• Now that it's been a full year of shitty economic news, we are officially in a recession and have been for a year. Aren't you glad to know? [MSNBC]
• The market is not glad to know, and it slid almost 700 points after learning the obvious. [NY Times]
• In other obvious news, Condoleezza Rice doesn't plan to give much advice to Hillary Clinton. What advice she does give, we're guessing Clinton doesn't plan on following. [MSNBC]
• Bill Clinton is pretty happy about Hillary's nomination, though. [Real Clear Politics]

• White people at CNN just don't know 'bout Susan Rice, our soon-to-be Ambassador to the UN. [Think Progress]
• Joe Biden gave his first post-election speech today, so people wouldn't forget that he's about to be VP. [Politico]
• Palin talked, too, at a rally for Saxby Chambliss, so people wouldn't forget that she wanted to be VP before she wanted to be President. [Politico]
• Saxby Chambliss pervily grabbed himself some incestuous tween side-boob in a new commercial. [Indecision 2008]
• The Department of Homeland Security is more fucked up than watching Saxby Chambliss feel his tween granddaughter's breast. [Boston Globe]
• LGBT rights organization Impact-Florida plans to protest Governor Charlie Crist's (fey, if not gay) marriage this weekend, because protesting breeder weddings is a good plan to get more voters on your side. [The Sun Coast News]
• The cherub-faced Chairman of the FCC, Kevin Martin, wants to force the winner of a new wireless auction to set aside a portion of its win for free, porn-free wifi. Apparently, Republicans are all into not regulating the market until it comes to porn, when they get are regulatory up in there. [Silicon Alley Insider]
• Former Clintonista Phil Singer thinks Chris Matthews should get off the air if he's going to start campaigning for Arlen Specter's Senate seat. [Politico]
• Tina Brown thinks Rachel Maddow should get the coveted Meet The Press chair, among other, non-boring people. [Daily Beast]
• With Hillary Clinton's imminent resignation from her Senate seat, two names keep popping up: New York Attorney General Andrew "Shucking And Jiving Is Not A Racist Term, I Swear" Cuomo and Bill Clinton. And you thought nothing could get you to vote for Bill again. [The Hill, CNN]

• Barack Obama made it official with Tim Geithner today, announcing that he will nominate Geither to the Treasury Department. Former Treasury Secretary Larry "Math Is Hard For Girls" Summers is headed to the top of the White House Economic Council and Berkeley economics professor Christina Romer will head the Council of Economic Advisers. Betcha she does math pretty well. [NY Times]
• Former Joe Biden aide Ted Kaufman has been appointed to fill Biden's Senate seat for two years, at which point everyone in the state assumes he'll quietly step down and let the currently-deployed Beau Biden run for it. [Associated Press]
• Susan Rice, who most people thought was about to get dicked over when it leaked that Jim Jones will head the National Security Council, is actually in the running to be our Ambassador to the U.N. [Washington Independent]
• Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack swears he's not in the running to be Secretary of Agriculture. [Washington Post]

• Obama aide and transition co-chair Valerie Jarrett has her first graduation speech almost totally written, but it still makes her sound kind of like a cool woman to know. [NY Times]
• Speaking of cool women, Moe Tkacik fucking breaks down the financial and auto industry crises, and you'll be smarter for reading it. [New York Magazine]
• And now that she might not be running against one of them anymore, Republicans all just love Hillary Clinton. [The Daily Beast]
• Alan Colmes is leaving Hannity and Colmes but not Fox News. Yeah, Hannity's feet really do smell that bad, but he's got a contract through 2012 so somebody is buying stock in Odor Eaters. [USA Today, Politico]
• In the mean time, we're rescuing Citibank, and the Dow is going up but it's all only temporary because it's not the end of the financial fall-out anymore than today is the end of Alan Colmes. However, if you're a Citibank stockholder, it is the end of your dividends for three years. [NY Times, NY Times]

