• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's former bodyguard Mickey Brett might pen a tell-all or sell a TV show based on his life working for the A-list couple.

The thing is, how juicy can it possibly be? We're not talking Courtney Love-style antics with those two; it's probably like, strollers, diapers, sex, travel, diapers, diapers, sex, movie set, diapers, diapers diapers. (Sex!) [MSNBC]

• Angelina and Brad's "hot shot" attorney, Marty Singer, is calling the bodyguard a "pathological liar." [LA Times]
• As part of the trial, the court has learned that Tyra's stalker slipped into her TV studio asking to see his "very good friend." [NY Daily News]
• Parts of Heidi and Spencer's wedding had to be retaped after a generator went out in the church. Romantic! [Page Six]
• Chris Noth has indeed signed on for Sex And The City 2 Electric Boogaloo or Sex And The City 2 The Streets or whatever but Sarah Jessica Parker says she doesn't know if Carrie and Big will have kids. She also has no "clue" whether Dancing With The Stars phenom Gilles Marini will be in the sequel but my Magic 8 Ball says: Duh. [E!]
• Marc Jacobs is helping Madonna and Jesus Luz stay together! A source spills: "[Marc] wrote a letter of support for Jesus' work permit. Marc campaigned for Jesus, saying he is highly talented and a necessity to the label." Also, this report calls Madge a " well-connected cougar." Let's all get reductive! [MSNBC]
• Sniffle! According to this source, when Jesus Luz walked in a recent fashion show, "None of the other models would talk to Jesus or even look at him. They were gossiping like catty girls about how they couldn't wait for his career to fizzle out." Then they wouldn't let him play any reindeer games. [Gatecrasher]
• Casey Aldridge has been hospitalized since Sunday when he flippped his pickup truck and suffered a head injury; he will be moved from the ICU on Monday. [People]
• Rihanna is in Barbados with a "Chris Brown lookalike," which basically means the guy is black. [Daily Mail]
• "I try to be a friend for Miley," Billy Ray Cyrus says. "I know that's not everyone's parenting style… A friend, partner as an actor, a singer, songwriter and let her be a teenage girl and do her thing." Is that why you guys have matching highlights? [MSNBC]
• Uh, what? Susan Boyle has issued an ultimatum to Simon Cowell: "Let me sing or I'll quit the show." Apparently she is miffed that she has to wait five weeks before her next appearance on Britain's Got Talent. [Daily Express, The Sun]
• There are several horrifying things about this story involving Michael Jackson and his kids shopping at the Ed Hardy store in L.A.: First, the children are wearing school uniforms and feathered masquerade masks; second, MJ is wearing a fedora, headscarf, surgical mask and hideous green blazer; third, Michael Jackson's PANTS are BEYOND FUG. [Daily Mail]
• Robert Pattinson will star in a romantic drama called Remember Me, the story of a young couple whose relationship is complicated by a series of family tragedies. He'll be shooting in New York, so get ready to stalk the sparkly vampire in the gritty city. The leading lady role has not yet been cast: Who do you think it should be? [Mirror]
• In this video, Lost's Evangeline Lily talks about Jack and Sawyer. Uh, Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway. Anyway there's a nanosecond in which Sawyer has his shirt off and he is kissing Kate so click for that. [Breitbart]
• Snoop Dogg was in court yesterday, denying that he hit a dude with a brass-knuckle microphone. The guy in question has testified that he woke up backstage, naked and in a pool of blood; Snoop's position on this is that the man ran up on stage and security intervened, thinking Snoop was being attacked. [AP]
• "Intimate" pictures of Carla Bruni and an ex-lover were stolen during a burglary in Paris and apparently the "thieves appeared to know exactly what they were looking for." [Daily Mail]
• Here's a "cute" story about Justin Timberlake pressuring Jessica Biel to get wasted: "Everyone was doing shots of tequila, but Jess said she didn't want to drink anymore. Justin good-naturedly insisted, so she pulled her hair back and drank up!" [Gatecrasher]
• For $40, superfans can take a Gossip Girl bus tour of New York, and see the locations which serve as the homes and school of the characters. Just remember, only plebes take the bus. [Gothamist]
• Renée Zellweger turned 40 and Dan Abrams, Hugh Grant, Bradley Cooper, Neil Patrick Harris, Madonna, Kelly Ripa and Harry Connick Jr. were among the revelers. [Page Six]
