all time.

ASMA: Who was that? Hulk Hogan?

MEGAN: So, Bill Kristol: totally gracious about having his picture taken. Rudy Giuliani: completely nice to my friend in an Obama hat. But you know who is too good for all that? Randy Scheunemann, McCain's foreign policy adviser and a huge dickhead.

ASMA: Except for the Black Eyed Peas at the DNC, I am not really a fan of any of the bands performing at the Conventions. And the Black Eyed Peas were performing during Bill Clinton's speech. So I obviously went to Bill Clinton's speech over their concert.

MEGAN: He and his goontastic sidekick tried to get me booted for trying to take a picture of him. I was with a Republican lobbyist friend who recognized him, too, and he basically called us Obamabots and was like, we heard you Obama people got in. And I'm like, ummmm, I'm actually credentialed media. And he was like, I don't believe you, I'm called security. So, I am now making it my mission to tell everyone that he is an ungracious dick. It helps that we were in a public place at a party where I knew more people — including Fox News correspondents — than him.

ASMA: What? That's ridiculous! "Obamabots": kind of a funny term though. I give him credit for originality.

MEGAN: I would, only I've been using it since January.

ASMA: Oh! Okay, well never mind that. I do think there is some liberal media bias/bias towards Obama at play. But, all is fair in love and war. No need to kick people out of a public event! Also, he should be relaxed because, on foreign policy, his guy has more actual experience. Playing partisan distracts from that fact. Unless he is truly threatened by Obama's foreign policy theories, but he shouldn't be.

MEGAN: Also, I am who I said I was, so he couldn't get me "kicked out." And, even worse, so was my friend. He works for a company that doesn't even really support Democratic Congressional candidates. He was stunned. I know he's a huge McCain donor. I think Randy just assumed because I was a young woman and knew who he was because I follow foreign policy I couldn't be anything other than some rogue protester. Which is sad, because plenty of young woman follow foreign policy and vote Republican...

ASMA: He sounds like a goofball. I think he's paranoid that everyone is pro-Obama. The campaign needs to be more confident and focus on its own message, not trying to play catch up.

MEGAN: It's funny that he's paranoid about that... at the Republican convention.

ASMA: My big convention news is that I was so thrilled that, the week before the conventions, I had my inbox down to 150 e-mails. Now, guess what, 250.

MEGAN: Good luck with that. My Blackberry has 1,141 unread messages.

ASMA: Yes, he should just relax. This is their time to show what they stand for and not being paranoid. And if an Obamabot wants to come to an RNC event, that's great. I am a registered Republican and attending the DNC was good for me. It really exposed me to some of the good ideas the DNC has and, actually, more compelling, the community feeling that Obama supporters have. I liked that. The RNC should be open arms to Obamabots.

MEGAN: I think that he and his goon actually enjoyed being dicks to someone figuring there would be no consequences for them. I mean, really, if Bill Kristol can be gracious and shake my hand and pose for a picture...

ASMA: Well, Bill Kristol knows that he has to appear to be neutral, even though we know he is horribly biased too. But he at least tries to appear fair. So he had to shake your hand!
I am just reading a ticker saying that the President may speak at the Convention still. Bad news, kind of!

MEGAN: No way! Oh my God, the next 3 days are going to be so horribly long!

ASMA: Yes, it will be a busy convention. I think you are having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the DNC! It'll be interesting to see that now that Gustav seems to be over, is the party going to be like, "Okay, it's over, not that many people died, so let's go CRAZY!!!!!!!

MEGAN: Oh, I totally am. I just want to hide in bed until this is all over. Too bad my hotel doesn't have wifi — it's hard line DSL only, so I have to sit at my desk! I don't know, the parties were already pretty wild last night. It's just the Red Cross hit everyone up for donations at the door.

ASMA: Ha ha. Mine has Wi-Fi, but it doesn't seem to be working so I had to plug in. But, yes, otherwise, I'd be doing this from bed.

MEGAN: I miss bed.

ASMA: I am not a big party person. I just think that political convention-goers + parties = going to bed too late for something not really worth it. If I thought I could get a good interview or see a celeb or politician I like, I might go, but, honestly, not really in to that scene. If that makes me less of a blogger, well, then so be it.