• The officially-designated GOP scapegoat for Wardrobe-gate appears to be McCain aide Nicolle Wallace (left), despite the fact that I guarantee she knows how to put together a wardrobe for less than $150,000. Wallace isn't "going to engage" with people until after the campaign, but she knows the score and her memory doesn't even have to be that long. [Think Progress, Politico]
• Speaking of the score, Vanity Fair and the National Security News Service are apparently pursuing reports that McCain killed a guy in a car accident (implication: drunk driving) in 1964 and the Navy is still covering it up. Who knew the October surprise would be about McCain? Karl Rove must really hate him. [Huffington Post]
• Joe The Motherfucking Plumber officially endorsed McCain today, and said that Obama would be the end of Israel. What the fuck does JTMP know about Israel? Joe doesn't know jack, actually, and even Fox News had to admit that. [CBS, Huffington Post]

• Though Palin yesterday refused to be a Maverick and call on convicted felon Senator Ted Stevens to resign, John McCain decided he could. So he did. [NY Times]
• Rachel Maddow's viewership is so far up, she can claim to have beat Larry King in one demo. One demo today, tomorrow...all of them. [TV Newser]
• The Dow, too, finally decided to get up. That'll last until it falls again, then goes up, down, up, down and apparently I need to stop watching so much porn. [Washington Post]
• Florida Governor Charlie Crist decided to get back at McCain for not choosing him as the running mate — or, possibly, do the right thing for the right reasons, stranger things have happened — and extended early voting hours in Florida. Someone's gonna get re-elected. [Politico]

MOE: Whoa! I just got an invite to a roundtable with Sarah Palin in Philly tomorrow.

MEGAN: Wait, really? They couldn't find your voter registration during the primaries but they can find you now? Or were you invited as a journalist?

MOE: I was invited as a friend of this hilarious Philadelphia Junior League type thing whose ringleader I knew in college. He was one of those unnerving smart Republican types who is only ever friends with liberals, never tries to win you over to his ideology because to do so would be to undermine his "I am a Republican because there is no truer way for a misanthrope to be" stance on things, the evolution of whose politics you have considered and haven't the faintest notion as to what went wrong… Just turned on CNBC. David Faber looks rather worn out. He is so damn cute when he is looking rather worn out. I want to take everyone on Wall Street back to bed already. Like, even if there's a HUGE RALLY today who cares?

MEGAN: Actually, I sort of agree with that theory of Republicanism as being borne out of misanthropy. And by the time I figured out what station CNBC is, I got the lady in the green talking faster than an auctioneer.

MOE: I know but if the only people you can stand are liberal, WHAT THE FUCK? Everyone on CNBC talksreallyfast. Except Joe Kernen. Oh my god it is Friday and I haven't checked Noonan.

MEGAN: Do misanthropes ever really get along with other misanthropes? Also, for me, the problem with Republicans is that so many of them are caught up in the ideology of Republicanism that they're blind to their own misanthropy, so it gets annoying. I was talking about this with my bartender last night, he was going off about the whole drill, baby, drill thing and how we have 3% of the world's oil supply and use 25% of the current supply and even if we got the rest of our oil out of the ground it would give us like 3 days worth but how Republicans don't give a damn about the facts because the slogan is good. And I was like, um, you just got really attractive, and not because I'm on my second beer. Also, hell to the yes on David Faber, I'm happy to take him and his tired eyes back to bed.

MOE: Right, being a Republican involves all sorts of blind spots. Also, I am really glad you looked up David Faber. He looks weirdly younger when he is all sleepylike. But in this market I am seriously an open invitation, I'll diversify, I'm a brisk thirteen minute walk from the street anyone out there is welcome to come back. Mark Haines even, what the hell. Anyone except Larry Kudlow but duh.

