Pitchfork's Amy Phillips breaks it down:

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Meghan McCain didn't just pick this song randomly, since she usually picks songs that have something to do with what her blog posts are about. So what the hell is going on here?

A) Meghan McCain completely doesn't understand sarcasm and truly believes that this song is about how the economy will just work itself out and everything will be all right. (See also: Ronald Reagan's re-appropriation of Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.")
B) Meghan McCain is using this song as a critique of people who are against the government's proposed $700 million bailout of Wall Street, which her father supports. "Uh huh, the free market is going to fix everything, ha ha," she says. "Riiiiight."
C) Meghan McCain wants to overthrow the entire capitalist system!

It's so obviously C. Duh! Because Meghan wants to stage a violent coup. Look at those plotting eyes! She should change her blog name to McCain Marxistette.

Meghan McCain and Stereolab: What Is Going on Here? [Pitchfork]
"First Debate - Part 2" [McCain Blogette]

Earlier: Meghan McCain's Chronic Overshares: Savvy or Silly?

MOE: Okay so I am depressed and I hope everyone dies. Especially the commenter who thought I was saying the artists that helped revive Philadelphia on an aesthetic level came from PENN.
MOE: FUCK ALL OF YOU.
MEGAN: Yeah, you should've seen the Obama party last night, it was on the river in a nice location and people didn't even stay to watch the concession but damn were the bartenders pouring with a strong hand,
MEGAN: Also, it was a pain to catch a cab back from.
MOE: And then my train was held over an hour in Trenton, so I not only missed watching the returns, I missed Jenna Bush at the 92nd Street Y. And that's when I got a call from an old friend at the Wall Street Journal, which is rapidly being dismantled by Rupert Murdoch.
MEGAN: Oh, God, Trenton blows.
MOE: The world knows.
MEGAN: Like, of the many things I celebrated about leaving the lobbying profession, the fact that I would never again have to be in Trenton was on the list.
MEGAN: Of course, now that I've said that, I'll get stuck going there some time. Fuck you, Trenton.
MOE: Yeah if you take the regional rail between Philly and New York at night you cannot avoid getting stuck at the train station.

MEGAN: Also, by the way, she raised $2.5 million last night.
MEGAN: Hopefully her next round of commercials will be less lame.
MOE: Okay, you know who gets a special "Fuck you"? The New York Times. I have plenty of dear friends who have taken longer to get disillusioned by Hillary (still waiting on Sinister!) but none of them work for the NYT op-ed page. Drudge is calling it an "un-endorsement" I guess. Ugh. Anyway, I'm annoyed. Because I knew this was going to happen, and I was truthfully worried about much worse margins, but the stupid media set expectations artificially high again, which they keep doing.
MEGAN: I fucking love this quote:

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Perhaps the sheer fact of having to get out there day after day to meet Americans, has humanized her, and helped her learn how to relate to citizens from different demographic swathes than her own narrow one. She may have learned a thing or two from them along the way, about their deeper values. (Barak surely has learned nothing of that.)

MOE: Jenna and Barbara are getting fellated on Fox & Friends right now.
MEGAN: Oh, gross imagery. Thanks for helping my hangover with that.
MEGAN: Also, aren't you supposed to be allowed to vote on a provisional ballot? And Obama took Philly anyway, it's just he lost everywhere else.
MOE: Yeah, I was supposed to be, but I was going to try and figure out where my actual polling place was, near another house I used to live in, and then time ran out. I will state that the folks at my polling place were absolutely totally unhelpful, although very friendly in their unhelpfulness. They knew I was there to vote for my Marxist. Hey, now, I know this is sort of a change of subject, but on the "total obliteration" front does it seem like North Korea and Syria have more going for them mass destruction-wise than the Iraq ever did? Not that that's really saying much.
MOE: So, where was the Obama party last night? What did you do?
MEGAN: The Obama party was at some place I forget the name of, because I'm like that, but the address was 1 Boathouse Road, and it was very nice. The DJ was pretty awesome, but no one was dancing despite the fact that I guarantee you his crowd had way more rhythm than Hillary's, if the crowd I had to push through to get out of my hotel (where her party was) was any indication.

