• In a 5-4 ruling today, the Supreme Court has (again) decided that the prisoners at Gitmo deserve some semblance of the rights afforded everyone else imprisoned in this country, like the right to protest to a judge the fact that they've been held for 6 years without charges. In his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia defended the right to not afford the detainees any rights because "America is at war with radical Islamists," but I'm sure he came up with some bullshit legal reasoning to discard the Constitution like he always does. Strict constructionalist my ass. [Washington Post]
• In other legal news, the jury is now considering its verdict in the R. Kelly case. [AP]
• In yet further legal news, Tony Rezko claims that federal prosecutors cajoled him to make up allegations against Barack Obama. He says, "I will never fabricate lies about anyone else for selfish purposes. I will take what comes my way, but I will never hurt innocent people." Except, you know, when he bribes officials and commits frauds. [Politico]
• Oh, look, the first food named after Eliot Spitzer: "a gargantuan patty wrapped around braised shortribs (no foie gras, here) and slathered with barbecue sauce". Now if only the Mayflower could, um, swallow their pride and name a drink after him, my life would be complete. [OuttaMindOuttaSite]

• Speaking of assholes, Lou Dobbs may run for governor of New Jersey. I guess his neon coloring would fit in well in Trenton. [Politico]
• Oh, whatever, I'll keep up the asshole theme. Ron Paul's going to officially end his Presidential bid, but won't endorse John McCain and he's going to use his people's money to support other crazy Libertarian candidates. There are so many Republican Naders this year, it warms my bitter little heart. [NY Times]
• Oh, and Nicky Sarkozy's getting a brand new old plane to join the Mile High Club in. [Jaunted]
• Fine, I'll give you some good news. EMILY's List Ellen Malcolm and Madeline Albright gave speeches today at EMILY's annual luncheon and urged people to suck it up and vote Barack. Most people seemingly listened. [HuffPo]

Weiss writes:

Sitting in Schiller’s, I…suggested that we could change sexual norms to, say, encourage New York waitresses to look on being mistresses as a cool option. “That’s fringe,” my friend said dismissively. Wives weren’t going to allow it, and we men grant them a lot of power; they’re all as dominant as Yoko Ono. “Look, we’re the weaker animal,” he said. “They commandeer the situation.” He and I love our wives and depend on them. In each of our cases, they make our homes, manage our social calendar, bind up our wounds and finish our thoughts, and are stitched into our extended families more intimately than we are. They seem emotionally better equipped than we are. If my marriage broke up, my wife could easily move in with a sister. I’d be as lost as plankton.

Despite his potentially-wandering weiner, Weiss stays with his wife. Why? Because he's weak? Because she plans his vacations and deals with his mother? Perhaps I'm naive, but I'd like to think that most men stay with their wives because they have things in common with them; because they appreciate their human qualities. Not because their wives are their jail house wardens, keeping their free-floating sexuality under heavy lock and key. I don't have some romantic view of marriage: I don't think it will satisfy every urge and create a state of ecstasy populated by unicorns and sunflowers. But Weiss's description of his wife's role in his life is so ultimately mercenary.

I think some people will read this article and think all men feel the way Weiss does. As previously established, women think about fucking other people, too. I'm even willing to grant him the biology — that men are more tormented by their sex drives than women are. But even if that's the case, marriage is about compromise. And if the agreement you've made is to be faithful, then you need to compromise your desire to fuck other people. I'm sure Weiss's wife is currently compromising her desire to punch him directly in the nuts.

The Affairs Of Men [New York Magazine]

Earlier:Chronic Male Horniness Is Not An Excuse For, Well, Anything

• If this whole Jezebel thing doesn't work out, we now know how to become an internet "escort."
  
• Lilly Ledbetter is a stand-up lady. Maybe someday women will get equal pay for equal work, but not today.
  
• But look! Babies and puppies!
  
• We became certified Tina Feynatics.
  
• We talked about moms! You can't live with them, can't shed their DNA.

• Spitzer? I don't even know 'er!
• We were not that into the Sex and the City-branded lingerie. Shudder.
• The Real Housewives of New York City reunion was possibly the best 60 minutes of television we've ever seen. Thank GOD it's been picked up for a second season! We can't wait to hang with Ramoarawn again.
• So throw on that muumuu, and remember: VD is for Everybody.