MEGAN: But, on the other hand, I don't really like hanging out with ideological Democrats. Liberals, sure, but Democrats are annoying, like Howard Dean craps rainbows and Nancy Pelosi pisses sunshine, I can't get on board with that any more than I can get on board with not voting in favor of SCHIP funding because you think that taxing tobacco is a nanny state thing and eventually when taxes convince people to stop smoking you might have to pay for the health insurance of small, poor children and OH MY GOD THE MARKET WILL SOLVE THAT ANYWAY as though they all missed the sections of economics involving "market failures" and "social goods."

MOE: Oh god yeah I never understood partisan Democrats.

MEGAN: So maybe that's why he hangs out only with liberals? Because to be a Republican in Philly, one must've drunk the Kool-Aid, I think.

MOE: God Erin Burnett is so much the hotness.

MEGAN: I know, I have to say, I think she's way prettier than Maria Bartiromo, but I also think Rachel Maddow is the hotness is a way that Megyn Kelly can't compete with. So perhaps I'm strange. Ok, so, I'm sure you haven't been paying that much attention to politics, what with the complete collapse of the financial world as we know it and the Bush Administration's announcement that our government has decided free-market capitalism is too dangerous right now in the same way that civil rights are and has begun taking an ownership stake in all the banks, but the one legitimate scandal about Sarah Palin the mainstream media cares about, Troopergate, is about to have its big reveal today. But it's not a big deal, because she's already cleared herself of any wrong doing!

MOE: These people on CNBC, the way I see it, could not have been working anything short of 14 hour days for the past six weeks. And today is the first day you can really tell on Burnett's face. My ex just IMed me to say he'd lost more than a year's rent but that BUD (Anheuser Busch or however you spell that) has hardly fallen at all.

MEGAN: Well, it's fallen by about 20%, but that's nothing in this climate.

MOE: Erin Burnett just asked Mark Haines: "if you've already lost so much, why get out now? I mean from a trading mentality, fine, but long term…" and he just looked at her like "um commercial break!" Wow Peggy:

People speak of the Bradley effect—more people tell pollsters they will vote for a black candidate than vote for the black candidate. But I have been wondering about the possibility of what may someday be called the Obama effect: You know your neighbors think he's sketchy—unknown, a mystery, "Hussein"—so you don't say you're voting for him, but you are.

MEGAN: Ha, well, Peggy need wonder now more! There's actually evidence of that.

“If you call people on the phone today and ask who they will vote for, some will give responses influenced by what may be understood, locally, as the more desirable response. It is easy to suppose that these people are lying to pollsters. I don’t believe that. What I think is they may be undecided and experiencing social pressure which could increase their likelihood of naming the white candidate if their region or state has a history of white dominance. They also might give the name of the Republican if the state is strongly Republican.

MOE: Jesus Christ. Honestly? That is totally fascinating. What that says about the country, what that says about how this is THE end of the Reagan era, is remarkable.

MEGAN: Especially because it's not just your neighbors being wary about Obama, it's about them feeling completely comfortable voicing a level of hatred for him that scares the crap out of normal people. I mean, holy shit, this blog entry:

If Barack Obama wins...Do we need to worry about conservative whites rioting?

MOE: We just broke 8,000. 7,948. God this is amazing.

MEGAN: Yeah, I looked my stock up pre-9:30 and it was already down and I was like, well, fuck. Why does it have to keep half its value? I'm sure 25% of its initial value is fine.

Oh, and by the way, the whole campaign spin about how McCain and Palin aren't hearing when people shout shit out and whatever, someone points out that McCain's hearing used to be really fucking good and he used to call his supporters out on being assholes.

MOE: And all I can say is that, number one, the anger conveyed by that McCain rally is that going to strike readers as overdone, as exaggerated by a contemptuous liberal writer eager for a "take." Not that anyone is listening, but it is not. I know exactly how tired of contempt and weary of exaggeration the media is right now and that story does sadden me. Meanwhile, Peggy is right, Obama has to bring it in that TV address. I was so relieved to hear he was doing it, because as she says, it's striking how small and unworthy of the moment both our candidates seem right now. And to think that just six months ago I was thinking "Wow, an Obama McCain race would be so inspiring, to think after all these years of shitty boring uninspiring uninteresting safe partisan poll-tested politicians to have such interesting men before us…okay and now what. That debate Tuesday was quite possibly the two most fucking deeply boring hours of my life. It's like that trope about how "to turn a good person bad, that takes religion" … there's an equivalent saying about politics I suppose, that was obvious before I was momentarily heartened by the fact that Obama and McCain seemed so not that. Wow, that Slate story, "bloodthirsty."