MEGAN: I went, I took pictures for Glamocracy and I drank.
MEGAN: And then I came back to the hotel and went to bed because yesterday was an exhaustingly bloggy day, between writing all the female voter profiles for them. I didn't even finish the glass of wine I had, and that's saying something.
MOE: And while you summon the ability to let me in on that, allow me to clarify my BlackBerry dispatch from yesterday — and to answer commenter B_boy who wondered what I need with a blackberry, the answer is I got sort of dependent on it after September 11 when I was working as a newspaper reporter, and I've never been able to give it up, and at this point it's kind of cheap anyway — but with regard to the artists. There is a real, humble, awesome politically-active, socially aware, iconoclastic, big-hearted, entrepreneurial idealistic group of artsy carpenter types who gentrified Philly for the better. A lot of them are from the area, some of them went to RISD and just needed a cheap place to live, but what you have to understand is that when you gentrify a city like Philadelphia you're not driving anyone away from their houses. The remaining residents do not resent you; quite the opposite. And they're fucking cool. It's hard to explain how it worked down there, but I was always amazed by the willingness of some of those kids to look at bona fide ruins and see the potential for a super functional community.
MOE: And zero percent of them came from Penn, thank you v. much. Although one of them, noted Mummer Sonja Trauss, is getting some sort of graduate degree in economics there now.
MEGAN: Yeah, my editor and I drove along the Baltimore Ave/Pike/Ave the whole way from Penn campus to Media, PA and saw a ton of that kind of respectful gentrification, as opposed to the DC kind where they kick everyone out, tear everything down and put up a condo tower with a Starbucks or a Cosi on the ground floor.
MOE: No one wants to build a fucking condo tower on Baltimore Avenue. I mean, on Baltimore — I used to live on 43rd and Baltimore — it's a little different. There wasn't the block after block of 2/3 bombed out rowhouses. Though there was an controversial crackhouse-cum-anarchist squat that was always an interesting point of controversy for the neighborhood. Like, did they like it more when crackheads ate from their dumpsters? Or the smelly dreadlocked white kids?
MOE: Oooooh, voter disenfranchisement from my friend and South Philadelphia homeowner Ryan Creed.
MOE: Ryantastic: well, it's not all that salacious.
Ryantastic: I voted green in 2000, and I found out I never reaffiliated last year when I went to vote for mayor
Ryantastic: I thought I changed it there
Ryantastic: but apparently it didn't go through
Ryantastic: This is the second damn time in a year that it's happened
MEGAN: Apparently, there's a brew pub now on 50th and Baltimore, so the edges of the gentrification is spreading outwards, according to one of our panelists.
MOE: This happened with a few people actually...they thought they changed their registration, and then they showed up and were told they didn't.
MEGAN: That sounds shady to me, but, then, so does street money and ward captains and shit.
MOE: Ah, the brew pubs. Incidentally, Philadelphia is where Yards beer is brewed, and Yards beer is the best beer in the universe, although I think they might have closed because doing business in Philadelphia is a pain in the ass if you aren't part of the machine. Also there's a near 5% wage tax and some sort of business privilege tax that keeps people away apparently. I dunno. It is an awesome place to live if you aren't the type of person who never looks at your ATM receipt.
MEGAN: I am, personally, physically incapable of not looking at my balance, it's part of an overall level of analness.
MOE: Dana Milbank was good today.
MEGAN: Also, I just have to ask, how exactly did Obama "play the race card" on Bill Clinton again? By pointing out the shit that Bill had already said?
MEGAN: I mean, unless Bill was part of their strategic planning, they couldn't've known-known that Bill would shove most of his right leg into his mouth and give them an opening, right?
MOE: So we have to discuss the nexus of my favorite two subjects, Barry Hussein and Abercrombie & Fitch, happening once again.
MEGAN: Dude, fucking everyone was talking about that shit last night.
MOE: We discussed this yesterday. He played the race card the same way Geraldine Ferrarro was the victim of racism; in his own deluded compartmentalizing triangulating victory-deranged mind.
MEGAN: Oh, right, sorry. I forgot, BUT STILL, why hasn't he shut up about it yet. Obama's all like, dude, I have no idea what he meant by that, I'm sorry.

MEGAN: Also, that's really poor advance work on Obama's staff's part, because don't they know they're supposed to have, like, white middle-aged people in the background to show their support for him? Which reminds me of the thing I'm still really mad I couldn't take pictures of: little old ladies for Obama. There was one on the median outside the hotel in a wheelchair, a little old white lady, with a sign that said "Obama Granny" waving and getting people to honk. Then, at the party last night, there was a little old African-American lady with a cane shaking her groove thing to Mary J and I had to give her a hug but that might've been the wine or the rum.
MEGAN: But on the 'crombie boys, one of them is kind of rocking the gay-face, and they don't look like they're from Indiana to me.
MOE: Well yeah, I wanted to punch them out. I was at a bar talking about the death of journalism, but apparently one of them was talking on his cell phone. I can't tell if it is more sick or absurd. Knowing what I know about Abercrombie, I am sort of torn. And following the biggest race-discrimination payout in...well I have no idea, but I imagine that Abercrombie now has diversity training and maybe those guys were moved by the race speech. I was always fascinated to find that the very employees who enforced Abercrombie's institutional racism were ...not unaware of it. They were sort of tormented by it I guess. Also gays are supposed to vote for Hillary. Yeah, the whole thing is really weird.
MEGAN: Actually, I don't understand the near-universal gay men's love of Hillary, unless it's some sort of diva worship? None of my gay friends who are Hillary fans can really explain it to me particularly well, but it annoys the crap out of my gay friends who support Obama.
MOE: It's totally diva worship. I mean, you know, I get it. I get people who like Hillary. I think she's great! In any other election I'd be so stoked to vote for her! You guys all know this! I'm just super impressed by Barry and I'm amazed how well he's done. And truly, does last night matter?

Under party rules, congressional districts that voted most heavily Democratic in recent general elections get more delegates to the party's national convention in Denver in August. In Pennsylvania, districts that went most heavily for Democrats in the 2004 presidential and 2006 gubernatorial races got the most seats.
All states use a similar formula, which dates to the 1970s and was intended to reward constituencies and voters most loyal to the party, said Democratic strategist Tad Devine. But the effect is most pronounced in states with large and concentrated African-American populations, which tend to be most loyal to the party.

In Texas, African-American votes for Sen. Obama in delegate-rich Houston and Dallas largely offset Hispanic votes for Sen. Clinton in the delegate-poor Rio Grande Valley. Sen. Clinton netted just four more delegates in the primary than Sen. Obama did, despite winning the popular vote by 101,000 votes and 3.5 percentage points.
Pennsylvania posed a similar opportunity. Philadelphia's 2nd Congressional District, where Sen. Obama long has had his strongest support, will send nine people to the national convention. Two nearby districts with similarly large African-American populations will send seven delegates each.

MEGAN: Hey, you know what's fucked up? One of our Glamocracy panelists said she'd definitely heard of Republicans switching to vote for Hillary to keep this going, the way Republicans voted for Hillary in Texas.
MOE: Yeah but Pennsylvanians don't listen to Rush the same way Texans do.
MEGAN: Thankfully.