MEGAN: I went to 4.

ASMA: I know, I can't wait to go to bed tonight!

MEGAN: Hey, if we end this now, I can go back to bed really soon!

ASMA: That works for me!

KAY: Hi.

MEGAN: Good morning, sunshine!

KAY: Ugh. Last night I stumbled into an event where they kept giving us top-shelf liquor, not that I'm complaining.

MEGAN: I truly feel that the top shelf stuff makes the hangover far more bearable.

KAY: That's true, but there was a LOT of it. Especially since I've been on a beer and wine diet these days.

MEGAN: Just think how much worse your head would feel if you had been drinking rail liquor. Or, rather, don't right now, but consider it later... Anyway, how's Denver?

KAY: Right.
Oh you know. High altitude. I actually met some real-life PUMAs yesterday.

MEGAN: Really? I'm intrigued. What did they say? I saw them at the DNC protests in June and it was all I could do not to shake them and stuff.

KAY: I hate to use Mark Penn language, but they were totally national security moms. They thought Hillary Clinton's hawkishness was a good thing, while Obama would be "thinking about" what to do. Because apparently "thinking" is a bad thing.

MEGAN: Ugh, well, I guess we know who will be voting for McCain in the fall, then. No thinking, just bombing!

KAY: Right.

MEGAN: I'm sure in the midst of the whole thing, you missed the fact that Madonna kicked off her world tour this weekend. Or that she used the opportunity to compare John McCain to Hitler and Mugabe. Did I ever tell you how much I love Madonna?

KAY: I saw that this morning.

MEGAN: Video of the offensive video display is here. And what's even better is the shots of her are very Human Nature, which I love so much.

KAY: Weird, so Madonna isn't dormant anymore. She kinda dropped out of sight for a while.

MEGAN: Well, she and Guy Ritchie are supposedly on the outs! It's okay, you don't have to love Madonna as much as me. We can talk about how Chis Matthews says he didn't call Clinton a "she-devil" — he was saying Republicans did. That didn't work for E.D. Hill, buddy, but nice try.

KAY: I like Madonna I just always cringe when liberals use the Hitler references. It gives more moderate people an excuse to make fun. Bad as McCain is on issues, he doesn't appear to be plotting mass genocide. But I guess it's never too early to speculate...

MEGAN: Well, I mean, with McCain's video showing Germans chanting Obama's name over shots of Berlin, I think it's fair to say that McCain went there with the references first.

KAY: So true. The Hilter references are so tired, though. Anyway, I saw the thing about Matthews. I always love when people on television try to claim they didn't say something.

MEGAN: I prefer when the bluster and say they didn't say it, and then when they argue it was taken out of context. Like, just admit that you're an unthinking asshole, buy Hillary some apology flowers or something and commit to hosting a documentary on sexism in the media.

KAY: That seems like a reasonable response. I mean, when you've already had to make a public apology to someone, it seems that maybe it's time to just admit that you say stupid things.

MEGAN: I admit, I say stupid things! See, it's really not that hard!

KAY: Chris Matthews could learn so much from Megan Carpentier.

MEGAN: If nothing else, I'll bet I have better taste in cheap wine! Okay, one last think, can we discuss this new bullshit meme where Republicans like Bill Kristol and John McCain pretend they give a shit about the glass ceiling and sexism because they think we're dumb enough that if they pay lip service to it for 45 seconds we'll vote for them?

KAY: Ugh, this is ridiculous. I hate it when conservatives try to claim that they're more into affirmative action than liberals. Don't worry, though, they wouldn't want to promote policies that try to try to address gender equity or anything. I hear I just need more "training" and then discrimination will just disappear.

MEGAN: Oh, right! Silly me! If I were just smarter, and worked harder and were more aggressive, if I put off getting married and having children and just focused on my career, I'd totally be in the same position as a man my age would. If I weren't a blogger, that is. But, still. If all men were that much more aggressive than me, we wouldn't really have a civilization.

KAY: Right, but be careful with becoming a "career girl." You wouldn't want to become some kind of frigid bitch that never has children. That would be the worst thing in the world.