MEGAN: I don't know, I feel like, were the debates ever exciting? I don't remember them being stirring or getting an appreciation for the candidates' differences on issues during them, it was always more of a way to see how they interact and react to scrutiny and shit. So on that level, it was only boring because Obama won't be an asshole but he also can't afford to embody stereotypes about black men, I think.

MOE: No I don't believe that. There are so many things either one of them could have done to make it unboring. Don't you watch these things with echoes of inspiring addresses you imagine TR or Churchill might have made to the public ringing in your ears? Didn't you hear all that bullshit about Sarah Palin "cutting out the moderate middlemen and addressing the American public right to their faces" and think why can't Obama just do that already? Because he's exhausted, but also, to an extent, it is hard not to conclude, because he is a little bit of a pussy, and that is disappointing.

Both campaigns, in the closing stretch, seem not fully worthy of the moment. We are in crisis—a once-in-a-century event, as we now say. And what we got from the candidates, in this week's presidential debate, was a bunch of gummy meanderings—smooth, rounded sentences so full of focus-grouped inanities that six minutes in viewers entered a kind of trance in which we almost immediately gave up on trying to wrest meaning from what was being said and instead focused on mere impressions. The look of things. The men on the plane, the pseudo-tough political operatives who surround both candidates, sometimes grouse, in private, that it's all symbols now, all mood, all about the visual.

But they have some real responsibility here. They send their candidates out to speak such thin gruel, such spat-out porridge, that we are struck dumb, and left daydreaming about the fact that Mr. Obama's suits are always slate gray and never seem to wrinkle, and Mr. McCain tonight seems like a rabbity forest creature darting amid the hedgerows.

God, when she is right she is SO RIGHT.

MEGAN: No, I mostly watch these things and think of "I met John F. Kennedy, sir, and you are no John F. Kennedy" and the exchange about Cheney's gay daughter and, most laughably, the part in 2000 where George Bush swore up and down that his administration would never, ever go nation building to try to bring democracy to people that don't even want it. None of which was inspiring at all, but it was impressive in the way it stuck in my head as a good attack.

MOE: What about that hilarious moment with Cheney Lieberman where Cheney promised Lieberman he would show him how to go make millions in the private sector? I mean, Cheney Lieberman was great on so many levels, much more than not least of which was that Lieberman was McCain's first choice as a running mate.

MEGAN: What about that was inspirational? What about that was any more than a playground attack with no meaning or substance behind it? Name me a debate that inspired you. These aren't speeched, they're deliberately 90 second easily-digestible soundbites. Also, I'm calling bullshit on Peggy here, actually, because what's she's doing is defending her career as a Reagan staffer, as though he debates inspired America. Pish posh, I say. The rules were the same, the answers were the same and the level of boredom was the same.

MOE: So Alan Greenspan's legacy has pretty much gone the way of Larry Craig's. No that is not true. We're just young. Have you been watching those Reagan documentaries? Dumbass WAS inspiring. It is inspiring how inspiring he managed to be!

MEGAN: Not in the debates. My parents made me watch 'em. He could be inspiring, but not in that format. Also, Greenspan did always manage to get out when the getting was good.

