ANA MARIE: Good morning.

MEGAN: Hello! I now have coffee brewing, it smells good enough I almost feel like I don't hate the world.

ANA MARIE: I am discussing hotel reward points with other reporters and eating bacon and fruit. THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS.

MEGAN: Bacon is always a part of the breakfast of champions, and I have now determined what I shall be eating once we finish. Porky deliciousness, which is really just a way to bring up Ted Stevens, who Palin has decided should resign.

ANA MARIE: FINALLY. Next, Palin will appoint herself as replacement.

MEGAN: You know that's coming.

ANA MARIE: Though I do not mean to suggest that Obama is inevitable!

MEGAN: Somehow, though, I don't see her having a warm relationship with Senator McCain when she gets there.

ANA MARIE: We on the trail have been discussing whether or not she will even invite McCain to Bristol's wedding — since he is, you know, the reason why she has to get married. In a just world, he'd officiate.

MEGAN: But they love each other! They always planned to get married! I'll bet she invited him for the gift because you know he ain't flying to Alaska.

ANA MARIE: I actually don't mean to be cynical about that. I mean, I am, but on the other hand: I thought I'd marry my high school bf, too.

MEGAN: Me too! True story: remember those machines in the mall that print business cards and invitations? We printed a fake wedding invite one time.

ANA MARIE:Who do you think WILL have a warm relationship with Sen. McCain? Mel Martinez?

MEGAN: Lindsay Graham's love for McCain will never, ever die.

ANA MARIE: No. He will die wearing the wedding dress he picked out.

MEGAN: He will have to be buried in it. I mean, you gotta admit, he does look really fabulous in it.

ANA MARIE: Guy behind me: "The first polls close in six days, nine hours, and two minutes."

MEGAN: Ok, Rainman. And where do polls close at 5:30?

ANA MARIE: West Viriginia? Maybe he's lying. Some kind of elaborate voter fraud project.

MEGAN: Maybe I am just better at math? It's slightly less elaborate than printing up flyers complete with logos and shit to pretend that Election Day has been moved. I mean, really?

ANA MARIE: What, it hasn't? Shit. I was looking forward to collecting more Hilton Honors points. Also, someone tell Mickey Mouse.

MEGAN: Dude, if they moved it to this week, I would totally be okay with that. It's Wednesday and I'm too tired to move to get the coffee I can now smell. I'm so bored I spent 5 minutes reading about Kwame Kilpatrick's cell and sexy texts just to not think about the election any more and then the damn reporters snuck it in there at the end anyway. Bastards.

ANA MARIE: I was watching a zombie movie last night and couldn't help wondering which party they'd vote for. This election has infected my brain.

MEGAN: I think the zombies, like al Qaeda, would want McCain to win, if only because, what with his arms, he seems like one of them. Yeah, I went there.

ANA MARIE: It's okay. It's hard not to.

MEGAN: Oh, and it turns out that Ashley Todd is not a McCain plant trying to turn people against Obama, she's a Ron Paul plant pretending to be a McCain plant trying to turn people against Obama to turn people against McCain. Soooo crazy. She's like the Manchurian Candidate and shit.

ANA MARIE: Personally, I think zombies would vote for Ron Paul!

MEGAN: He would be like the Pied Piper for zombies, I would agree. All that yelling, they'd be really distracted. Bonus points: after they voted, Ron Paul's living supporters could then serve as sustenance for the zombies. Bonus, bonus points: Democrats could finally accuse Republicans of mining the cemeteries of this great nation for voters.

ANA MARIE: There's a "Chicago machine politician" joke in there somewhere but I haven't finished my bacon.

MEGAN: I need a bacon butler in the morning. And a coffee steward.

ANA MARIE: So did Cindy McCain.

MEGAN: But why did she need John McCain?

ANA MARIE: I think the proper emphasis is, "Why did SHE need John McCain?" Or maybe, "Why did she NEED John McCain?" Sorry, that's totally the lack of bacon talking.