MOE: Thomas Frank: What exactly is he doing on the WSJ op-ed page? Does Rupert Murdoch have a soft spot for his eviscerations of late capitalism or is he friends with Peggy Noonan? Anyway, I want to have his babies etc. A long time ago I was dating a dude who not only remembered Valentine's Day, he bought me Commodify Your Dissent as a present. He is now married. (Let it be a lesson!) Anyway as presents go it was nice to see Thomas Frank in the papers and Bob Novak glowering in the corner.
MEGAN: Really, really working, If I'm ignoring you, it's because you're not talking about work and thus I am ignoring you.
MOE: Why is Novak always number one on the "Most Viewed List"?
MEGAN: I think Bob Novak lacks the ability to do anything but glower.
MOE: No dude he rules the most emailed list!
MEGAN: I think he hires those Chinese services that will click over and over to drive up your page views. They're really cheap, apparently.
MOE: Hey can you explain to me what Jimmy Carter is doing with Hamas?
MOE: I mean, I guess he is trying to broker some sort of piece but I haven't been able to click any of the links, mostly because of laziness.
MEGAN: Trying to maintain a sense of political relevancy? Fucking with Bush? Helping McCain win the election? Umm, overestimating his own diplomatic prowess?
MOE: Rick Santorum is on Fox News incidentally.
MOE: Warning America that Barack Obama is not a uniter.
MEGAN: Charlie Wilson was on MSNBC.
MEGAN: Like, the real guy, not Tom Hanks. But Rick Santorum is smarmy.
MOE: WHOA holy shit.
MEGAN: Also, I guarantee he's got dentures. And I would not hit that.
MOE: I just scrolled down on the Thomas Frank thing.

He will begin a weekly column each Wednesday in the Journal on May 14.

MEGAN: Wait, so, like, he'll have a weekly column starting in a month? I don't understand newspapers really.
MEGAN: Also, it is apparently a Tom Petty morning on MSBNC.
MOE: Yeah I guess but Thomas Frank? In the Wall Street Journal? Fuck...
MEGAN: Well, it makes more since then Bill "The Joker" Kristol in the motherfucking New York Times/
MOE: Ooooh, quick quiz! How many times since he won the nomination has John McCain been photographed wearing a flag pin on his lapel?

MOE: No takers?
MEGAN: But he doesn't have to because he's a war hero! And he's not a Muslim! And his middle name isn't Hussein! And he's not a Democrat, which means he is, by his very political affiliation, a patriot (if not a nationalist). Being a Republican is like having the American flag tattooed on your soul which is singing along to Proud to Be An American while your heart beats a military tattoo.
MOE: And being Barack Obama is a kitchen sink full of Yellow Peril!

MEGAN: Ooh! Ooh! Did you see? One of her foreign policy advisors, Richard Baum (who I'm gonna guess your dad intellectually opposes) resigned from Clinton's campaign because of her China-bashing?
MOE: Do you understand the subtle subliminal message Obama was trying to summon when he used that esoteric kitchen sink metapor? Because I think all the elitism made it fly over my head
MOE: Yeah Dad? I dare you to economically oppose this:

"Our reasoning was that while China certainly bears a share of responsibility for these (and other) problems, much (if not most) of the blame, at least on the economic issues, lies elsewhere," Baum wrote in an e-mail. He attributed the problems, at least in part, to America's high level of consumption, deficit spending and selective trade protectionism.

On the question of human rights, Baum said he and others in the advisory group believe the Chinese leaders respond better to persistent advice than "self-righteous finger-pointing aimed at publicly shaming and humiliating them."

MOE: So wait, the Pope...the spin seems to be that he's made all those pedophiles the centerpiece of a PR coup! But is it "just words" so to speak?

Anne Barrett Doyle, a founder of BishopAccountability.org, an online archive of the scandal, said that by condemning only pedophiles and not those who kept them in ministry, "it was a signal to us he will take no action. He came here to achieve a public-relations triumph and he did it."

MEGAN: Actually, that's what totally struck me about everything he said about the pervs. Unless I missed it, and I'll admit that I sort of stopped paying that much attention at some point, I didn't hear him say anything about the pedo-enablers, which were as much a part of the problem as everything. The fact that the Catholics has pervs among their ranks? Forgivable, presumably. The fact that Church leaders decided to fight the slow decline of men entering the priesthood (with the exception of my grad school friend Marcos, which, congrats!) by keeping pervs in the priesthood and moving them around every time they get caught molesting yet another young kid is the problem that strikes at the heart of the Church's relationship with the faithful, IMHO.
MEGAN: It's just another example of the kind of hypocritical, bad-stuff-enabling blind, overly-hierarchical patriarchy that drove me from the Church in the first place.
MOE: Why am I seeing so few quotes from the pope himself? What does he sound like? What did he say actually? Am I the only one who did not know Frank Bruni is a foremost chronicler of the abuse scandal?

MEGAN: I did not know that about Frank Bruni. I mean, I didn't hear a ton of him talking (I skipped listening to the Mass, obviously) but he has a very, very soft voice. Kind of high-pitched. German-mixed-with-Italian accent. Not a great public speaking voice, but perhaps he's more forceful-sounding in German or Italian.
MEGAN: And on the abuse, he said something along the lines of "it was really bad" and then he prayed with the survivors that stayed Catholic and met with him!
MOE: Why is it news that Obama thinks McCain would be better than Bush? Isn't that sort of like saying McCain knows more about foreign policy than Spencer Pratt?

MEGAN: Because, apparently, you can't acknowledge that some people in the other party are better than others or something.
MOE: Ugh did you read anything in the Times magazine? I just remembered it was the green issue. I am pretty sure green issues would do better if they made them some more synthetic color like neon orange. But anyway, the nation's railways are apparently expanding for the first time in ever. No way, right?! But it turns out their fuel efficiency for freight is 3x better than that of an 18-wheeler.
MEGAN: That's what the CSX commercial tells me, anyway.
MOE: Oh my god and file this under CNN reporters you could actually totally see walking through Central Park in a crystal meth haze.
MEGAN: I am sooooo sad about Richard Quest. Meth is bad, people, bad! Its use is correlated in the LGBT community with a rise in the incidences of STIs including HIV.
MEGAN: Also, it's nasty on the teeth. Oh, Richard. Please don't! Who else will I get my breathless Royals coverage from?
MOE: Well aren't we just all PSA today. Yeah, an increase in dumb behavior results in an increase in things that you get from engaging in dumb behavior. And yeah, if your teeth weren't British before...speaking of I have a case of Adderall mouth I should attend to.

MOE: Tomorrow's the primary. I think I'm voting in it. There's supposedly all sorts of horrible negative ads. Have you seen any of them?
MEGAN: You should totally vote in it. Are you going to Philly for it? Did you know I'm there covering it for Glamocracy?
MOE: Peggy Noonan thinks Hillary is finished and her campaign is officially in the red. Peggy loved a speech she gave but thinks she needs four more years to overcome the whole pants thign.