• That dude Marilyn is still telling anyone who will listen that he was in a relationship with Gavin Rossdale in the '80s. [Daily Express]
• Pharrell Williams has been getting laser removal of his tattoos, which looks traumatizing, and now he's wearing a sling he made from a Burberry scarf. Ink removal must be really really really painful. [The Life Files, The Life Files]
• Something something financial crisis something something Aussie bank ANZ something something spent $1 million bringing Paris and Nicky Hilton to Australia for a New Year's Eve party in Sydney. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• Shirley Jones, the mom on The Partridge Family, will be topless on an upcoming episode of A&E's The Cleaner. This report snipes, "We hope with her back to the camera." [Page Six]
• Edie Falco says she would gladly do a Sopranos flick: "I don't actually see it happening, but I've been surprised before." [E!]
• The Daily Fail asked Joan Collins how she would makeover Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Joan was delighted and thorough: "Camilla should invest in a one-piece bodysuit that hugs her figure and pulls her in at the waist. And shoulder pads are excellent for improving shape. […] A richer, honey-blonde shade, with paler highlights at the front and sides, would bring light to her face. […] Finally, Camilla's mouth is crying out for a strong-coloured lipstick." [Daily Mail]
• Don Johnson will play a "mustachioed porn director" in Born To Be A Star, the porn-themed Adam Sandler comedy. The plot? A small-town nerd learns his quiet and demure parents were famous porn stars in the 70s, and this inspires him to head for Hollywood and fullfill his destiny banging on camera. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Amanda Peet has joined the cast of Gulliver's Travels, which stars Jack Black. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Dynasty star Linda Evans is the winner of the UK's Hell's Kitchen 2009. [Daily Mail]
• A lady is suing Wolfgang Puck due to a terrible incident which occurred in the bathroom of his Beverly Hills restaurant Spago, which I'd prefer not to get into so early in the day. [TMZ]
• Blind item! "Which Oscar winner's girlfriend won't let him get to third base? She's afraid of STDs." [Gatecrasher]
• "They tried to arrest me in Russia, for leather at St. Basil's. But all is calm in the red square, as I leave the east Parisbound." — Lady GaGa. [Perez]
• "I've actually broken up with boyfriends for inspiration. When I hit a period of not being able to write music, I get up and walk away. It's pretty mean but it's true." — Lily Allen. [Daily Express]
• "I've had to end good relationships, and I know how we talked about them, and tried to be nice and everything, but I think ... maybe that bruised a little bit more on the other side than I noticed, or than it did me. Because when you flip it over, I know there were times when I was the dumpee or whatever, and I was like, 'No way am I showing her how much this is hurtin.'" — Matthew McConaughey. [USA Today]
• "Steve-O was scared and nervous, we needed to take him to the mental ward — I instructed the guys that if he doesn't want to go, knock him out, but he went and he's actually doing really good now. He's in so much a better place now and I'm really proud of him." — Johnny Knoxville. [The Star]
• "It's true that I've never had a burning desire to rebel against my parents. But in other respects I think I have rebelled. I mean, I rebelled against my record label when they wanted to shelve me, and I've rebelled against people trying to push me around in the recording studio. To me, that's always been much more exciting than going out and getting drunk. I remember at high school trying to cheer up my girlfriends who were crying in the bathroom after some party when they couldn't remember who they'd made out with the night before. You see, I don't ever want to be that girl in the bathroom crying." — Taylor Swift. [Telegraph]
• "We try to protect ourselves from being fully in love and fully open and fully vulnerable, and really all we're doing is protecting ourselves from love and real love and the opportunity to really learn and grow with another person, so it's actually really detrimental, and you think it's helping." - Pink. [Yahoo News via AP]
• "The Type A thing is a big misunderstanding. It's funny to me that I have been portrayed as a closed-off, uptight person. I'm very open. Type A is my blood type." — Reese Witherspoon. [Elle UK]

• Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony had trouble getting into the Neighborhood Ball last night, because they were late. You gotta get there before the President! [Page Six]

• An aside: Was Jennifer Lopez seen sneaking out of the Scientology Center in L.A.? Even though her dad and her friend Leah Remini are Scientologists, J. Lo has always said she's not into it. [Gatecrasher]
• Whoa, the American Music Ball was canceled hours before it started. Performers George Clinton, Ben Vereen and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes had to go to the Heroes Ball instead. [Page Six]
• Susan Sarandon got a Politico blogger kicked out of a Creative Coalition brunch in D.C. What did the blogger do? Ask Sarandon if she'd say a word or two about Obama's speech. [Politico]
• Here's how Kerry Washington watched Barack Obama's swearing-in yesterday: "I dressed as if going for skiing. I had many layers — tights, jeans, thermal underwear," she says. "We stood in line for the hours everyone else did. I had a seated ticket to the swearing-in, but I gave up my seat and went up to the front area and kneeled." [USA Today]
• By the by, a new musical called Obama On My Mind opens in March in London. No, really. [People]
• Get ready: Thursday morning, Forest Whitaker will announce this year's Academy Award nominations. Then the Oscars will air live on February 22. [People]
• Presenters at the SAG Awards include Christina Applegate, Kyra Sedgwick, Jon Hamm, John Krasinski, Angela Bassett and Eric McCormack. The event takes place Sunday night at 8 p.m. and will be simulcast on TBS and TNT. [Variety]
• Date alert! Renée Zellweger was spotted having dinner with MSNBC legal correspondent Dan Abrams. [Page Six]
• Amy Winehouse is a heroine! Not on heroin, but a lifesaver: A tourist was having a sailing lesson in the Caribbean when she was thrown out of the boat by a big wave. The woman landed on some rocks and Amy dashed to her side, keeping her from being swept back into the sea. [The Sun]
• Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the pilot who saved Flight 1549, was seen dining on bird (chicken) at a D.C. restaurant called Hudson last night. [TMZ]
• Joaquin Phoenix threw a fit when Casey Affleck and the documentary crew arrived late to his rap performance in Las Vegas. "Thanks for fucking everything up," Phoenix yelled before throwing a CD on the floor. A source says: "Nobody can tell if he is for real or if this is all a big joke." Sorta hoping it's a joke. [Page Six]
• Oh God: When he was performing in Vegas, Joaquin Phoenix's pants had a massive hole in the crotch. "It was hard for anyone to focus on his singing," laughed one witness. "The worst was that the hole was at eye [level] for most of the crowd." [Gatecrasher]
• Sean Penn's been criticized for meeting with people like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, but his publicist says: "Sean is a champion of civil rights." [Perez]
• A California appeals court has put the Roman Polanski case on hold. [Reuters]
• A month after his brother died of a gunshot wound, Mark Ruffalo is back at work, directing and starring in Sympathy For Delicious, a flick about a paralyzed DJ who seeks out the world of faith healing. [Yahoo News via E!]
• Kristen Stewart is at Sundance plugging a new flick, Adventureland, but she reluctantly spoke about the Twilight sequel, sorta. Click for "um, like" video. [E!]
• Kevin Federline's new girlfriend "played mommy" when she and K-Fed took Sean Preston and Jayden James out to dinner over the weekend. [TMZ]
• Jude Law was wearing a neck brace after "tweaking" his neck while working out, but you can relax, he's fine. [Page Six]