Plot synopsis from the press release:

Mike Horner, who bears a striking resemblance to the former governor, eagerly places his order with the Pimperor's Club. As "Client 69," he agrees to fork over thousands for an all-expense-paid trip so that his mistress, Kristen, can meet him in Washington, D.C. Kristen, played by Cassandra Cruz, arrives at the governor's hotel to find him eagerly awaiting her arrival. Watch as the governor reveals his overzealous sex drive and gets sucked and fucked by his sexy mistress. "Client 69" is under the impression that he is going to get away with his sexcapade, but little does he know there are FBI agents on a stakeout in the next room. The agents, played by Van Damage and Veronica Jett, are so incredibly turned on by what they are overhearing in the governor's room that they decide to have some fun of their own.

Related: Porn Of The Opportunistic Moment: Hustler's "Gov Love: The Eliot Splitz-Her Story"

• Ashlee Simpson, 23, is engaged to Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, 28. He got down on one knee; she said yes. Flat-iron-filled wedding to come! [In Touch Weekly]
  
• Is Ashlee pregnant? There's no evidence to that end, but whatever. [Us]
  
• Oh! Is Ashlee's team leaking Mariah Carey songs in hopes of creating less competition for Ashlee's album? Maybe this whole marriage thing is a publicity ploy too. [KBS Radio]
  
• Beyoncé's little sister Solange says "I don't know anything about [a wedding]. You'll have to ask her yourself." Also: B has a lot to learn when it comes to kids, says Solange (who is 21 and the mother of a 3-year-old). [People]
  
• Does The Hills star Audrina Patridge lock her bedroom door because she doesn't trust roomie Lauren Conrad? Lauren seems like one of those girls who would borrow clothes without asking first. [Page Six]

• Is Katie Couric planning on leaving CBS Evening News early? Does anyone watch her? [People]
• Angelina Jolie was discussing Iraq education policy in Washington DC on Tuesday when she "felt kicking suddenly." Is a career in politics in the future for her unborn (twins?)? [People]
• Bret Michaels has been named in a breach-of-contract lawsuit against the producers of Rock Of Love. The owner of the $9 million home where they filmed the series found holes in the walls and ceilings, dead plants, and missing doors. $380,000 worth of damage. No doubt stuff happened in that house that we don't even want to know about. [E!]
• Halle Berry's baby pix: Not coming to a celebrity weekly magazine. Yet. [MSNBC]
• Gwen Stefani doesn't know if her baby is a boy or a girl, and won't find out until delivery day — she and Gavin want it to be a surprise. Hopefully it's a girl she can dress up in wacky outfits. [People]
• Whitney Houston's young boyfriend, Ray J, has written a song about her. The lyrics: "Is that your wife, is that your shorty, well I'm her boyfriend... I think the problem is you don't beat it right... Making love is cool, just pull her hair sometimes." [Page Six]
• Pat O'Brien has just completed his second stint in rehab and will return to his show, The Insider. [Page Six]
• Despite that Iggy doggie fiasco, the Humane Society has praised Ellen DeGeneres for raising awareness of animal issues. [Page Six]
• No one likes racist oil heir Brandon Davis. [Page Six]
• A source claims Eliot Spitzer says his wife knew about his hooker habits and was like, "My fucking wife doesn't care, so why does anybody else care?" Tsk, tsk. [Page Six]
• Jane Krakowski is headed to Broadway to star in Damn Yankees. Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets. [Gatecrasher]
• Blind item! "Which show keeps its dim-witted if ultra-popular "reality" stars peppy with Adderall supplied by a producer in handfuls between scenes?" [Gatecrasher]
• Actor Thomas Jane pleaded not guilty to DUI charges yesterday. He goes back to court in May, and The Punisher will find out how he's being punished. [TMZ]
• 50 Cent is in talks to star in an upcoming indie film, but he has 21 questions first. [Perez Hilton]
• Gwyneth Paltrow says the rumors about her marriage breaking up are "ridiculous." She also reveals the astrological personalities of her kids: "Apple is an open person. She's Taurus; grounded, calm, funny. Moses is Aries, he's the most sweet, sensitive thing but then he'll kick and karate-chop and spit and tumble. He's a real boy." [People]
• Toni Braxton has canceled upcoming shows after being hospitalized for chest pains earlier in the week. She has previously been treated for hypertension and pericarditis. Be well! [People]
• A judge has dropped Michael Jackson from a lawsuit filed by the family of a women who died at a hospital after she was moved to make room for the pop star. [Yahoo News]
• Snoop Dogg has settled a lawsuit with his former record label, "though they won't disclose how many bones it took." Heh. [Yahoo News]
• Robert De Niro has left CAA, the agency he has been with for years. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Paris Hilton's brother Barron pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors from his DUI charges and will lose his license for a year. He also has to attend alcohol-education programs. [Yahoo News]
• Bob Marley's mother, Cedella Booker, died in her sleep Tuesday night at her home in Miami. She was 81. [USA Today]
• Never before seen Elvis pictures from 1972 have suddenly surfaced. Thank you, thank you very much. [Yahoo News]