MEGAN: Right, if I never breed because I'm too aggressively pursuing my career and my "training" so that I can be equal with a man, no man will want to ever marry me or seed my uterus, and I will live a life of misery forever. Being a girl is so hard. Not as hard as getting up at 6:30 local time to do Crappy Hour with me after a night of drinking, though!

KAY: I get the feeling it's gonna be like this all week.

• Hey, did you forget, Barack is on vacation? In a "foreign, exotic place," according to some, where he does wacky, un-American things like visit his grandmother, his sister and take very cute walks on the beach with his daughter Malia. Totally un-American of him. [HuffPo, Crooks&Liars]
• A McCain supporter shook Cindy McCain's hand so hard today that he sprained it. Even when they like you, fervent Republicans can still hurt you! [The Atlantic]
• Speaking of, some of them are using Bill Kristol to spread a rumor that former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell will endorse Obama. Kristol's not sure why (pssst, Bill, you're supposed to say it's because they're both black), but we're pretty sure it has to do with the fact that the Republicans just want to smear Powell. [Fox News]

• In other Krazy Konsertive news, one of them went into the offices of the Arkansas Democratic Party today and assassinated its Chairman, Bill Gwatney. He was later killed by police after a chase. [NY Times]
• The Taliban today ambushed another group of aid workers, killing 3 women (including one American). If the whole of the Taliban can't provide medical relief to the Afghan people, they'll be damned if they'll let a couple of women do it for them. [Washington Post]
• And the Unabomber objects to having his cabin displayed in the Newseum in Washington. I object to a museum that's supposed to be dedicated to the study of the world of journalism turning itself into a disaster porn exhibit to justify its $20 entrance fee, but that's just me. [Washington Post]

MOE: I gotta get coffee but apparently David Brooks does a 180 on Obama re the farm bill today
MEGAN: cool. i hate the farm bill
MOE: Well speak of the devil! Does David dig the 22-year-olds? Or do you think this young lady was applying for a job?
MEGAN: Do you, can you, apply for a job in white knee high boots? I mean, other than as an actual go-go dancer?
MOE: Kids today totes! She probably wanted to be his research assistant. Or maybe he was just encouraging her not to pursue the wrong way. So should we talk about Iran and Syria and North Korea…just how "serious" are these places anyway?
MOE: We should also maybe talk about oil.
MOE: I'm going to get coffee though I'm off my meds today.
MEGAN: The oil on my face from all the greasy fucking food I ate last night to make up for not eating all day (hello NY Jezzies!) or the black shit in the ground?
MOE: Vito Fossella abandoned his bid for re-election "in a bombshell announcement that brings the curtain down on one of the most storied careers in Staten Island political history," says the Staten Island Advance. They should enlist Method Man to run. I don't even think he has any secret love children.
MEGAN: "Storied career?" Dude, can we talk hyperbole? He wasn't even a Committee chairman. The only thing that's gonna be legendary about his career is how it ended, which is balls deep in his mistress with his illegitimate child in the other room and his wife and other kids sound asleep in New York.
8:35 AM
MOE: Yeah so I have coffee and my Acela ticket now and David Brooks is totally right, the Farm Bill is horseshit, and the only thing I would add to the statement "as the number of small, organized factions in a society grows, the political culture becomes more divisive, the economy becomes more rigid and the nation loses vitality" is that the organized factions don't have to be as small as agriculture. And speaking of which, $307 billion is an astonishing number.
MOE: The question is, I guess, whether McCain get Americans to see in agribusiness the same fatcatism they see in Countrywide Financial and Exxon and Jimmy Cayne.
8:45 AM
MEGAN: Well, I don't have coffee yet but if my nose does not deceive me, my friend whose house I'm at in NY has made me some for when I get done here and that's one of 100 reasons why he's awesome. Also, this farm bill is additionally a huge fuck you to the WTO and the developing countries that stymied progress in the Doha Round in order to achieve progress in terms of reduced subsidies. Fuck you, African nations. Fuck you Bangladesh. Kiss our collective asses, Brazil and Argentina. Enjoy that global food shortage thingie and that poverty thingie because we wanted more market access for our artificially cheap foodstuffs.
MOE: Hey, look, the EU is rethinking its own farm subsidies!Theirs are only $75 billion annually though. What if we proposed to just cut our bill down to Europe's level?
MEGAN: Actually, at the WTO, we wanted them to cut theirs more than we cut ours and vice versa. No, seriously.
MOE: That sounds like something we would do! And here's an unfortunate news analysis to which Drudge is linking that credits the increased use of ethanol to the breaking of our foreign oil addiction.
MEGAN: As though ethanol has to come from corn.
MOE: Total digression but GOP Senator Bob Corker rejected/denounced the Michelle Obama ads.
MEGAN: Same way he did the Harold Ford/white girl ads no doubt.
8:55 AM
MOE: Apparently ethanol consumes a third of the US corn output. Just one reason USDA economists are expecting a 5% increase in food prices this year…ugh, this topic is so obvious and boring though. Ethanol subsidies = BAD IDEA. There is just no good alternative case to be made there! While he tries to figure out how to articulate a plan for The Rest Of The World That Resents Us, just where is the harm in adopting the one position that happens to both be held by the Republican front runner and the world's poor??? I guess it's in alienating his Iowans. I wonder, though, how often something like "unwavering support for agribusiness welfare" came up during those caucuses.
9:05 AM
MOE: Especially when four out of every five Americans want the country to move in a different direction!
MEGAN: Also, like, we could eliminate the ethanol tariff, which is really high and effectively keeps out ethanol imports from places like Brazil, where it is not made from corn.
MEGAN: We could also rejigger the current subsidies to reflect the chemical reality that one can make ethanol from things other than corn, and push investment in that direction rather than encouraging the construction of more corn-based ethanol facilities but, yeah, Obama's got to win Iowa, so...
MOE: Annoyingly, ethanol is nowhere to be mentioned in today's Bob Herbert "Let's Be Serious" column. But thanks for alerting us to this:

The Houston Chronicle did a long takeout on Sunday on the suicide in March 2007 of an Army recruiting sergeant, Nils Aron Andersson — just one day after his marriage to Carry Walton. Sgt. Andersson, 25, had spoken of the many horrors that he had encountered in Iraq and was deeply depressed. He shot himself while sitting in his pickup in a parking garage. Distraught, Ms. Walton bought a 9-millimeter handgun at a sporting goods store the next day and killed herself.

MEGAN: Hooray for a lack of a waiting period in Texas.
MOE: Before I try to summon the will to check out that uplifting story I'd like to draw attention to an obvious but important Page 1 story in the Journal about how the American auto industry's manipulation and systemic inflation of demand via aggressive rebating, employee discounts, predatory lending, large-scale offloading to employee fleets, over the past ten years has finally been deemed unsustainable! The American automakers who embraced waste as a business model for so long are now finally accepting that auto demand might never fall back to where it was…maybe because it was never really "demand" in the first place!
9:20 AM
MEGAN: Wait, but I liked 0% financing. Goddammit. Does it mention that what is also sustainable is negotiating with the UAW to determine production levels years in advance is also probably a bad idea? Because that's not exactly market forces, people.
MOE: Well right but market forces, at least the way we think of them, absolutely DO NOT GOVERN DEMAND in this country. It's one of my pet peeves. There's a very good Harper's reading this month further probing this.
9:25 AM
MEGAN: Well, but what are market forces and what is demand? I mean, they do to a degree, it's just not the absolute that our college professors and some on the ideological right think it is (or know it's not but try to tell us it is).
MOE: Right and the problem with the ideological left is that they just don't engage with the issue enough.
MEGAN: I think because it's too complex to really explain to people. I mean, hell, I TA'd economics in grad school for other grad students and getting them to understand microeconomics was like pulling teeth sometimes and they were all smart people. It was like this insane mental block for some of them to the point I truly wondered if I was, like, speaking German and not noticing or something.
9:30 AM
MOE: Well I don't even understand microeconomics. I think it's fucking stupid. Macro is where it's at.
MOE: hahah I being, of course, an authority on such matters.
MOE: I got a C
MEGAN: Micro is like a really simple way to start understanding how the stock market works at a very basic level. I assume you work up from there but I didn't because I wanted to get a real job. HAHAHAHA.
MOE: Hey here's Jonathan Chait saying we should ignore everything John McCain and Barack Obama say about foreign policy, which I'm sort of down for.
MOE: Did you happen to catch George Will on Sunday btw?
9:35 AM
MEGAN: I mean, why don't we just all accept that every policy proposal ever made by a candidate is prefaced by "In a perfect world, where I and I alone got to decide, we would do this...." and ends with "But it's not a perfect world, so what eventually happens will look nothing at all like this but it won't be my fault but vote for me because I had a good idea."
MOE: (Oh and speaking of economics not being a real job Floyd Norris slyly agrees with you:

According to the C.P.I. numbers, gasoline prices in April were 13.7 percent higher than the were in December. Or at least they were before the seasonal adjustments were factored in. With seasonal adjustments — the numbers that are prominently reported — gasoline prices were down 1.6 percent.
I have not troubled to try to figure out how this could be, but Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG, gathered data and constructed spreadsheets. He figures that the May number, seasonally adjusted, will be up 5 percent for the month. Presumably, those sounding comforting words about inflation now will have less to say then.
Only a Ph.D. in economics would think he needed to spend a couple of hours to prove that gasoline prices are not declining these days.

MEGAN: Dude, we get to "seasonally adjust" what things cost?
MOE: Well certain things always cost more in certain seasons and certain months are more consumptive than others so…I can hazard a guess as to why this was but the point was just that data ≠ reality in a lot of areas in economics, which is scary
MEGAN: Yeah, like everything other kind of reality, economics is just a subjective reality. Shadows on the wall, etc.
MOE: lol you ALWAYS FALL BACK ON THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHY
MOE: I'm on to you lady
MOE: You probably have a secret Nietzsche sig file of your own
MEGAN: Yes, but it's in the original m'fucking German.
9:45 AM
MEGAN: Because that's how I roll. Quoting dead white German guys. I'm sofa king cool.
MOE: I am bringing this back to George Will and baseball btw.

In America, however, nothing ages as fast as novelty, and efforts to encourage Clinton to pack it in are heartening evidence that the novelty has worn off: The female candidate is like all other candidates. This is what equality looks like — life as an equal-opportunity dispenser of disappointments.

MEGAN: I love how George Will's theories on life are so similar to my own. He just forgot to add "never-ending" there at the end.
MOE:

When, in 1975, Frank Robinson became major league baseball's first African American manager, with the Cleveland Indians, that was an important milestone. But an even more important one came two years later, when the Indians fired him. That was real equality: Losing one's job is part of the job description of major league managers, because sacking the manager is one of the few changes a floundering team can make immediately. So, in a sense, Robinson had not really arrived until he was told to leave. Then he was just like hundreds of managers before him.

MEGAN: Well, unless you get fired for Working While Black. Then it is actually not equality.
MOE: What I love is that it seems that Hillary's own staff would agree. Sexism: why, they don't blame it for sinking her campaign either! Indeed, because they are too busy blaming one another. But Geraldine Ferrarro's reality is different..
MEGAN: Geraldine Ferraro should be president of the society of women who are so damn angry that their candidate didn't win that they'll fuck over the rest of us out of spite.
MEGAN: Also, ahem, it seems like they're trying to blackmail the superdelegates and the remaining states and shit, which is not a good tactic.
MOE: Well that society shares a reality of its own. It's just not mine. Or George Will's. And any society that claims us and George Will as a member is not a particularly exclusive one
MEGAN: I mean, I'm happy to create my own reality, I just realize that I have to function in the collectively shared reality.
10:05 AM
MOE: And I'm out with this, because I didn't want it to go unnoticed:

Is Lebanon viable anymore?" he asked. "Is Lebanon really viable?"
"Frankly, 40 years of my life have been wasted. Fifteen years of civil war, 15 years of Syrian domination and now we've come to something worse," he said, growing angry. "I've lost 40 years of my life in this stupid country. It really is a stupid country. I have nothing good to say about it anymore. I'm disgusted by what's taken place."
He dragged on his cigar, as he sat in his stately villa in Zqaq al-Blatt, enveloped by a scourge of concrete cluttering the neighborhood. Light reflected faintly from stained-glass windows of red and blue, resting under graceful Levantine arches.
"I wish I was born in Syria. Or that I was born in Egypt. Can you imagine living in a country that has gone through 30 years of this? What kind of country is this?"
He shook his head, his anger giving way to dejection.
"There's something wrong here," he said, "something wrong."