• Danny Boyle is in Mumbai, defending Slumdog Millionaire: "The thing that I wanted people to take away from the film was ... this breathtaking, breathtaking resilience of people and the joy of people despite their circumstances, that lust for life," he says. "What we tried to do in the film was include as much of the city as possible." This paper notes that half of the city's 17 million people are homeless. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Blind item! "Which married morning-show producer rumored to be having an affair with a married on-air colleague was 'fidgeting incessantly' during inauguration weekend parties with her recently ringless ring finger?" [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which supermodel had to have an uber-rocker’s teeth marks photoshopped off her bared bottom after her magazine photo shoot?" [Gatecrasher]
• Simon Cowell has fired Britain's Got Talent judge Kelly Brook after just six days on the job. Guess she didn't "bring the crazy," which is what a "judge" has to do these days. [Perez]
• Paul Giamatti plays himself in a Sundance flick called Cold Souls and says: "I kind of forgot that I was playing myself in this... I kind of felt that [director Sophie Bart] captured, in a funny way, an archetypal type of neurotic New York self-involved actor." [ONTD]
• Star Jones and chef Herb Wilson: It's on. [Perez]
• Ralph Macchio is not happy about the Karate Kid remake Will and Jayden Smith are plotting. Macchio says: "From my personal view, filling the void of what Mr. Miyagi was - and the magic of that character - is going to be the toughest task. I don't know where the romantic story-arc goes [with Jayden Smith] at that age." [Perez]
• Alyssa Milano has received a restraining order against a man who has "increasingly" harassed and stalked her. [ET]
• James Taylor wore a hat and sunglasses during his performance at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday because he either "fell during rehearsal" (official story) or had some sort of fisticuffs with a "wooden parrot in his hotel room" (unofficial story). Either way, he got 50 stitches in his forehead. Stupid parrot. [Page Six]
• Wesley Snipes has a pending three-year jail sentence for tax evasion, but has been loading up on tax-free swag at Sundance. [Page Six]
• "If someone rapes a girl he should be bent over and the same thing done to him. I’m sorry that’s just the way I feel. I’m very strict. If someone is done for drink-driving they should have their licence taken away for life. And if someone steals they should have to wear a dye on their skin, like a tattoo on their ear or somewhere it can be seen – like across their face! That would stop people stealing." — Katie "Jordan" Price. [The Sun]
• "I really know how to think. If I decide to make a coat red in the show, it's not just red. I think: is it communist red? Is it cherry cordial? Is it ruby red? Or is it apple red? Or the big red balloon red? I mean there's like so many fucking different kinds of red. And so you have to say, well, what are we trying to say in this scene? Is it a happy red? Or a sad red? Is it a lace red? Or a leather red? Or a wool red? It's like there are so many components to making a show and making art… I strive to be a female Warhol. I want to make films and music, do photography and paint one day, maybe. Make fashion. Make big museum art installations. I would be a bit more mixed-media than him probably - combining mixed media and imagery and doing more of a kind of a weird pop-art piece." — Lady GaGa. [Guardian]
• "I wanted to reach out and let you know that due to scheduling conflicts with certain cast members and location/weather considerations, we had to wait until now to shoot a couple of scenes. Please rest assured that Wolverine will be badass and hopefully meet all of your expectations." — Hugh Jackman. [Page Six]
• "It's intense, and there are no weights involved. And some of it's like girly stuff, like just kicking your leg, but it’s muscles you don’t really ever work at. Men don’t usually go to the gym and say, 'I’m going to develop my ass. This’ll be the J.Lo workout.'" — 50 Cent, on his fitness regimen. [Gatecrasher]
• "His attitude in the play is, 'Hey, I'm pretty kickass. Sure, I made some mistakes, but any president does, and, for the most part, I did a good job.'" — Will Ferrell on playing Dubya in You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W. Bush. [Village Voice]