MOE: Yo sorry I'm late I had massive insomnia last night. What's going on? I feel like I read 759 different "think pieces" on the election last night.
MEGAN: Yeah, believe me, I tossed and turned for kind of a while last night and then woke up in the middle of the night and was up for a while. I think there are a ton of fucking think pieces out there because there's no actual news to report.
MOE: What do you mean? Obama totally went bowling! And drank Yuengling.
MEGAN: I'll guarantee that he's a better bowler than me. I once got a gutter ball in a bumper lane instead of hitting actual pins.
MOE: Okay, so I read the entire fucking Kelefa Sanneh piece on Jeremiah Wright in the New Yorker. I read the entire elegy to the Republican party in the Times Magazine. I read probably 28 pieces calling on Hillary Clinton to bow out of the campaign, about 25 of which came with the disclaimer "I know she won't but." Nora Ephron's may have been my favorite. Shit, now I can't find it.
MEGAN: I mean, I don't understand why everyone all of a sudden wants her to drop out except for the polls last week that show Democrats are all getting pissed enough at the other guy's people to vote for McCain, and thus also don't understand why the other guy's people would continue pissing off her people by calling on her to drop out.
MOE: She should drop out because, at this point, she's been beaten, and she's been beaten by a candidate who had a lot more to prove.
MEGAN: Well, but she's not quite beaten yet and she's bloodied him pretty damn well in the last couple of weeks.
MOE: She's bloodied herself worse on imaginary sniper fire
MEGAN: I mean, I just think that the calls all started because of the polls that show Nader taking votes from both of them and McCain beating either one of them, but that's a stupid reason. What she ought to do is Fire Mark Penn.
MEGAN: And then stop improving her negative rating
MEGAN: I mean, I guess I sort of wish it was over, but that's mostly because I'm fucking sick of talking and writing about it, but that's not really a good enough reason. And, also, calling for her to drop out is pissing off a lot of her supporters, which is worse than keeping going.
MOE: I dunno. I feel like a lot of her supporters are over it too. I mean, look, when was the last time we had a knockdown dragout with Sinister Rouge? Here, by the way, is the Nora Ephron piece.

She is me, and then again she's not. I used to love her and I no longer do, but unlike what usually happens when love dies, I still think about her far too much. When she tells a big lie, like her recent Bosnia episode, I can lose hours trying to figure out why. I mean, why? Was it one of those things that she'd said so often that she'd come to believe it? Was it a story that had worked in the past so she thought she'd gotten away with it? Did she honestly think that no one would rat her out? Does she not understand that if you're famous, there's almost nothing you do that someone doesn't have a picture of? I have no idea what the answer is to any of this because I'm not a liar and she is. (By the way, I don't think she was always a liar, the way some kids are born liars and never get over it. I think she was once a truthful person and her lying skills were forged in the early years of her marriage, forged in the crucible of Bill's infidelities and in her role as point person in dealing with them. This is what happens when you marry a narcissist: he spills the milk, you clean it up and your love grows. And then you end up a liar, just like him.)

Many conservative activists have become so dissatisfied with the party's heresies, particularly on immigration and government spending, that as Cole's staff took over, the committee's fund-raising pleas were being ignored and, on at least one occasion, returned in an envelope stuffed with feces.

"You go back to the Reagan years, and even before that, and we always had a three-legged stool: anti-Communism, anti-abortion and tax and spend," Dan Mattoon, the Republican lobbyist and former deputy chairman of Cole's committee, told me. "The first leg dropped off when the Berlin Wall fell, and after 9/11 we've tried to do the same thing with terrorism, but it's not as strong. The second leg, tax and spend, was pretty strong until George Bush. Then we had just one leg of the stool, which was social issues, and I think that you look at the makeup of the younger generation and there's more of a libertarian view on social issues." Cole says that the party's rhetoric on issues like gay marriage has cast Republicans as too reactionary for many suburban districts. "My problem on social issues is the tone — sometimes we have been too shrill, and that has alienated voters who might otherwise have joined us," he told me. The challenge, then, is finding a new generation of candidates who aren't.

"I don't need the nominee to win; I just need him to be competitive enough that we can win behind him in the places that should be ours," Cole said. "I need him to be Gerald Ford."

When I asked the House minority leader John Boehner how he assessed the committee's fund-raising so far, he told me: "It stinks. No other way to put it."