She'll need more than four years to shake off the impression she made in 2008. And this is how you'll know she's making another bid for the presidency. She will wear skirts. Gone will be the pantsuits that made her look like a small blond man with breasts. It's the new me, I wear skirts! Her first impulse is to think cosmetically. A long and weary life in politics has left her thinking this is the way to think.

MEGAN: I try not to watch political ads because I kill enough brain cells with drinking.
MOE: The Bush twins are apparently going to be at the 92nd St. Y tomorrow night, so I might come back up.
MEGAN: She looks like a small blonde man with breasts? Peggy, please.
MOE: I dunno

MOE: I kind of love how carried away she gets:

The other is elitism, a charge that clearly grates on him and unnerves his wife, who has a great deal that would be attractive in a first lady (intelligence, accomplishment, beauty) but lacks placidity, which is, actually, necessary. All first ladies, first spouses, should be like Denis Thatcher, slightly dazed, mildly inscrutable, utterly supportive. It is the only job in the world where "seems slightly drugged" is a positive job qualification.

MEGAN: Well, if you came down tonight, we could Crap on Philly tomorrow morning and you could be back in time for the Bush twins.
MOE: Hahaha you want to come to my polling place?
MEGAN: Wow, so Nooner's a Laura Bush fan? I prefer my political wives be actual humans.
MEGAN: That would be hilarious! Where's your polling place? I could take pictures of Democracy In Action!
MOE: It's at 12th and Federal, a South Philadelphia social club with a name that translates to "Home of the Crazy" I think...um...and speaking of, is all they're talking about on the non-Fox News the Weather Underground?
MEGAN: Sixties radicals play big with the still-think-we-coulda-won-Vietnam Fox News viewership. Pat Buchanan is yelling on MSNBC.
MOE: About the weather?
MOE: Michael Moore just endorsed.

I haven't spoken publicly 'til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don't give a rat's ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there's a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word "Democratic" next to the candidate's name.
Seriously, I know so many people who don't care if the name under the Big "D" is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.

MOE: Okay dammit, I can't find that John McCain clip. I'm refusing to take meds today because I've got all this work to do later, and I'm all over the place. On one side of me this woman on Fox News is saying we're not in recession, that the media and a vast Hugo Chavez-led left-wing conspiracy has formulated this whole con to get people to hate business and the free market, and I seriously want to reach into the TV and strangle her. Also, bitch is so young she looks like Enron collapsed before her first Purity Ball. Also, and this is shallow, but the hair: needs a blow out. Who are you, Southern-accented apologist for the plutocracy? Maybe you should spend a little time reading business news before you go on airing your conspiracy theories!!!
MOE: But anyway John McCain went on Letterman and made some funny cracks (and some nine-times-warmed-over ones but no one seems to be clipping those) and meanwhile Barack Obama has been bro-ing down with the sports talk radio guys on Philadelphia's WIP.
MEGAN: Do you mean this clip? The thing I hate about candidates on late night talk shows is that I don't really need to know that they can be "funny" anymore. They're just sort of not.
MOE:

After Obama spoke about former Sixers legend Julius Erving - Dr. J - being a boyhood idol, Cataldi asked whether Obama would rather be the president or Dr. J.
"The Doctor," said Obama. "I think any kid growing up, if you got a chance to throw down the ball from the free throw line, that's better than just about anything."

The victim must experience intense pain or suffering of the kind that is equivalent to the pain that would be associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in a loss of significant body functions will likely result

Perhaps you can feel it in the strange way that the war is beginning to feel increasingly like a distant, historical event in two very different films. In Ellen Spiro's "Body of War" (co-produced and co-directed by Phil Donahue), video of the October 2002 congressional debate on the Iraq war resolution has that familiar-but-foreign quality of things now slipping into the near past. Politicians hector each other, with faces less wrinkled, hair less gray than they have today. Names that were once so familiar you felt like they were family (what happened to Phil Gramm?) are slipping into the realms of amnesia. The urgency of the threat of weapons of mass destruction — announced by the president and parroted by the Congress — feels odd, too, not just because no WMDs were found but because the very foundations of the war have shifted so many times over the past half-decade.

• "I heard Obama speak. He hit me with that he-just-got-done- watching-'Malcolm X,' and I swear to God, I'm like, 'Yo, Obama!' 'I'm Obama to the end now, baby!," says 50 Cent, who originally supported Hillary Clinton. He has since "lost interest." [MTV]
  
• One of the girls who tormented Megan Meier under the tutelage of evil mom Lori Drew is going to be on TV tomorow talking about how Lori turned out to be a crappy "mother figure." Um, yeah. [ABC]
  
• You know how after 9/11 the government consolidated all these government functions into the Department of Homeland Security, which was probably an expensive waste of time? Well they are sort of doing that with all the regulatory agencies that are supposed to keep track of how much money all of these sophisticated "security" things are worth so the economy doesn't find itself with a hole the size of the Russian economy in it. It will take a long time, and probably not work. [WSJ]
  
• Obama has his widest gap in the Gallup tracking poll of Democrats of any candidate since February. February! That is almost the month before last! [Wonkette]

• Oh, look who favors socialized medicine! The folks who provide it. Funny, that! Think they all got brainwashed by the happy British doctor in Sicko? [Reuters]
• Chelsea Clinton quotes Salt N Pepa. [Wonkette]
• Do Pennsyvlanians distrust women or black folks more? [AP]
• Paris Hilton is a "role model for young girls everywhere," according to Paris Hilton. [Redlasso]
• Finally, a pundit with the guts to take Hillary to task for this Bosnia thing. What would we do without you, Hitchens? [Slate]
• Did you hear about this whole "Earth Hour" thing? Yeah, don't worry, nobody did. [Time]

• Have you been wondering, like, where the hell has Hillary gone? What with all the gubernatorial humping and the Bible thumping and the AIDS conspiracy theorizing and the grandmother/bus/throwundering and the fifth anniversary of the war and the "meh" reaction to the public unveiling of her schedule for the entirety of the nineties, you'd think she had, like, left the race! Well, she kind of has. Her own people are giving her a 10% shot at winning the primary. "The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe." [Politico]
  