MEGAN: Oh, God, I seriously considered propping my eyelids open with toothpicks this morning. Why are Wednesdays worse than even Thursdays and Fridays in that regard?

SPENCER: You know what will wake you up? The brand-new Gaslight Anthem record The '59 Sound. I've been listening to this all morning — it came out yesterday. Bruce fronting 1979-era Clash. Benny, you made a great fucking record! I remember when their drummer put on shows at the Manville Elks Lodge in central Jersey that I'd take the bus from fucking Brooklyn for. Holy shit is this record good. Christ that was TWELVE YEARS AGO.

MEGAN: You'll have to play it for me sometime, but I don't think even punk is going to pop my eyes open this morning if the news that our boy Toby is praising Obama didn't. It's hard to type with your eyes closed, I'm just putting it out there.

SPENCER: See this is the kind of shit that I can't put up with. Fine, Toby Keith, you're a Democrat. So are lots of assholes. Call me when you're a hardcore hang-them-from-telephone-poles liberal. all me when you write the theme tune to RACHEL MADDOW'S NEW MSNBC SHOW. This is a racially-backhanded compliment currrtesssy u'da redwhitenbloo:

"So I thought it was beautiful the other day when Obama went to Afghanistan and got educated about Afghanistan and Iraq..."

Educated, eh, Toby?

MEGAN: You know I'm excited about Rachel Maddow. Even the WaPo's Howie Kurtz sounds enthused and he never sounds enthused.

SPENCER: Let's pause to reflect here. This shit doesn't happen. Phil Donahue got fired from MSNBC for opposing the Iraq war. In the intervening years, this country has become a ceaseless nightmare and progressivism has had something of a rebirth with a new style. The idea that that rebirth might actually be represented behind a cable newsanchor's desk is mindblowing. Liberals on the TV!Rachel Maddow is the TV version of the GASLIGHT ANTHEM.

MEGAN: I mean, the real question for us — and for MSNBC and Rachel Maddow — is whether this new progressivism is as much of a fad as the old patriotism was, and whether it ends after the election, or if we get attacked again or whatever. That's my big concern. Flags are still relatively cheap, and you can pull off the tags that let people know they're Made in China.

SPENCER: This isn't going away. Do you think Atrios is going to switch his style up if all of a sudden there's another attack? I've been to Netroots Nation. I see what we've built over these years. What happens if we're attacked is that there'll be in an infrastructure in place to point out that the attacks are bin Laden's fault, but with a special assist from George Bush. Having Rachel on TV will amplify it all. But you have a good point — she's going to be scrutinized by the MSNBC bigs in a way that Joe Scarborough will never be.

MEGAN: Although he should be, because sometimes he's really dumb.

SPENCER: But Joe Scarborough is Foreigner and Rachel Maddow is Black Flag. Rise above. Oh fuck i just accidentally called that guy Sozi we met in Philadelphia on primary night. Kids, always lock your BlackBerrys.

MEGAN: Wait, the guy with the beard? Do you guys still talk? I remember him being pretty cool, but by the end of that I pretty much thought everyone was pretty cool.

SPENCER: Anyway, before we get caught up in this whole promise-of-the-progressive-moment shit, let's point out that the latest LAT poll shows McCain's summer of disreputable attacks on Obama have really done some damage. (and no, the tall guy, Farah's friend.)

Overall, Obama holds a narrow edge over the Arizona senator, 45% to 43%, which falls within the poll's margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. In June, Obama was ahead by 12 points. Other polls at that time showed him with a narrower lead.

MEGAN: (Well, I'm sure I hugged him, too)

SPENCER: But the guts of the poll has the significant stuff:

Obama's favorable rating has sunk to 48% from 59% since the last Times/Bloomberg poll in June. At the same time, his negative rating has risen to 35% from 27%.

By comparison, McCain's ratings have hardly budged during the same period: 46% of voters have a positive feeling about him; 38% give him negative ratings.

That negative rating is still low, but the upward trajectory is steep and could get much steeper still, particularly because this shows the track McCain's on is working. It's not working well enough to give people a reason to vote for McCain — stuck at 46 pos/38 neg? — but the GOP convention clearly has a map laid out in front of it to give people that reason. Actually let me qualify that, and not just because it's bad writing. Everyone knows McCain and his bio, and it's not driving to people cross over. But if he starts introducing new arguments, there's enough reason to believe from this poll that he could draw people to him, not just away from Obama.

MEGAN: Man, Bob Barr needs to ramp up his efforts. Where are the Dems to start giving him money, the way Republicans gave money to Nader in 2000? But, I thought this part was interesting:

Less than half of the registered voters polled think the first-term Illinois senator has the "right" experience to be president, while 80% believe McCain, a four-term senator, does.

When I went to those DNC protests back in the day, that's all anyone could talk about. This is why people were telling Hillary to lay off the negative attacks at the end, because they figured they would outlast her campaign and they did.