No. I'm thankful I got fired when I did, so that I didn't have to be associated with what they subsequently did.

McCain recently confessed in public that his grasp of economics is limited.Yeah. That's a great place to start from, isn't it?

• Commenting on an Eliot Spitzer whore scandal is vaguely as exciting than reading about the intricacies of trade negotiations — and also, somewhat less important — but I had to point out this quote from a source close to Kristin "Billie" Davis (who "hails from a rough-in-tumble California trailer park.") "She personally interfaced with Spitzer a number of times." Wow, "interface." That used to be corporate jargon for "talked to" and now it is being used to denote... bareback anal. [NYP]
  
• "His sex appeal lies in being a successful businessman and politician. Women like a guy who is in control, and a man who knows what he wants." That's the editor-in-chief of Playgirl on why she'd like to land Eliot Spitzer for a cover shoot incorporating a young woman in a Girls Gone Wild T-shirt. I know; you're creaming just thinking of interfacing with it right? [US]
  
• Wait, speaking of: raunchy outtakes from the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog are now being sold as a $200 "art" book. [NYP]
  
• Wait, no, really speaking of, Barack Obama was interviewed by Maria Bartiromo, who tried to paint him as some sort of Hugo Chavez character by baiting him with a question about the Fed's bailout of Bear, to which he said, "Well, I wasn't privy to Bear Stearns' balance sheet." He doesn't sound like a socialist! [CNBC]

• A fifteen year old in the UK has been found guilty of beating a woman to death because she was goth. [BBC]
• Oh, great, now the enemies decide to register their discontent with the our invasion of the Iraq in a peaceful manner? What's next, hunger strikes? [NYT]
• Foreigners on the election: Germany wants the "Black Kennedy" because they are "romantic" that way; Mexicans like Hillary because NAFTA was good for them, Chinese like HIllary because NAFTA was good for them too, Israelis distrust Obama and Muslims in the Middle East think he can't win because "his middle name is like mine." [WSJ]
• What cocktail will be the Next Cosmo? The cognac industry is hard at work on it. But it won't be easy. "Brand promotional pamphlets and in-house recipe books are cemeteries of forgotten drinks." Ah, life. It is such struggle. [WSJ]
• Gubernatorial corruption etc.: now also in Puerto Rico! [NYT]
• So that was "ten days that changed capitalism," we just don't really know how exactly. [WSJ]

"Few [female politicians] are prominent enough to attract savage media scrutiny," Baird posits, and it seems that the ones who do, take up quiet, longterm extramarital affairs with age and class-appropriate mates, as opposed to the stripper and prostitute scandals that have plagued male pols. The ladies of The View were discussing the Newsweek story this morning, and they talked about how in a field where there's more women, like teaching, you hear more about Mary Kay Letourneau types who abuse their male underlings. What's glaring about the teacher example, and the fact that male politicians tend to have affairs with much younger and tackier women, is that both situations seem to be about power, and not about sex.

It could be argued that female politicians don't have more affairs because men don't see them as more powerful, or find that power to be attractive. Young guys want nothing to do with Hillary Clinton because power and experience and age are not valued in women in our culture. The teenage boys involved in the teacher sex scandals are so young that they can be controlled — they're not really "choosing" these older women. I don't think it's a question of whether women cheat less or are better people; it's that a female politician would have less opportunity to cheat in the first place, as the men around her are unlikely to throw themselves at her. The Newsweek article quotes former White House press secretary, Dee Dee Myers, who says, "I don't think Hillary Clinton is going to be hitting on the intern." Even if she did, would that male intern be remotely interested? That said, I think women are better liars, and if Hillary specifically were having an affair, I'm almost positive that we would never, ever find out about it.

Girls Will Be Girls. Or Not. [Newsweek]

Earlier: Samantha Bee On Silda: Does This Skirt Make My Ass Look Humiliated?

All the local Florida papers and Web sites are clogged with ads telling people to visit Meetjoefrancis.com, where they are directed to write a letter to Florida governor Charlie Crist, who has been so bombarded that he called Francis's lawyer and said he'd look into the case.

Dear Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum & the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE):

As a citizen who cares deeply about due process and justice in our country, I am very concerned about the set of circumstances surrounding Joe Francis' criminal charges and incarceration without bail. At the very least there is the appearance of wide spread [sic] misconduct by public officials, including possible illegal acts enacted by officials such as State Attorney Steve Meadows in an effort to put Mr. Francis in jail and deprive him of his rights.