• In other words, when her campaign says the Richardson endorsement was "insignificant", they are pretty much on the money. [CNN]
  
• But what kind of job did it buy him? [Wonkette]
  
• Whatever, TAY ZONDAY is back in the news. [Wired]
  
• China released a list of 21 most wanted endangerers of national security. They have mustaches and carry swords. [WSJ]
  
• Why is this State Department bullshit such a big deal? Doesn't anyone think, like, you know, it would be kind of cool to see where Barack Obama traveled back when he went by the name "Barry" and a bunch of other countries went by old names like "Rhodesia" andsuch? Sayin. [Wash Post]

• Why does everyone love David Paterson even though he's a crooked womanizer also? I just assumed, "because it is a lot tougher to pull off being a crooked womanizer when you are blind" but actually it turns out that he is just generally a nice guy. [Wash Post]
• You don't hear about Spain being powerful much anymore but as it turns out they are the secret forces running professional basketball. [WSJ]
• Speaking of the Euros France is getting rid of some of its nukes. [BBC News]
• Abigal Taylor, a 6-year-old girl who had a rare intestine transplant surgery after being disemboweled in a freak pool accident last June, died. [CNN]
• Oh my God Jim Newell you are funny sometimes; why am I old enough to be your typical white grandmother? [Wonkette]
• The Republican attack plan for Obama. [Salon]
• You can still run for mayor after being registered as a sex offender, you are just probably not going to win. [Houston Chronicle]
• Speaking of attacks, this lady may not look scary, but watch out for her outside certain tamer amusement park rides. [Fox News]
• When you live in New York you sometimes forget that you are missing out on anything but here, I just found something. [Very Small Array]

• Barry called his grandma a "typical white person" on WIP, a highly erudite Philadelphia AM radio station, and now typical white people everywhere are left to ponder this. [Wonkette]
  
• Scooter Libby was disbarred. it probably could have happened to a nicer guy, but not one who had written so explicitly about dog fucking! [Wash Post]
  
• "You're acting like it's our fault, and it's not." That's JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to Bear Stearns shareholders. Such a mensch. [NY Mag]
  
• Tibet's whole "independence" idea is catching on with Taiwan just in time to affect their elections. (Wait a second, if Taiwan has its own elections, does it really need independence?) Sigh. [NYT]
  
• A radio interviewer asked Dick Cheney about his dead-bottoming in opinion polls, the squandering of a trillion dollars and the loss of 600,000 or so lives, and Dick Cheney was all like, "So?" No SRSLY. [Wash Post]

• New word alert! "Seduceries." As in, the "Air Jordan of seduceries." [NYT]
• Ugh, Barry and Hillary, if it's not some shit that happened five years ago, it's shit that happened fifteen years ago, and frankly, we are sick. Of this shit. [MSNBC]
• Jennifer Lopez never wore that eighteen-tier Vera Wang gown she ordered to marry Ben Affleck but I'm sure it will go into a museum one day because she is such a very important historical figure. [US Weekly]
• Steve-O blames his alcoholism on the fact that his parents put liquor on his pacifier when he cried on planes as a baby. And so do I. [Us Magazine]
• You know? I am all for regulating the shit out of Wall Street. But if John McCain can't keep Iran and Al Qaeda straight and that is his fucking area of expertise I can't say I'm exactly confident in the ability of career legislators to grasp this shit, and creating a whole new regulatory body when the SEC is underfunded as it is seems a little silly. But hey, whatever, go for it Barney Frank. [Politico]
• No do-over in Michigan. [NYT]

• Obama's slightly racist grandma is not dead, she just doesn't feel like commenting on his speech apparently. Here is a picture of her clutching her grandson for fear of being beaten up by darker-skinned black men. No just kidding, it's just a graduation picture. Sorry to drag you into this, Madelyn Dunham.
  
• ""As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say 'That's a terrible statement!' ... I grew up in a very segregated South. And I think that you have to cut some slack — and I'm gonna be probably the only conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you — we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names..." Well Jesus F. Christ Mike Huckabee, if you didn't just win yourself some major days off from Purgatory right there. [Politico]
  
• John McCain keeps randomly linking Iran with Al Qaeda. I'd say he's trying to make this into a self-fulfilling prophecy like happened with Iraq and Al Qaeda so that he can make the 100 years thing its own self-fulfilling prophecy. But he could also be just old. [Huffington Post]
  
• Getting raped on Spring Break is just par for the course these days I guess, but getting raped and then hurled over a sixth-floor balcony is a bit much. [ABC News]
  
• Hillary's packed schedule as First Lady consisted mostly of philanthropic crap, ceremonial visits to foreign countries and REDACTED. Newspapers are still frantically scanning the newly released papers to find out more re our former "co-President" but one thing we do know... [Wash Post]

• One thing is clear: she was in the White House the whole day her husband messed up that intern's dress![ABC]
• A Hillary-supporting preacher estimates the bra size of Obama Girl at 54DD. [YouTube]
• An exclusive report from the front lines in Tibet describes a relatively restrained police reaction to the looting, which didn't go over so well with the ethnic Chinese minority. "One Han teenager ran into a monastery for refuge, prostrating himself before a red-robed Tibetan abbot who agreed to give him shelter." [Economist]
• How thoughtful of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to take time out from worrying about his country splitting apart to worry about Bear Stearns. And by "thoughtful" I am pretty sure I think "scary." [China Daily]
• Vote about what kind of liar you think the CEO of Bear Stearns is! [Dealbreaker]
• Michelle Gass a business visionary. First she invented a chocolatey smooth coffee beverage that could be sold at huge markups and used to addict the young and coffee-averse to strongly caffeinated beverages, then she added whipped cream and syrup on top, then she invented a caramel version, and then she invented a diet version. Surely there is no way of creating shareholder valued she could not pull off. [WSJ]
• Scientific sounding study says women should marry men who are fifteen years older than them. I would try to refute it, but so bad at science! [New Scientist]
• Obama is going to be on The View; yay! [ABC News]

• Wyoming caucus tomorrow! Obama is expected to win. Because it's the home state of his distant cousin Dick Cheney? Nah, but I thought I'd use this bizarre picture anyway. [AP, Rolling Stone]
  
• I couldn't exactly run another Samantha Power pic. But here she is in the news again, talking about how that whole sixteen month plan is unrealistic and stupid or something that will no doubt be spun 47.5 different ways. [Politico]
  
• Employers cut more jobs in February than they have in five years. What sector was hit the hardest? Ummmmm, all of them! [Yahoo!]
  