SPENCER: Yeah, that's really worrisome. As is this:

The poll also illustrates some racial undercurrents that confront Obama as he strives to become the first African American president. Nine percent of voters say they would feel uncomfortable voting for a black candidate. Most voters say they know people who feel that way. About one in six say the country is not ready to elect a black president.

MEGAN: "Most voters say they know people who feel that way." Dude, when are people going to learn that when you say you "have a friend" who did something bad, everyone knows you're talking about yourself.

SPENCER: My understanding is that the way pollsters get around respondents' reluctance to say THEY wouldn't vote for a black candidate is to ask if you know someone who wouldn't. It's very junior-high but apparently it works, from a statistical perspective. But, yeah.

MEGAN: One in 6 says "the country" isn't ready for a black President? So we'll elect my grandpa instead?

SPENCER: And let me say: over the last several weeks, I've been privvy to a massive amount of netroots fear/anxiety/antipathy to Obama, intensifying since he got the nomination. People think he's fucking this up, and I'm not talking about HRC supports, I'm talking about his people. Liberals are never satisfied, it's true, but the fear is palpable.

MEGAN: Well, but, like fucking it up how? Are we talking FISA and the Bayh flirtation? Not attacking McCain enough?

SPENCER: By not aiming a Howitzer at McCain's balls, as Roger Sterling would say. They don't want him to say things like "McCain is a patriot" — not give him any quarter at all. Just endless, ceaseless attacks. I'm of two minds. It's not really a policy issue, though the policy stuff doesn't help. They think he should have been talking about how Maliki endorsed his plan as a game-ender on Iraq, which remains McCain's central issue. THAT I agree with 1000 percent. One percentage point for each year McCain wants us in Iraq.

MEGAN: I mean, I agree with you that Obama's camp hasn't been great at taking full advantage of even the positive opportunities that have presented themselves, it seems like they need to be able to improvise better — which could be a result of their very top-down, locked-down structure. But I'm of two minds of seeing him as an attack dog. I think it undermines his overarching Hopey message, which is why he's been leaving some of it to the Netroots. And why he should've gotten off his ass and picked a VP by now.

SPENCER: Like why is the campaign alienating Wesley Clark? You want a guy with stars on his shoulders who actually has connections to enlisted dudes/junior officers who can aim the Howitzer at McCain

MEGAN: But he also needs to work on his ability to draw attention to what the 'roots are saying without endorsing it. McCain and Clinton are much, much better at that.

SPENCER: Yeah, I agree with that entirely.

MEGAN: Meh. I think Wesley Clark isn't helpful except to you guys that already like Obama that love him, too.

SPENCER: Why do you think that? Clark commands a bank of cameras wherever he goes, his credibility on national security is automatic, he can answer McCain in a second by saying, truthfully, you know, I've actually won a war... Even if he's not the asset I think he is, what's the upside to alienating him?

MEGAN: Oh, I didn't say tell him to go fuck himself, I just mean, I don't see him being a keynote convention speaker. He's not that eloquent a speaker, which is fine in small settings but with an already overcrowded speaking schedule, I can see why they didn't award him a speaking slot.

SPENCER: Anyway, one of my old boss' interlocutors says liberals should calm down:

I think we'll look back on August as when Obama won the election. August was when John McCain had the chance to define Obama and so cement a negative view of him that he could never recover. Now his time is almost up, the conventions are about to begin and we get into the full swing of the campaign. And what did McCain get out of his month? The Gallup tracking poll barely budged; most polls show Obama still with a modest lead, only slightly less than where he started a month or so ago. Obama's negatives are up somewhat — no surprise after the pummeling he took — but hardly up to critical levels.

MEGAN: Oh, I disagree with the idea that we'll see this as when Obama won. It's maybe when Obama didn't lose, but what has he done this month to win?

SPENCER: He's been on vacation, McCain's most potent opportunity to cement a narrative, and McCain didn't do all the damage he needed to, is the point. But to a more important question: which of these young Republicans would you bone? You ponder that while I go to the bathroom

MEGAN: Man, you and your incredibly small bladder. First off, I don't understand how "young" Republicans include people in their 40s, only I do because it just makes the point that most Republicans are really, really old. Also, not that I've never had sex with a Republican, but there's not one in the group that I'd nail even drunk and having gone two months without sex.