MOE: Inspiring and scary. And I just don't buy it! I just DON'T! No one answers the questions, you might as well go off on tangents like Sarah Palin because no one can keep track. I am the first to blame the confines of the structure or the market or the Way Things Are for the Way People Fuck Up, but Obama should be doing better. He should, but I imagine he is too tired. The thing that is true is that the Democrats, as we were discussing from the beginning, do not understand the moral authority they could seize here, maybe because they didn't go into this for reasons of morality, because, you know, who really does. But Obama did. It's one of the things the GOP jumped on. "Michelle acts like it is such a SACRIFICE that he went into the government to SERVE HIS GREAT COUNTRY" when meanwhile they won't trust anyone with the Treasury they can't give a hundred million or so tax break to.

MEGAN: I don't know what moral authority they can seize here, nor how he could have done it at the debates. I was arguing about this with a friend. Like, great, you want him to be the Great Jesus and savior of our political system and now our economy — but he can't do shit if he's not elected. That's politics. He's not going to get elected by calling McCain a racist piece of shit on stage because to do so is to call too many Americans that. Look at how many people got offended during the primaries when they were being racist. It's not an effective strategy. And who are you going to inspire in 90 seconds with a soundbite? Nobody, except maybe to anger, which is what Palin is doing right now.

MOE: No here is the thing, he cannot do shit when he's elected if he doesn't make the case to the public while 60 million of them are watching.

MEGAN: What case? The case for what? He's supposed to be making a case for why he should be elected in 90 seconds or less. Not a case for America or a case for how to fix the financial system. You can't fix it in 90 seconds, you can't answer it in 90 seconds and if you could, you'd be wrong. The problem with Obama is, the problem why his race speech failed, the problem with why his primary tactics almost fell short is that he doesn't inspire with soundbites. He doesn't give answers in soundbites. He doesn't explain in soundbites. And Americans don't listen in anything but.

MOE: Ugh, whatever. We will not agree on this I'm afraid. But YES I want him to be Jesus. I want him to fucking TAKE BACK JESUS from those horrid sanctimonious rape victim charging fucks already! Don't let the public forget Larry Craig and Ted Haggard and that guy in Oregon with the abortion and Jake Abramoff and George Fucking Bush. And the race speech "failed" according to whom? What the fuck??? It "failed"????

MEGAN: Did he get a bounce? Did he win every primary after that? Blow Hillary out of the water? Change the game? No, he didn't.

MOE: That's precisely the sort of statement I refuse to abide, I straight-up reject. A BOUNCE??? WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT BOUNCES, HELLO, CAPITALISM IS COLLAPSING.

MEGAN: What's the point of the race speech otherwise?

MOE: I can't do this anymore dude.

MEGAN: What's the point of politics if not to win?

MOE: What is the point, of making a serious heartfelt speech if not for a "bounce."

MEGAN: What's the point of making it if McCain ends up President at the end of it?

MOE: The difference, my dear, is that "bounces" mean nothing. And victory means a lot more than winning one election. We all know this. What, praytell did Bill Clinton get done with all his poll-tested plurality of the vote? Guess what? All that "unprecedented economic growth and prosperity" nonsense doesn't hold up anymore!

MEGAN: I disagree. If Obama doesn't win, if the people yelling "Kill him!" and "Terrorist!" and "Socialist!" and "Off with his head!" win, then nothing will change and that speech will mean less in a year than it did 6 months ago, and nothing a year after that. To the victors go the spoils, and the spoils are the ability to make change, and history.

• Remember Oliver Clark? He asked a question at Tuesday's debate on the economy and John McCain told him he "probably" hadn't ever heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Well, it turns out he has a B.A. in PoliSci, a Masters in Legal Studies, and is in the midst of a Masters in Public Administration. So, he'd heard of them both, and he thought McCain's remark was condescending — and he's right. [MSNBC]
• Oh, speaking of telegraphing contempt and racism, former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating called Obama "a guy of the street" and suggested he should admit to the drug use he's already admitted to. Frank ought to admit that he's just trying out something BET founder Bob Johnson tried on Hillary's behalf in January in South Carolina that failed so spectacularly. [Huffington Post, NY Times]
• Other things John McCain is stealing from Hillary? His mortgage buyout plan. He thinks that'll make us fickle ladies vote for him. [UPI]