• Ooooh, look, a fun ranking of corporate America's fifty biggest single paydays! [Vanity Fair]
  
• Speaking of! Virginia Rep. Tom Davis valiantly came to their recipients' defense today in Congress, because cross-examining the warmhearted captains of industry behind the mortgage crisis is really just like sacrificing virgins. [Wonkette]
  
• Speaking semi- also of! Obama campaign manager David Plouffe wants to see Clinton's tax returns, suggests she try out the photocopying services at Kinko's. [Wash Post]
  
• Marion Jones went to jail. [People]
  
• Michigan Senator Carl Levin thinks everyone should just forget the fuck about his disenfranchised voters already. [CNN]

• OMG Chinese army-trained hackers NO ONE IS SAFE. [CNN]
• Italian adulteresses are now officially allowed to lie about their affairs to protect their reputations. No word on adulterers, but it's apparently a refreshing change of pace for the Court of Cassation, which once issued that a woman could not be raped by definition if she was wearing tight jeans, since the jeans could only be removed with her consent. . [BBC]
• All that time it was the Clinton campaign that wanted to reassure the Canadians about NAFTA, not the Obama campaign! What a silly mix-up. [MSNBC]
• Hey! Remember that time you were almost a Democrat, John McCain. No, not that time, the time when Kerry wanted you for a running mate...Well alright then! [Real Clear Politics]
• "Pillow talk??? Girl, I need to have someone come and clean up all the feathers from our pillow fights!" An excerpt from Dyson v. Dyson, wherein a Clinton supporter marries an Obama supporter. [The Root]
• Belarus is kicking out our ambassador. I know, right? I didn't know that we'd imposed economic sanctions on Belarus, charging that the national gas company is tacitly controlled by its increasingly brutal dictator Alexander Lukashenko either. But like, it sounds pretty plausible, huh? [Wash Post]

MEGAN: Ok, can we start with a moment of silent reflection over the most important news of the last 2 days?
  And, by that, I mean the news that Patrick Swayze has cancer.
MOE: Ugh, PANCREATIC cancer. I've never heard of that happening to any celebrity before. Pancreatic cancer is a death sentence. I don't know much about the pancreas but the cancer seems crazily effective at destroying it instantly.
MEGAN: And then, presumably, metastasizing wildly. I know he's doing well, yadda yadda yadda, but I have a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach and not just because someone threw a bomb in Times Square this morning.

MOE: Ack! An IED. Oh for Chrissakes. Funny in the article they call it an "improved explosive device" but I don't think that's right! So they threw the thing in front of the Armed Forces Career Center...a puzzling target if there ever was one. I suppose I should turn on the TV and keep up to the minute on this one. Don't they have like nine thousand security cameras up in that shit? Glad I don't have to sit and pore over all that footage.
MEGAN: There's about to be a press conference! And everyone seems to think it's some sort of liberal protest! It's like our own small-scale, military-recruiting-focused Timothy McVeigh. Way to go, war-protesting, hippie bike-riding dude! Now we're like them!
MOE: Do you think it's an "ecoterrorist"?
MEGAN: Oh, God, right, ELF's back, I forgot about that shit.
 MOE: They also got the Mexican Consulate and the British Consulate ...so...they don't like margaritas, and they don't like Chris Hitchens?
Or maybe it's that guy from American Idol.
MEGAN: I do have to say, though, Hitchens' much-trumpeted veneers are really spectacular in person. The rest of him, not so much. 
MOE: So anyway, NAFTA. I guess if the Prime Minister really wanted to find the source of that nasty leak that sunk Barack Obama he should have asked his own top aide!
MEGAN: Aw, the dude has that weird baldness tuft that should immediately be buzzed the hell down. And, um, is he a Clinton fan? Or just likes screwing with stuff?
  Also, how excited must the Canadians be that we're actually sort of, you know, influenced by them?
The left wants to call in the Mounties! I've been to their training academy. They look sort of doofie on TV but are generally kind of cute and not in a bad-boy Marine kind of way.
MOE: Hahaha that guy they just interviewed looks like my bartender
MEGAN: Ooh, the one downstairs? He's nice.
MOE: So people felt it all the way up on the 44th floor, but it didn't really do anything. I guess we should talk about the implications of this...so what are the implications of this? That knowing some amateurs made a bomb that interrupted the sleep of a bunch of tourists in Time Square who don't have to be at work in the morning anyway ...will be the electoral nail in the coffin of Barack (I never wanted to kill my good friend Saddam) Hussein Obama?
MEGAN: I would think that this sort of crap would piss off the independent voters that either Hillary or Barack need in order to win. It would be like if some crazy right wing guy shot up a gay rights march or something — reasonable people quite reasonably shy away from that kind of shit and the people/candidates/causes it's meant to support or bring attention to.
MOE: Yeah, ugh, whatever, okay; oh god, Charlie Crist, I am getting melanoma just looking at you.
MEGAN: Yeah, he spends a little too much time getting fake baked and then wonders why everyone seems to think he's gay.
MOE: So wait a second, the Republican governor of Florida is coming out in support of counting the delegates Hillary won in the primary in the state where Obama wasn't allowed to campaign? What? Seriously guys, anyone who doesn't think the Republicans are DYING for Hillary to get the nom...does not know enough Republicans. And hey, I can't fault you guys for that. Speaking of, commenter from Pennsylvania who got all snippy at me yesterday for saying they're all racists, 1. I am registered to vote in Pennsylvania so I have the right to say these things and 2. I was referencing the great Ed Rendell himself. Who is also very tanorexic these days. Though definitely not anorexic. Is it a sign of progress that our white politicians are now darker-skinned than our black politicians? Maybe that's why Hillary photoshopped Obama, so he wouldn't look too pale.
MEGAN: Oh, Ed. Here's hoping that shitty comment about your constituents being racist follows you into your own primary race a couple of years from now. If there's anything I can do to help with that, someone please let me know
MOE: How has that recruitment center been doing anyway? Is there any place we can get their numbers? Or is all that some top secret Pentagon shit? Personally I think it's probably a genius idea to be, like, here you are in the worst neighborhood in New York, how bad can Iraq really be? But you have to weigh that against, "ummmm this is what I'm protecting???" P.S. out of town Jezebels and potential terrorists: New York is not all that bad.
MEGAN: I seriously doubt the Pentagon releases center-by-center recruitment stats, but I'll bet the NYC one is more for PR and show than actual recruitment. It's got pretty prominent placement, weirdly, and I feel like it's maybe a historic site or something.
IT was historic, and then they rebuilt it. In 1998, it was the busiest recruiting center in the country, but I'm gonna guess sales have dropped off a bit in 2008.