My concern in this matter is neither an approval nor disapproval of Girls Gone Wild as a lifestyle brand, but rather a concern that Florida public officials are using their own personal beliefs in order to selectively prosecute someone whom they disagree with.

For this reason I urge you to call upon the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct an impartial investigation of the events surrounding the charges that have been brought against Joe Francis - both criminal and civil, beginning in 2003 and continuing into the present - and the forced civil settlement so that the public officials in Bay County will either be exonerated from any taint of impropriety, or be held accountable for any misdeeds.

Francis says jail is totally different from what he'd expected from movies. He's seen only one fight and hasn't heard of any sexual assaults. "Nothing will ever happen to me in jail. I'm a god. I'm the cool Girls Gone Wild guy. I'm revered. I'm a rock star," he says. Still, he avoids the other inmates, often going a week without talking to one. "The one thing I fear is one of these fucking people showing up at my house. I'm a different class. They're dumb. They're the people you see on Cops. Those are the people you see in jail."

The Prisoner In Cell Block DD [GQ]

80-year-old widower Charles lives in my hometown of Irvington, New York. His wife Catherine died in 2005 from cancer and emphysema. He has been listening to her voice on their answering machine since she died. "The Whitings aren't home," Catherine's message says. I picture his wizened hands slowly dialing his own number, his mouth a grim, horizontal line as he listens to the last concrete piece of his wife on this earth. And guess what suckers? Verizon lost the recording when Charles had the service upgraded. After waiting on hold with Verizon for a couple hours, a customer service representative told Charles he "couldn't get the message back" and that "would just have to record a new one," according to NBC's New York affiliate.

But there's a happy ending. Today NBC reported that Verizon was able to reinstate Catherine's message. A kindly Verizon contractor found the old recording for Whiting. "I'm very happy," said Charles.

First Wives[New Yorker]
The Customer Is Very Nearly Always Totally Screwed [WNBC via Maggie Shnayerson]
Recording Of Dead Wife's Voice Recovered [WNBC]

• Barack Obama has always been black, but since he was raised by a white mom in Hawaii and Jakarta he did not always have much in the way of a black community, and so when he moved to Chicago he started attending this black church where the pastor says the sort of hyperbolic shit pastors often say, only the media doesn't really cover the hyperbolic shit that gets said at black churches the way they cover the shit that gets said at white churches because black people aren't constantly trying to equate abortion with the Holocaust or replace the Constitution with the Ten Commandments, maybe because they just aren't as bossy as white religious people because they've never been in a position of societal dominance, which is actually something of which they are both aware and not exactly stoked about, and when you are a preacher you kinda play to that. So, like, Obama is going to try and address all of this in a speech tomorrow night. [CNN]
  
• And good luck Barry: your pastor's approval rating roughly on par with Al Qaeda's. [Rasmussen]
  
• But the church people love him! [ABC News]
  
• A leading pimp says Eliot Spitzer must have been a sex addict if he had to pay for any of his sex. [NY Mag]

• Nancy Pelosi hearts Obama anyway. [NY Observer]
• Maybe she has sex dreams about him? [Slate]
• "Roger Magro thought his wife Crystal was 'full of baloney' when she told him she and her co-workers had purchased a Powerball ticket worth more than $276 million...Magro said his wife plans to continue working in the tax office, but he resigned Monday from his job as a sheriff's deputy." [Pittsburgh Channel]
• Was a Republican DOJ conspiracy behind the Spitzer sting? Probably. Does that make the scandal any less fun? Hard to say.
• You know what? I am so happy the market rewarded JP Morgan with a huge stock market gain today for its courageous decision to buy Bear Stearns for $2 a share in an unprecedented transaction practically guaranteed by the government to make them shitloads of money. Yes, that is what the financial sector needed today. All that and the Dow rose twenty points. [WSJ]

Anyway — Pederson says he's coming forward now because of the custody battle for the McGreeveys' daughter Jacqueline is scheduled to go to trial in May. He also says he is especially offended by the interviews Dina Matos gave to reporters last week as the Spitzer scandal broke. "I wanted to get this out now because it was so offensive to me that [Dina Matos] goes on television playing the victim," Pedersen said in the Star-Ledger. "She's trying to make this a payday for herself. She should have told the truth about the three of us." (Matos has also written a book and given interviews to Oprah and O, the Oprah Magazine about about her failed marriage.)