• If you hadn't yet been asked to swallow enough bullshit from the McCain campaign, Sarah Palin told conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham today that she and John McCain answer questions every single day and Obama never answers anything. The Bible Spice refused to be interviewed by Ingraham again. [Think Progress, PoliticoThere's a lot of scary, scary anger out there among Republicans, mostly because they think they're losing. Suck it up, assholes. [Politico, Washington Post]
• In that, though, they're just like their scary, anger-addled idol. [The New Republic]
• The fact that Obama has enough money to buy a 30 minute advertising spot on CBS (and possibly NBC and Fox) is unlikely to help McCain's temper or the mood of his supporters. [Politico]
• But it does distract them all from how the Dow is now down below 9,000 for the first time since 2003 and the Bush Administration has decided to give up on the remainder of their free market principles and nationalize more of our financial system. [Washington Post, NY Times]

• A new poll shows that 55 percent of Americans think Obama cares more about people like them. No, they didn't show anyone this picture first. [CNN]
• They also didn't show it to the white women surveyed by Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics who helped show that Palin's nomination hasn't disrupted the traditional gender gap between Republicans and Democrats on a long-term basis. [Politico]
• And obviously no one showed it to the guy who accused Obama of treason at a Palin rally, because, really, even Norman Rockwell would throw up his hands and turn to abstract art if he saw this picture. [Huffington Post]
• But back to the whole accusing the other guy of your own missteps meme, Cindy McCain says that Obama has "waged the dirtiest campaign in American history." Riiiight. [Huffington Post]

• Fox News would like you to know that "facts are not irrefutable." Man, they really are just becoming the Ministry of Truth. [Huffington Post]
• The media would like you to know that they might get cussed out by Republicans at Palin rallies all the time, but it's much rarer that anyone uses racial slurs. Rare is good. It's just not as good as "not at all." [Politico]
• Oh, and if McCain would like to keep talking about Bill Ayers — and he does — he might want to check out the former lyncher and heroin trafficker, James Fowler, he used to be associated with. And then he might want to shut the fuck up. [The Anniston Star, via Andrew Sullivan]
• By the way, a federal judge ordered the release of 26 Chinese Uighurs from Gitmo because the evidence against them is unreliable and the government decided to hold onto them anyway. [Washington Post]
• Which is sort of the only good news because the Dow lost another 500 points today. [NY Times]
• Well, that and I'll be live-blogging tonight's Presidential debate. The thread starts at 7:30 ET, my liveblog starts just before 9:00 ET.

• That compromise bailout plan intended to save the economy? Yeah, it failed. [Washington Post]
• The Dow proceeded to drop 778 points, the largest one-day loss in nearly 2 decades. Many people just kissed their asses and life savings goodbye. [Washington Post]
• Republicans blame Nancy Pelosi for giving an offensive speech before the vote, which included partisan remarks like recognizing that Bush inherited surpluses and now the economy sucks. [Politico, Swampland]
• Barney Frank responded to those criticisms thusly: "Because somebody hurt their feelings, they decide to punish the country." Fucking crybabies. [Huffington Post]

• McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin blamed Democrats for preventing his boss from saving this great nation. Even my mom rolled her eyes at that shit. [Talking Points Memo]
• Others think that if McCain was so willing to take credit for the bailout yesterday, he should grow a pair and take credit for the failure today. My mom wiped tears from her eyes when she was done laughing at that one. [Marc Ambinder]
• Sarah Palin is looking forward to winning the debate because Joe Biden rooted for his home state football team, thus continuing her streak of WTF comments. [NY Times]
• The new Sarah Palin interview clips that will be on today and tomorrow on CBS are from Palin's second, brand-new interview with Katie Couric. Apparently, the fun can continue. [LA Times]

MEGAN: Oh, hello there! How were your protests yesterday? We talked about spanking without you.