MEGAN: I am seriously going to have to go cook some damn bacon when we finish this.

ANA MARIE: Should we talk about Nicolle Wallace and her sexy under the bus pose?

MEGAN: Yes, I think we should. I'm glad she decided to tell Fred Barnes he'd better apologize.

ANA MARIE: She didn't really tell him that, she just busted out the whoop ass.

MEGAN: Which, good for her, make him squeal like the bitch he is. Who says women can't play political hardball? Don't fuck with Nicolle Wallace.

ANA MARIE: Usually it's just Bill Bennett that makes him do that. She's the velvet fist in an iron glove or whatever. (Speaking of Bill Bennett.) What I loved about Nicolle? She set her sights on Fred and did not let him out during that entire interview. SHE INVOLVED HER DOG IN THE MESSAGING. She's scarier than Mark Salter. He would just hurt you.

MEGAN: Did Fred Barnes make her puppy cry? That bastard!

ANA MARIE: Nicolle can DESTROY YOU. (From the interview: "We reached Wallace Monday night, enjoying a rare evening at home with her dog, Lily, who also joined the conversation at one point. "That's Lily protecting me from Fred Barnes," Wallace explained.")

MEGAN: Nicolle should figure out who suggested to Freddie Back that it was all her fault and destroy him. Rick Davis seems like enough of a backstabbing little diva to do it.

ANA MARIE: I think she has some ideas. No one in the press corps does tho... Seriously, favorite game right now is "who would be so stupid as to get on Nicolle's bad side?" Okay you have just made the obvious point that I should have. Davis. Totally. Wanted to do go to Saks himself

MEGAN: Also, let us take on short moment to point out that the purchases were all made by Robocaller extraordinaire Jeff Larson.

ANA MARIE: Who hasn't even denied it!

MEGAN: With whom one imagines Wallace doesn't necessarily work that closely.

ANA MARIE: Here's the other thing: Wallace is a Bushie. She knows how to hide illegal expenses. There would be no RNC disclosure of Wallace purchases. I kid, obviously. Though I only say that because I think she knows how to have me killed.

MEGAN: It does seem pretty junior varsity, I agree. And Nicolle is not JV squad.

ANA MARIE: Hold on. I have to get wanded.

MEGAN: Tell him to do it the sexy way.

ANA MARIE: I've been wanded! Wanded is one of the words I'll miss from the campaign. That and "manifest." As in a staffer telling me, "I'll manifest you." It sounds like one simply APPEARS somewhere.

MEGAN: Manifest destiny is all I can think of when you say that.

ANA MARIE: See, I think of manifestations.

MEGAN: I think I have proved once and for all that I paid way too much attention in class.

ANA MARIE: And I pay too much attention to the SciFi channel.

MEGAN: So, shall we briefly discuss the irony of the woman who wants to change the Constitution to give herself more power if she wins accusing her opponent of wanting to change the Constitution?

ANA MARIE: Do you think Palin would recognize the Constitution if she saw it? Like, the text? Maybe the part about guns...

MEGAN: I'm not sure she would recognize it if it walked up to her on the street Schoolhouse Rock style and slapped her for all the shit she's been talking about it behind its back.

ANA MARIE: But then she would shoot it.

• Sarah Palin gave an interview to CNN's Drew Griffin, who only had to provide his viewers with misleading information on Troopergate and ACORN to get it. Try not to throw things against the screen when you watch it. [CNN, Huffington Post]
• By the way, although she said in that interview that she's excited to work on American's energy independence, she pushed the federal government to allow natural gas exports. The U.S. imports 771 billion cubic feet last year, and Alaska exported 100 billion. [CBS]
• Oh, and while she's running around mocking Joe Biden's statement that the Obama Administration might face an international crisis, CNN pointed out that the Cuban Missile Crisis started off Kennedy's Administration; the fall of Saigon, Ford's; the first World Trade Center bombing, Clinton's; and 9/11, Bush's. Silly facts. [Hotline]