Matos has asked for more than $600,000 in "damages" as compensation for Jim's alleged lies about his sexual orientation. (Matos' fortunes are more tethered to her ex-husband than those of Silda Wall Spitzer will ever be: Matos never graduated from college, while Silda's Harvard Law degree is a far more stable contingency plan. ) She also seeks full custody of Jacqueline along with alimony. According to the Star-Ledger, "McGreevey has denied any fraud and, in court filings, countered that he fulfilled his duties as husband because he gave his wife a child and companionship." He's asked for joint-custody of Jacqueline. Pederson could be one of the first witnesses to testify for Jim McGreevey on behalf of the prosecution.

McGreevey Aide Says He Had Sexual Trysts With Ex-governor, Wife [Newark Star-Ledger]
Matos McGreevey Says She Feels Pain Of Silda Spitzer, Thinks NY Gov Should Resign [Newark Star-Ledger]
How Could She Not Have Known? [O: The Oprah Magazine]
Ex-N.J. Gov. Had 3-Way Sex, Aide Claims [CBS News]

Related: Public Infidelity, Private Debate: Not My Husband (Right?) [New York Times]

• We discovered that ( now-former ) New York Governor Eliot Spitzer goes to whores.
  
• We also discussed Ashley Alexandra Dupre, aka "Kristen", the woman who was allegedly the whore in question. Her new single is off the chain!
  
• We commisserated with Spitzer's poor wife, Silda.
  
• Bet disgraced Glamour blogger Mike Cherico is happy about the Spitzer scandal! It is one of the few things that makes him look like less of an asshole.
  
• Speaking of assholes, did ya hear? Pooping is the new hot shit!

MOE: Okay, you know what? I thought we weren't going to be talking about Ashley Alexandra Dupre again but I think that's just what I'm about to advocate we do.
MEGAN: But briefly! Pretty please with sugar on top?
MOE: Okay, so first, the details. Ashley's former pimp Jason Itzler — is it weird that sort of rhymes with Spitzer? I guess not — has spoken and he's got nothing but love for the hottest girl he had. He met her at Hotel Gansevoort when she was 19 and working in the nightlife promotion cocktail waitress circuit. "She says, 'Hey, Jason ... I want to work for you.' When I caught my breath, I said, 'Do you know what I do?'" he claimed. "She's like, 'Yeah.' I said, 'Get over here.' " See, even then, he knew she'd be a star! Also, it sounds like those charges of abuse she leveled on her MySpace page might have been trumped-up; a neighbor says what really happened is that she crashed her stepdad's Porsche and wanted a new one, and when she couldn't get it she ran away. She grew up near the Jersey Shore, an area redolent of cultural capital, which explains how she was so "classy." She fucked Spitzer numerous times — she allegedly worked a six-day week! I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T! — but only figured out he was the governor somewhere near the Mayflower Hotel. I am currently writing a fictionalized account of how that went down.
MEGAN: Well, I mean, rich, skinny, nerdy white dudes that can't get laid are kind of a dime a dozen in D.C. I guess, and sometimes it is hard to tell politicians apart.
MOE: Apparently Silda is most upset over how young she was. Meanwhile, Ashley has a lot of opportunities to get rich now in even classier ways such as posing for Penthouse, just as I predicted yesterday.
MEGAN: But not Playboy, for some reason. Is that collusion? Antitrust! Antitrust!
MEGAN: Also, poor Silda. Really? The age is the bad part? Way to focus on what might actually be the least heinous part of the whole thing. News at 11: Men who cheat on their wives often fuck younger women.
MOE: No, Playboy apparently wants her too but I think Penthouse may be offering more money? Anyway my question is: at this point, would you rather be Ashley or Silda? And I'm saying, you know, I realize that is a stupid sounding question at this point. Ashley is pretty, whole life ahead of her, marriage not irreparably damaged etc. etc. But.
MEGAN: I wouldn't want to be a whore, much less a particularly famous one. Talk about someone who will probably never have a normal intimate relationship after this... I guess I know from experience that I can survive being cheated on, I can survive getting an HIV test and having a legitimate cause for concern about the results thanks to someone I was intimate with fucking a whore and neglecting to mention it, and I can survive at least some level of public humiliation due to someone else's actions.
MOE: Right, I mean, it's clear right now that Silda is a terribly smart woman, who has experienced a lot of things, and she's had her kids, and she has her law degree, and she has her weird Baptist NASCAR-loving roots and she has the sympathy of America and she definitely has an amazing body herself. It is also clear that, you know, by biology or circumstance, Ashley is not, you know, smart. And I know, like: what does that count for? But seriously, long term revenue generation prospects as a result of this fame look weighted to Silda right now.
MOE: Should we discuss Dina Matos McGreevey?
MEGAN: Silda's beautiful, smart, educated, has 3 daughters who likely love her and, God willing, is about to be wealthy and single. I'd rather be Silda.
MEGAN: Oh, Dina. The example of how not to handle it.
MOE: Cool. So because we'd still rather be Silda, it is not that terrible to still be obsessing over Ashley.
MEGAN: Well, I could stop obsessing over Ashley. We could obsess over Obama's super-cool mama instead.
MOE: Jessica's doing something on that for the 9:30. We had a discussion over how it's funny how normal and nuclear his own family is compared to how he grew up etc. etc.
MOE: Maybe we should finally talk about Michigan and Florida?
MOE: Pastor Jeremiah Wright?
MEGAN: Florida looks to be a ginormous fuck up again.
MOE: Earmarks?
MEGAN: Everyone does love them the earmarks.
MOE: New polls that place both Obama AND Hillary ahead of McCain?
MEGAN: Hooray for the Democrats winning no matter what only probably not because I'm a pessimist like that!
MOE: How, five years after we invaded them on this very basis there it is still looking like a giant fuckup that we ever linked Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda?
9:10 AM
MEGAN: Well, a fuck up would mean we thought it and it wasn't true. It seems like the evidence is that is likely wasn't true but they said it anyway, right?
MOE: Oh sure. Be a cynic! So seriously, is there anything else to talk about? Do you think Rev. Jeremiah Wright's knack for speaking the truth etc. etc. will hurt Obama when it is inevitably linked to his no-flag-pin/no hand on heart during Pledge thingy?
9:15 AM
MEGAN: I mean, CNN and MSNBC have been practically showing that guy's speeches on a loop all morning. The dude's practically spitting crazy angry like something out of a super right wing evangelical church. The same people that were freaked out by the evangelical church stuff in Borat would, one would think, be freaked out by this.
MOE: Really? On my CNN they've just shown the inspiring story of that 300-pound woman turned triathlete.
MEGAN: Maybe it was just in the 8:00 hour? I switched because they stopped talking about anything new.
MOE: So...Peggy Noonan is going after McCain for not being enough of an ideologue — er, a philosopher to be president.
MOE:

Where Mr. McCain's friend says, "be disciplined," I'd say, "Get serious." What is the meaning of things? What is the guiding philosophy? Who has he read besides Hemingway? (And he's read him—he loves him to an almost scary degree.) Is there a little Burke in there? The Federalist papers? John Kenneth Galbraith?

The sender: a college friend of hers in Florida who had suddenly decided, after ten years of mostly long-distance friendship, that he wanted to marry her.

She was somewhat skeptical.

"What compels dudes," I asked the guy to my left, who had been hitting on me sort of pointlessly. "To constantly, like, pathologically, write checks they know they can't keep?"

I was thinking of my friend. I was thinking of Eliot Spitzer's bounced checks to the Emperor's Club. I was thinking of Jerome Kerviel and the internet bubble and Glengarry Glen Ross and the subprime mortgage crisis, specifically, this reformed mortgage broker whose self-published atonement memoir I had read about in Newsweek:

"The rate of property appreciation experienced on a national basis over the last seven years was not only a function of market demand, but was due, in part, to the subprime industry's acceptance of overvalued appraisals, coupled with a high percentage of credit-challenged borrowers who financed with no money down," Bitner writes.

"We intend to keep them," the guy said. "It's just that you always disbelieve them. We can see it in your eyes, you have no faith. Your lack of faith ruins everything."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Really. If anyone I'd ever asked to marry me had believed I really wanted to marry them, then I wouldn't be single."

He proceeded to tell me the uplifting story of his live-in girlfriend's recent second-trimester abortion and order a scotch.

"That's on the house, right?" he asked the bartender.

"Uh, I guess," she said.

Confessions Of A Subprime Broker [Newsweek]
Hedge Funds Reel From Margin Calls [Bloomberg]
Glengarry, Glen Ross [Wikipedia]
Mark-To-Market Academic Paper We Did Not Read But You Could [Princeton]
Did Mark-To-Market Accounting Create The Credit Bubble? [Naked Capitalism]

*(This is not a criticism, people.)

Left: October 5, 2006. Right: November 7, 2006.

Left: November 17, 2006. Right, April 24, 2007.

Left: September 9, 2007. Right, December 1, 2007.

Left: December 4, 2007. Right: February 25, 2007.

Left: March 11, 2008. Right: March 12, 2008.

(Images via Getty)

MOE: Good morning! I can't imagine what we'll be discussing today...
The economy?

MEGAN: The EPA smog standards?
The priest that won a science prize and craps all over intelligent design?