• Barack Obama reminded everyone that Iran is not the Soviet Union. I haven't bothered watching the whole speech but I know from the left-leaning blogs that he pointed out that the Soviet Union had thousands of nukes and Iran has none and yet the Soviet Union and the U.S. managed to avert nuclear holocaust that one time Dana Perino forgot about, and I know from the Zionists he said some maybe unfortunate things that do not reflect the acknowledgment that, you know, the only problem with that whole thing is the line of argument whereby some of those weapons are still around but the Soviet Union is not, and if you make vacuum cleaners or dog food you might really hate Wal-Mart but at least they pay you on time. [NYT]
  
• "They say in the stock market, 'Buy into a business that's doing so well an idiot could run it, because sooner or later, one will..." Warren Buffett on preferring Obama over McCain. [Breitbart]
  
• Terribly sexist? Don't get me wrong, Geraldine, I heart hyperbole, but... [NYT]
  
• Hey Kosher Hooters!! [Weekly Standard]
  

• America's nicest ex-Klansman just endorsed Obama. Does this mean he was part of the 28% of his state that voted for the black in the primary? Unclear. He says he's into Obama for his Christianity... which the right wing blogosphere gets idiotically "secular liberal hypocrisy watch" about to which we can only say "Oh jesus christ." [Wonkette]
• Bill Kristol is bad at Google. [Wonkette]

MEGAN: Whatever we talk about, can we agree that Bittergate is about to be as played-out as Reverend Wright?
MOE: I haven't been watching the news, so I was really confused by that. Like, okay, so...Obama is saying that people cling to religion in times of crisis, and...like hello have we not talked enough about Obama's religion already Jesus Fuck...and Hillary says that's elitist but she won't say when the last time she set foot in church...and the Pope is coming? Peggy Noonan wrote about the Pope coming. I couldn't quite get through the column though. I have always been one of those terrible Catholics who was like, "John Paul II...uh, what's the big deal?"
MEGAN: Nope, it's the new Pope, JPJ bought it a couple years ago. This is the one who used to be a Nazi, loves him the Opus Dei and the Latin masses and hates that you and I have teh sexes.

MOE: Speaking of which, over the weekend, Tracie and our friend Ryan and I went to a gay bar and burst into "On Eagle's Wings" followed by a "Be Not Afraid," "One Bread, One Body" "Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace" medley.
MEGAN: Oh, God, I miss all the fun by being in D.C.
MOE: No I know that there is a new pope DUH. I am just saying, it seems like everyone is comparing him with the old pope, who was so iconic and humanistic and crap; but I never really understood the hype about the old pope, maybe because he presided over an era of officially sanctioned child molestation? I dunno. I'm pondering this now.

MEGAN: I think the hype about the old Pope was that he eschewed the Pope Pius model of appeasing dictators (cough, Hitler, cough) and instead used the power of his office to confront them directly in countries where there were Catholics. Also, it was only once he was infirm and shit that the Church came to a détente with the Chinese about letting the Chinese government decide on Church officials because when JPJ wasn't laid up he mostly told the Chinese to go fuck themselves, but Benedict is fine with it.
MEGAN: Also, I think probably all the eras of the Church involved the sanctioning of inappropriate sexual or ethical behavior. Absolute power corrupts, yadda yadda

MEGAN: Notably, I left the Catholic Church at 16, so I'm not really a "Catholic" so much as an ex-Catholic with major leftover guilt issues.
MOE: Okay, so sure, he's cool. Let's play a game: The Avignon papacy or the Council of Nicea?
MOE: The Gospel of Tom or the Gospel of John?
MOE: Vatican I or Vatican II?
MEGAN: Hmm, was Vatican I the one in the late 19th century that declared that the Pope was infallible?
MOE: Karl Marx or Bill Kristol?