JASON: The protest was modestly-sized, but passionate. If you caught the story on Cavuto last night, I spoke to the same woman from the Mahoning Valley that he did, who was very nice in that she allowed me to ask her many silly questions, like if she was jealous of the attention John McCain gave the Georgians, and whether Cindy McCain, if she bought their tent city, would count each tent as a separate residence or if collectively, the tent city would be a single domicile.

MEGAN: Yeah, I don't normally watch Cavuto because I've normally got my head deep in my computer writing the news round-up for the end of the night, but she sounds nice!

JASON: She was very nice. So, okay, speaking of forays into the lives of working class women, we have Maureen Dowd this morning.

MEGAN: Oh, God, any segue that starts off that way normally makes me want to tear out my hair. What did she spew now?

JASON: Anna sent me a link to her column. And mind you, I usually consider someone forwarding me her columns as a type of assault. But this being Anna, I knew that it was important, dangerous work that needed to be done. So I'm reading it, and honestly? Through three paragraphs — which in Dowd-ese means "three hastily constructed sentence fragments" — she does okay. But then you get this:

"The Wall Street Journal reported that McCain was thinking about taking Palin to the U.N. General Assembly next week so she can shake hands with some heads of state. You can’t contract foreign policy experience like a rhinovirus. To paraphrase the sniffly Adelaide in “Guys and Dolls,” a poy-son could develop a cold war."

Fugue For Tinears! I mean, that's the op-ed version of being clouted with a ball peen hammer.

MEGAN: Honestly, if I wasn't wearing my glasses, I would have smacked myself upon reading that. Who says that? Who thinks that?!!

JASON: Maureen Dowd is JUST THE WORST. Murder your darlings, darling! The rhinovirus line was sufficient!

MEGAN: Well, speaking of the over-privileged...

JASON: Anyway, that fucking travesty was about Carly Fiorina. I sense that your taking it in that direction? Since we're on the subject of travesties?

MEGAN: No, actually, I wanted to talk about Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who Moe and I mocked last week for her horrendous editorial about elitism, and is now endorsing John McCain. Like, bitch went to the Democratic convention on the motherfucking platform committee, but she's endorsing John McCain this week. Because, as an elitist, she know elitism when she sees is and DESPITE WRITING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM she's going to vote for John McCain because Obama wasn't nice enough to her.

JASON: What a relief! I had thought that we might end up with Dischord Records releasing a ROTHCHILDS AGAINST ELITISM compilation disc or something! Let's talk elitism. Here's the lede from Portfolio's profile on Lynn:

"When 67-year-old British banking scion Sir Evelyn Rothschild first set eyes on 44-year-old Lynn Forester at the 1998 Bilderberg conference—the matchmaker was none other than Henry Kissinger—she was already a woman of major means."

I mean, wow. Kissinger and the Bilderberg conference come up RIGHT OFF THE BAT. So, you know going in that this is the woman who will cure us of our elitism.

MEGAN: I guess she really, really, really knows elitism. That's about the most amusingly gagable description of a meet-cute since I didn't read the New York Times wedding announcements last weekend. Also, the woman helped write the Democratic party's fucking platform, but because she's got a personal distaste for the candidate elected to represent and implement that platform, she's going to publicly support, campaign for and vote for the guy who represents and plans to implement the polar opposite.

JASON: What I see as the problem is that this person was allowed within a million miles of the Democratic party platform. They should be glad she turned into a self-lancing boil.

MEGAN: I mean, what I want to know is: what sections did she work on? I mean, obviously not the ones on energy, the environment, reproductive freedom, marriage equity, equal pay, women in the military, taxes, health care... so, what's left? Is there a section on wealthy baronesses?

MEGAN: Um, WHOA, our embassy in Yemen just got bombed. MSNBC says 16 people are dead so far. But no Americans so far.

JASON: Ten Yemeni civilians, though.

MEGAN: Well, since when did suicide bombers care about their own people? They have a political point to make about... something.

JASON: True. Reports say that snipers opened fire on the first responders, too. Another terrorist act brought to you by the people we will not go and fight.