MOE: The sad sad liquidation of Carlyle Capital?
Oooh oooh, this is fun...the merger of the Nymex and the Chicago mercantile exchange!

MEGAN: Um, that's prolly more your beat than mine.
The new $5 bill?

MOE: BUT SERIOUSLY GUYS. All anyone wants to talk about is "Kristen." Should we talk about "Kristen"?

MEGAN: Her song sucks.

But I added it to my MySpace profile anyway in case she wised up and took hers down... but apparently this is a boost for her career.

MOE: She's not a monster! That's a preemptive strike against Samantha Power! And if she takes hers down the song is gone, lady. Do you know nothing of MySpace? I was actually a little surprised by her MySpace profile. And is it just me or did I detect a note of pride in her mom's voice when she told the Times her daughter "can handle someone like the governor." I mean, lady, I'd say that's some rose-colored glasses but okay. It was also a little absurd that the Times called her lyrics out for their dated slang. Um, for the record, Serge Kovaleski, "boo" remains a term of endearment in youth culture circles! Athough I guess it is used more ironically, and mostly by white people now, but isn't that splitting hairs kinda?

MEGAN: Also, her brother said she's the best sister ever. I'm guessing he's not the one who abused her. Also, um, she can "handle" someone like the governor? Lady, she "handled" him alright. She also presumably sucked him, possibly teabagged him, allowed him to insert his penis into one if not two other orifices and either had or faked one/more orgasms, then took his money as payment for services rendered.
Like, seriously, this whole whore-fucking thing skeeves me out.
Like, what is wrong with men sometimes?

s

MOE: We'll never really know. I mean, I guess Newsweek and the Washington Post are sort of on the case, but as the Post story points out, you never hear from these guys about their infidelities. Why they did it. What they weren't thinking.

MOE: Except that there's something primal, hormonal, blah blah blah. I dunno. I mean, I get urges to cheat when I'm in long term relationships, they're just usually overwhelmed by my desire to not hurt the loved one in question. But maybe that's a measure of empathy the men don't get born with, I dunno. I have no idea why this scandal, in particular, seems to encapsulate something dark and hopeless about the state of gender relations. I mean, it's not like he fucked hookers every single night. $80,000 does not exactly go a long way someplace like the Emperor's Club. You could blow it all in a few days. In fact, that was probably part of the thrill. Like with gambling addicts. They like get off on the destructive waste of it. Or something. And they are always Chinese, the last people you'd expect to blow a hundred grand in one night at the craps table. You know?

MEGAN: I agree with the dark and hopeless state of gender relations part. This is like, some serious disconnect for me between men and women and it's not like I fuck for love all the time.
Like, the whole excuse that men are "paying" for it in either case? That makes me want to beat people about the head and shoulders with an umbrella.

MOE: Here's the other depressing thing about it for MOE: being a high class hooker seemed to me an appropriate job choice for someone like Kristen. She is very pretty and yearns, obviously, to be noticed, but her MySpace page shows that she doesn't really have the skills of self-promotion necessary to find quick success in all the "industries" that value self-promotion. Some were taken at unflattering angles. Some of them make her look chunkier than she really is. Her voice is unspectacular, but so is everyone's. She is no Tila Tequila.

MEGAN: That's probably true. She just looks kind of like your average pretty girl in most of those shots on MySpace, and her little "bio" piece is way too long and rambling to be an effective self-promotional tool, let alone even an effective internet dating profile.
And if she can, you know, actually respectably belt "Respect" (which, I'm sure is an untrue story) then she can probably actually sing.

MOE: Okay, new topic time. Seriously, right? There is not that much more to say, right? I'm assuming you watched Keith Olbermann's epic sermon to Hillary Clinton? It is very long. It is supposed to be ten minutes, but it will take 25 minutes to watch on any normal computer.

MEGAN: Oh, God, it Keith going to stop being cute once I watch that? Because my sister (who I was visiting) doesn't have cable to I missed everything until this morning.

MOE: I mean, you know, he takes himself just a LITTLE bit seriously.

MEGAN: But I'll watch that if you read this horrifying Paglia screed in which she calls Hillary shrill, dismissed the existence of sexism, called Hillary a "tunnel-vision middle manager" and called the Emperor's hookers "valiant."
It made me have to get out of bed to wash the taste of bile out of my mouth.

MOE: It looks like there won't be a transcript on the MSNBC website until 3 p.m. And I'll read that if you also take a look at this story on Obama and McCain, how they sort of pointlessly hate each other, etc.
We shall reconvene!

Um, for the record, this:

Never has the soppy emotionalism of old-guard feminist reasoning been on such open and embarrassing display.