• Sort of like how she thinks she would be "in charge" of the Senate even though the Constitution says the Vice President's only role is to break tie votes. She's not going to let old pieces of paper get in her way because she's a Maverick! [Swampland, Radar]
• One of her supporters in Virginia replaced a 78-year-old African-American Baptist minister's yard sign with a Confederate flag. I supposed we should just all thank our lucky stars that it wasn't a burning cross. [Huffington Post]
• By the way, Obama's grandmother broke her hip, and isn't in great shape. [Huffington Post]

On the one hand, this shit fucking sucks. This is the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave and we're supposedly Proud to Be an American[s] From Sea To Shining Sea and yet, 232 years after the founding of this country, 219 years after the signing of our (admittedly racist) Constitution, 145 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, 143 years after the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution eliminated slavery, 140 years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment gave African-Americans (and others) equal protection under the law, 138 years after the ratification of the 15th Amendment prohibited states from abridging the rights of citizens to vote because of their race, 132 years after the first of the Jim Crow laws abrogated the work that the Constitutional amendments started and 44 years after the Civil Rights Act supposedly put to rest any remaining doubts about what would be legal and what should not be acceptable in this fucking country, we've still got people who think that they are better than other people because of melanin content in their skin.

And, what's even more horrifying, that they think they can openly say racist shit because being at a Republican rally — the Republican party, notably, being the party responsible for the aforementioned Emancipation Proclamation and 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments — means that they are among "their" kind. And, given that neither John McCain nor Sarah Palin — the new heirs to the leadership of the party of motherfucking Lincoln — could take a minute, a second, to chide a supporter and say, "That language has no place in this party," they might be right. This is what Nixon wrought on this country and his party, this is what Rovian politics brings. There's no courage in ignoring who your supporters are. There's no honor in taking their votes if you can't take a minute to chide them for their racism. There would be honor and there would be courage in saying, "If you are voting for us because Obama is black, or because you think he is Muslim, we don't want your votes. Vote for us on the issues, or don't vote for us at all." But John McCain and Sarah Palin will take their support and their attendance at rallies with a wink and a well-coiffed nod and everyone will pretend that they didn't hear what was said and the racists will think they have someone who agrees with them in the White House and the rest of us will march happily on by like little lemmings and believe, as we want to believe, that they don't.

And on the other hand, if enough of those people come out of their noose-festooned closets wearing their Confederate-decorated clothing and quit talking about how the Flag of Intolerance is some sort of states' rights-Southern pride bullshit and acknowledge that it is about racism, showing their non-running red-white-and-blueblood for what it is, maybe I can stop hearing about how calling Obama "articulate" isn't really racist and calling him "young man" isn't really calling him "boy" and calling Michelle "angry" isn't playing to stereotypes because the people that want to turn a blind eye to the kind of underlying racism that pervades too much of our actions in this country won't be able to be willfully blind anymore. I understand that lots of people grew up with parents who preached tolerance and in environments that encouraged tolerance and lead (one might be tempted to say "sheltered") lives in which racism has never touched their lives in a way that they've seen or been able or willing to acknowledge, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And if the racists hiding among us — the guy who taped the "Whites Only" sign above my high school water fountain the year 3 African-American kids started attending my high school, for instance, or the woman who told AFL-CIO Treasurer Richard Trumka that she's not voting for Obama because of his race — have to come out and say it, then the rest of us have to acknowledge that it exists and that 44 years, and 138 years, and 140 years, and 143 years and 145 years hasn't been enough to wipe the stains of slavery from our country's soul or racism from its consciousness. And maybe once we recognize that as a country, once we acknowledge that the evil of it walks amongst not just the worst of us but some of the best of us, maybe then we can figure out why 150 years isn't enough.

Obama Hatred At McCain-Palin Rallies: "Terrorist!" "Kill Him!" [Huffington Post]
Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame [Washington Post]
Racism Without Racists [NY Times]
This Is Exactly What I Have Been Waiting For [Ta-Nehisi Coates]