MOE: Okay so that press conference seemed unremarkable. Oh look, and not another building in New Jersey is collapsing. What an attractive building! Ah, Newark. Can you think of a state with more charming little cities? Elizabeth, Newark, Paterson, Trenton, Camden, ATLANTIC CITY... I love Jersey. I don't know where I was going with that.
MEGAN: I'm meh on Jersey. It's my version of a flyover state.
 
MOE: Ach, you know, scratch that. Look why the nation doesn't need to be worried about more harmless homegrown terror attacks carried out by lone actors on bicycles? Because the nation's intelligence agencies finally got their shit together to start really spying on us MEGAN: Oh, yay! That probably explains why my computer has been so damn slow today. Hello government moles! Enjoy my utter lack of porn or organization and my many, many Desktop icons.

• Hillary won the Texas primary by four percentage points but she may actually wind up tied with Obama for the delegate count. Just trust me when I say I am outraged on her behalf. [Wonkette]
  
• It's official: Rush Limbaugh won yesterday for Hillary. [Reason]
  
• It's official: that leaked NAFTA document won yesterday for Hillary. Stephen Harper says so. Who's Stephen Harper? Ha ha ha, some interdependence that turned out to be. [Reuters]
  
• It's official: there were a BUNCH of reasons Hillary won last night but yeah it was mostly SNL. [Progressive]
  
• Personally I don't understand why no one is crediting Joel Osteen of the Church of Prosperity and Lingerie for winning it for Hillary because everyone loves money and lingerie. And also, Chelsea's highlights. I hate highlights but hers look hot. [Houston Chronicle]
  
• Yeah yeah yeah running mate whatever we'll cross that bridge when we come to it which is to say holy shit NEVER. [Politico]

• Oh my God. You know who resurfaced today, guys? Our pathologically embarrassing lame-duck president guy! To endorse John McCain. John McCain was sooooo honored I'm sure. [NY Times]
• Just for that he got Gen. Petraeus to say Al Qaeda was coming back. Wait a sec! I thought Al Qaeda was in Iraq. It's called "Al Qaeda in Iraq"! Mindfuck. [World Tribune]
• Being a woman sucks, yes it does, don't even try to deny it, something about Hillary. [Washington Post]
• Blogsentiment of the day: "One would hope for something as simple as "he talks a good game, but it's all a huge lie!!!!!" but it's not all a huge lie." [Atlantic]

MOE:: So okay, tonight is a really important night. Hillary needs to win or else, well, as she told Jon Stewart, it's pretty pathetic.
MEGAN: I have to say, I watched that and she didn't cackle even once.
MEGAN: Although a darker brown suit would've been better.
MOE:: She did a really good job. And that was a funny answer. Everyone's really impressed that she's not "acting like a loser" yet, you know? Like at this Eva Longoria-moderated town hall meeting in Texas yesterday. Um, did you know Eva Longoria is a former Miss Corpus Christi? Because that was news to me.
MEGAN: Whoa, that is news to me, too. But, yay for a short girl winning a beauty contest!
9:05 AM
MEGAN: I mean, the problem becomes that if she actually doesn't pull it out today, does she continue to act like a winner and try to keep going through Pennsylvania anyway.
MOE:: Okay, so today's big news to me is that Alex P. Keaton would be an Obamican. This revelation comes to us via his ghostwriter Gary David Goldberg. "I think Obama's slogan is very similar to Alex's own personal mantra: "Of Course I Can." Now ha ha ha yes that is fiction, but the rationale behind it sort of mirrors the rationale behind this nonfiction blog post by Netscape co-founder and gazillionaire Marc Andreessen, who also gave money to Mitt Romney. The Obamicans are, to me, the most fascinating niche of the Obama constituency, because they are willing to discard all their ill-conceived ideology just to get someone motherfucking smart in the White House.
The other person, or their software, refused the request.
9:10 AM
MOE:: Okay, so today's big news to me is that Alex P. Keaton would be an Obamican. This revelation comes to us via his ghostwriter Gary David Goldberg. "I think Obama's slogan is very similar to Alex's own personal mantra: "Of Course I Can."
MOE:: Now ha ha ha yes that is fiction, but the rationale behind it sort of mirrors the rationale behind this nonfiction blog post by Netscape co-founder and gazillionaire Marc Andreessen, who also gave money to Mitt Romney. The Obamicans are, to me, the most fascinating niche of the Obama constituency, because they are willing to discard all their ill-conceived ideology just to get someone motherfucking smart in the White House.
MEGAN: Well, but presumably they consider their ideology to be somewhat less ill-conceived most of the time.
MEGAN: I mean, do they not consider Clinton smart? Because she's not stupid. And neither's McCain, even if I disagree with him politically. So why are these guys going for Obama, who is legitimately considered to be far more liberal than Hillary by more than just the National Journal?
MOE:: Yeah and it also gets to this nagging curiosity: Is Obama really a Leftist? Does he really hate NAFTA? What did NAFTA ever do to him?
MOE:: I like this snippet from the Andressen blog post:

We then asked, well, what about foreign policy — should we be concerned that you just don't have much experience there?
He said, directly, two things.
First, he said, I'm on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where I serve with a number of Senators who are widely regarded as leading experts on foreign policy — and I can tell you that I know as much about foreign policy at this point as most of them.
Being a fan of blunt answers, I liked that one.