MEGAN: Karl Marx, but I was a German lit major AND a Sociology major. Also, I'd pay significant money to hear/videotape Bill Kristol reading crap in German
MOE: Okay, so Vatican 1 was indeed about papal infallibility. It was a controversial topic since it made Catholics seem like they had some sort of weird foreign allegiance, so everyone did like Barack Obama and didn't show up, then there was the Franco-Prussian war, which is why they had to revisit the issue a hundred years later. Papal infallibility is such a weird idea. How do you come into this world with Original Sin and achieve "infallibility" when you've NEVER EVEN HAD A REAL JOB?

MEGAN: Also, it was retroactive! I love that they went, oh, by the way, the last 1800 years? Those guys were totes infallible too, even the ones who were all Crusade-y and Inquisition-y. And it means that Pius was, like, totes right for making nice-nice with the Nazis and shit.

MOE: John Henry Newman, a fanboy of St. Augustine and the church's famous advocate for not talking about Papal infallibility, just skipping that discussion entirely.
MOE:

But he made no sign of disapproval when the doctrine was defined, and subsequently, in a letter nominally addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on the occasion of Mr William Ewart Gladstone's accusing the Roman Church of having "equally repudiated modern thought and ancient history," Newman affirmed that he had always believed the doctrine, and had only feared the deterrent effect of its definition on conversions on account of acknowledged historical difficulties. In this letter, and especially in the postscript to the second edition of it, Newman finally silenced all cavillers as to his not being really at ease within the Roman Church.

MOE: To me there's something Obamalike about that. Jeremiah Wright or John Henry Newman?
MEGAN: So, like, it's harder to make people convert to Catholicism if you ake shit up 2000 years in to quell dissent? Honey, it's hard to make people stay Catholic when you do that.
MEGAN: Jeremiah Wright. Newman's got, like, centers and shit on campuses everywhere.
MEGAN: Anyway, so, to get back to Bill Kristol, I have definitive evidence that he's either never read any further into his Marx reader than he had to to get that quote, or he's just misinterpreted the entire point of Marxism.

He's disdainful of small-town America — one might say, of bourgeois America.

In response to a question about when life began, Mrs. Clinton replied, "I believe that the potential for life begins at conception."

MOE: IMHO.
MEGAN: Also, apparently the head of PA's Democratic Party is a Hillary surrogate who just said that "she's the most vetted candidate in the Democratic Party's history" and that she's "ready to go to work on Day 1." Can we please, please, please stop hearing that bullshit phrase. You know what happens on Day 1? Everyone parties. There are balls upon balls and everyone gets drunk and then on Day 2 everyone hangover brunches. No President really starts Presidenting until Day 3 anyway.
MEGAN: And I agree with you on Hillary. I don't believe life begins at conception, and I think that abortions should only be as rare as the women who want and need them prefer they be and I think a candidate who thinks that s/he can save the world from abortions is being deliberately disingenuous and courting people I don't agree with.
MOE: Anyway I'd say I'm an agnostic who finds comfort in faith. Because — and speaking of cowards, for every Alberto Gonzales not getting a job, there seem to be a hundred men gangraping children in the name of God, a billion people paying for America's nonsense wastefulness in their stomachs.

MEGAN: Although, isn't it some weird turn of fate that the guy calling for more money to feed the world's poor is a former Bushie?
MOE: That's a good point. Ever the optimist. So...Haiti got sick of eating dirt for breakfast.

MEGAN: Well, that should work out well again. Why does Haiti suck so much worse than anywhere else in the Caribbean?
MOE: Here's the dirt cookies post, which has a decent link to a web page called "Why is Haiti so poor?" The answer is just sort of an orgy of miserable circumstances, the type that lead a person to take comfort and solace in absurdity, which is sort of like my faith. Like, when Jesus comes back he will be an existentialist stand up comedian.
MEGAN: Or Muslim. That would be pretty funny.
MOE: OH my god he will sooooooooo be a Muslim and his middle name will be Hussein. Hey, wanna write a screenplay?
MOE: He'll be a Muslim from Yemen.
MEGAN: Wait, wait, no, a Palestinian!
MOE: Okay but can he escape to Yemen?
MOE: Because that would be absurd.
MEGAN: Yeah, he could "cross the desert" of Saudi Arabia in 40 days to get there.
MOE: OMG and at the end he would marry Ashley Alexandra Dupre.