SPENCER: It's just a lazy, cheap glossymag cliche. young people in America are SUPPOSSSSSSSED to be Obama supporters, according to something my editor mused about at the story conference, but here's a bunch of non-Obama supporters that we should gawk at like zoo creatures... I'm a fan of Aliciamarie Falcetta, 40, of White Plains: "After 9/11, I was happy that [Bush] stood up and let the terrorists know that he wasn't going to let it happen again." Yeah baby they got that message got that message loud and clear.

MEGAN: I mean, that's the thing. It's like, there are plenty of very religious young people who feel very strongly about things like abortion and gay marriage. There are (strangely, to me) plenty of young people who feel very strongly about taxes — though all of them might already work in D.C., I can't say. I think it's insulting to them to think that all young people must be liberals, and insulting to liberals that we're all liberals just because we're too young to know better.

SPENCER: It's also retarded that Esquire decided to use Republicans as a surrogate for conservatives, but that would probably undermine the conceit of the piece, for the reasons you point out.

MEGAN: Not that that ever stopped a glossy magazine.

SPENCER: Because you know what Republicans really want? They want not to be investigated! Scott McClellan to Politico:

[W]hen asked what advice he would give to a President Barack Obama or Democratic Congress on the matter of handling former Bush officials, McClellan speaks now of the perils of probing the past.

“If Obama were to win,” he said last week, “that would be an issue his administration would have to face early ... because he’s pledging to be a uniter, not a divider — without saying those exact words we campaigned on in 2000. He’s pledging to change the way Washington works, and if Congress were to pursue that, it would be very divisive.”

MEGAN: Oh, sure, this is like the House Republicans bitching and moaning that Pelosi wanted to start a new kind of bipartisanship and work with them but she's so meeeeeean and never lets them get their waaaaaaaay.

SPENCER: Yeah sure Obama might not be able to do it. But he could just, say, order declassifications of torture/rendition/GTMO/US attorney firings/WMD as, oh, let's say, a "broad policy review." And then turn the prospect of empaneling grand juries over to Attorney General Patrick Leahy or better yet Attorney General Russ Feingold. Meanwhile the Senate Democrats call investigation after investigation

MEGAN: Well, don't piss on Waxman's lawn too soon, he's been doing a fine job keeping malfeasance in the headlines.

SPENCER: Make the GOP infrastructure too busy worrying about being INDICTED to block health care reform or ending the war.

MEGAN: Probably if less of them were indictable, they wouldn't be quite so worried.

SPENCER: The GOP can defend itself on Rachel Maddow's show. Bring on the witch hunts. Reconciliation is nice, but not as nice as retribution.

• Rachel Maddow has finally been given her own show at MSNBC. She's taking over Dan Abrams' 9:00 ET spot on September 8 (the Monday after the conventions). Congrats! [NY Times]
• Barack Obama told John McCain to stop questioning his patriotism just because they disagree on national security. It won't work, but it was well-said, so go read it. [Politico]
• John McCain might really be prepared to piss off the fundies and pick a pro-choice VP, which should mean that very few pro-choice women will actually vote for him but could mean the fundies will stay home in a snit on Election Day. [CNN]

• Diane Feinstein, expected to chair the California delegation at next week's Democratic convention, won't be able to attend because she broke her ankle last week. Get well soon! [CNN]
• Polls show pet owners strongly prefer John McCain over Barack Obama. Quick! Get cute pictures of Obama with puppies! [US News & World Report]
• We might consider offering corrupt, almost-impeached former military dictator Pervez "Uncle Pervy" Musharraf asylum because he faces perprosecution in his home country. God forbid he face that! [AFP]
• There's an 8-year-old boy named James Robinson on our government's Do Not Fly list. Our government won't take him off, but it turns out if they use his middle name, he doesn't get stopped. Foolproof system we got there to deter terrorists. [CNN]