MOE: Hahahaha your status message
It's like you're READING MY SOUL.
MEGAN: I might've gotten drunk and listened to depressing music last night....
MOE: What if we spent the entire crappy hour talking about the real tragedy of the universe that is our love lives, lack thereof department
MEGAN: 'Tis the reason for the season, or THE CRAP
MOE: And then everyone who has hurt us would SEE it and KNOW.
MEGAN: If they read, not that they do, because they DON'T CARE ABOUT US
MOE: It is the ultimate tragedy that JENNIFER ANISTON IS TOTALLY READING ANGELINA NEOCON'S COLUMN RIGHT NOW and realizing that yes, tis true, those who take a dark and cynical view of human nature are the ones that get ahead in this world.
MEGAN: And being like, goddamn Brad, marrying a bitch whose mission on earth is apparently to show me up in every way.
It's so hard to choose, would you rather a dude end up with someone prettier and more accomplished or someone uglier and hateful and stupid. Because you're jealous of the first and then like, oh, dude, really? about the second.
Also, this is the song from whence the status message comes. [Warning: I'm a little bit country]
MOE: Ah yes...I think you exposed this to me while drunk.
MEGAN: ahem. I have a pattern.
MOE: Oh my god, and this guy just came online who I, like, kind of somewhat fucked over a few months back. Thank you, karma deities. We had this very amorous one-night stand wherein the amorousness made me uncomfortable and I basically froze him out. I remember seeing the movie Ocean's Thirteen with him. Which is, of course, why I mention it, because it brings the conversation back to BRAD PITT AND ANGELINA JOLIE AND DAVID PETRAEUS AND THE WAR AND THE IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE AND THE BALANCE OF POWER AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY ETC. ETC. ETC.
MEGAN: Which YOU could totally talk to him about because he didn't block your chats and/or signs in occasionally and totally isn't avoiding you or ignoring you or not speaking to you even if you did freeze him out, which is better than, say, letting someone in who says that he has serious feelings for you and then falls off the face of the earth because you having feelings back makes him feel insecure so it's of course, all your fault BUT WHO CARES BECAUSE ONE PERCENT OF THE COUNTRY IS IN A PRISON NOT OF THEIR OWN MAKING.
MOE: Well the interesting part about this guy is that I did this post on this thing Esquire was touting called "radical honesty." And he sent me an email subject headed "Radical Honesty" with like ?????? in the body text.
So I emailed him back and was like "False intimacy creeps me out," which, to be radically honest, was a line I cribbed from Don. Wait, am I actually going to post this IM? It is so Summer of '07 Gawker. But with fewer exclamation points.
MEGAN: Too late to stop now!
MOE: Hey, guess what? There's no time not to. Okay, so ...should we talk about the troop surge?
MEGAN: Well, if you're going to admit your embarrassing Jezebel secrets, let me admit mine. This rap email? It was sent to me. And then I told someone who told someone and it got back to the aforementioned guy who I dated for 4 years and first he wanted to kill the dude and then he asked me why I would sleep with a douchebag like this instead of him and I might've cried a bunch because I was like... that guy hurt me but you broke my heart and then he felt worse and now I think he might not be speaking to me either.
MOE: Good grief. Can we discuss why this month had to have an EXTRA day in it??????
MEGAN: Like things will get better in March? But, actually, I know the reason for that! It's sort of half the Romans' fault and half the Catholic Church's!
Fucking Catholic Church.
Did you know the Pope is coming here?
MOE: Did you know McCain just endorsed some guy who calls the Catholic Church an "apostate church," and "a false cult system" — and also "the Great Whore" but I think that's a compliment. I guess with Angelina Jolie's tacit endorsement he doesn't need the Catholic League anymore.
MEGAN: Ha! Bill Donohue can suck it! Suck it Bill Donohue! Who you gonna vote for now? Hillary?
MOE: She's got Ann Coulter and Bill Cunningham! did you ever dream Hillary would get so many, like, protest votes from Republicans? It's really awesome. And yesterday even Bush warned Obama about Hillary. Did you see that? Again, weird.
MEGAN: I think they're all just fucking with us (oh, wait, right, we were moving on to a different theme). Although, really, I haven't met a real Republican who isn't salivating at the thought of running against Hillary. I don't get it, but there it is.
MOE: Nothing makes sense! It is all inexplicable! Angelina is a neocon. I wonder if Scarlett Johansson will come out and write a counterpoint piece now.
MEGAN: It would be good publicity for that inescapable movie.
MOE: Okay we have to talk about something. Did you get that I am totally worthless today? It is Friday. And it is a Friday that shouldn't have existed but for this idiotic "Leap Year" thing.
MEGAN: No, I'm worthless too
MOE: Look, consumer spending accelerated last month! That's positive news. Keep it pumping!
MEGAN: Yay spending! Also, the cops found ricin in Vegas.
MOE: oh god that's RIGHT. THE POISON. was it terrorism??? Because that would be an amazing target, an Extendedstay suite near the Vegas Airport. Who would have pegged it, you know? Didn't we find ricin a few years back in Japan? Yes right? On a subway? Where's my head at? Oh yes, in another chat window. Busted again!
MEGAN: I'm calling home grown wackos, but I'm usually wrong on these things.
Also, gay pron twins arrested in burglaries! I guess it doesn't pay that well after all!
MOE: Oh look and John McCain must have read Crappy Hour yesterday!
MEGAN: Dammit! Which one of the commenters is a McCain plant! Witch hunt!
MOE: Do you get Renzi mixed up with Rezko too or is that just me???
MEGAN: No, but only because I used to be a lobbyist and I heard of Renzi first, but it's not surprising