MEGAN: That is, notably, the second attack we've faced in Yemen, in case anyone's forgotten.

JASON: There was a mortar attack on the Embassy earlier this year, as well.

MEGAN: Well, let's play newscasters and make our sad/serious faces now and quickly changes the subject back to something "sexy". Like Carly Fiorina.

JASON: Yes. We'll get a thorough dose of grandstanding from Senators McCain and Obama later.

MEGAN: And then we can talk about it again! So, let's talk about Carly Fiorina and her ego. Is it just me spending too many hours with Republicans, or do you recall a lot of times hearing that we needed someone to run this country more like a business? Like, say, Mitt Romney.

JASON: One of the hallmark arguments the GOP has made, IN MY LIFETIME, was that the U.S. of A. COULD BE RUN LIKE A BUSINESS!!!

MEGAN: Just not, apparently, with McCain or Palin at the helm.

JASON: Really? Should Carly Fucking Fiorina be lecturing ANYONE on how to run a business?

MEGAN: Hey, I am happy to let her spout off again McCain and Palin. Let's not stop her, please? She knows a lot, from personal experiences, about the kind of people that shouldn't be CEOs.

JASON: Yesterday, Andrea Mitchell was basically taunting her about her own golden parachute, even as John McCain is vowing to end the practice. (And don't ask me how the federal government achieves THAT.) And she said that with her it was different!

MEGAN: Well, of course hers was different.

JASON: ...that her severance package was decided for her, put to a vote. And that constituted real reform! Two things on this.

One: Yes, Carly. I am sure that there was a vocal faction of Hewlett Packard decision makers who were like: "You know what? We need to consider not giving her all these millions of dollars. Because we need to send a clear message to shareholders that we hired an incompetent woman to run this company. THAT WILL WORK."

Two: The process Fiorina describes is commonplace! That's how these golden parachutes get strapped to these morons' backs. These disgraced CEOs aren't, you know, actually PLUNDERING THEIR COMPANIES COFFERS WITH A SCIMITAR CLENCHED IN THEIR TEETH.

MEGAN: Also, it's all super-clubby up in there.

JASON: Not that John McCain could stop that, either! He had an ad up, exclaiming ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! And then three hours later, the government bails out AIG.

MEGAN: Last night, I seriously turned off the computer and TV, took a short nap and went to dinner and by the time I got there, the entire bar was watching the news of the AIG bailout — and I don't even live in NY! And it's not like golden parachutes aren't "voted" on, but they're "voted" on in the same way that North Koreans "vote" for Kim Jong Il.

JASON: Right! Minus the exciting visual of those adorable goosestepping lady soldiers! AND THEY ARE ADORABLE! I want to SQUEEZE those crazy ladies! Who says intractable fascism can't have a Cute Overload aspect to it?

MEGAN: I never did understand why dictatorships continue to allow goosestepping to remain alive.

JASON: Could you imagine having, like, a three-inch tall brigade of North Korean lady soldiers skipping all around your apartment. I would be like, OMGZ THAT IS TEH CUTENESS.

MEGAN: I think they should be at least 10 inches.

JASON: Jeezy creezy! Is the Dow already down 209 points today??

MEGAN: I love, by the way, that the NYSE was opened today by "Emeritus Senior Living." Where John McCain would retire, if he didn't have the right to die, senile and crapping his pants, in office. Sidenote: Bob Casey is on MSNBC right now and, um, man needs to wax that unibrow.

JASON: You know, credit John McCain. He has, to my knowledge, never crapped his pants. Yesterday, Carly crapped hers twice on national teevee.

MEGAN: See, I prefer to think of that sort of appearance as vomiting up the bile from her soul.

JASON: You won't be seeing her on teevee for a while, either.

MEGAN: Well, my days will no doubt be burdened by that.

JASON: More time for Empress Nancy Pfotenhauer. And Tucker Bounds! And now the Lady de Rothschild!