MEGAN: So, apparently we missed the memo yesterday? It was officially name calling day! We should spend the rest of Crappy Hour hurling invective at one another and other people in honor of the holiday, IMHO.
I mean, I don't really see any other reason to invoke Ken Starr or call one's opponent a monster.
Also, according to one of the news stations yesterday, Ickes and Penn got into it this week and devolved down to "Fuck you!" and "No, fuck you!"
MOE: I love that Samantha Power  declared the "smartest woman in America" last month by Marie Claire  gave that interview to the New Scotsman. Ummm what?
I also like how she says "We fucked up in Ohio."
MEGAN: And than is all "Oh, by the way, the headline making thing I just said is, like, totes off the record even though I said nothing would be." Like, was she drunk?
MOE: She sounds drunk. But also: "monster"... okay ... I mean, there's like "created a monster" and "monster trucks" and "cookie monster" and they all kind of have different connotations. Ughhhh but what do I know.
I kind of want Samantha Power for prez now.
MEGAN: Um, also this little gem: "You just look at [Clinton] and think, 'Ergh'."
I'm not saying I don't want to go get drunk with her because, frankly, if that's what she says to reporters sober, well, drinks are fucking on me and let's go somewhere that they'll make 'em strong and keep 'em coming.
But congrats to Obama's ENTIRE foreign policy shop for keeping your guy in the news in a bad way! You did in one week waht Clinton couldn't do in 3 months, and that's tar him!
Ok, well, fine Foolsbee [sic] is econ, but you know what I mean.
MOE: Well I guess this takes away from the whole "disciplined campaign" thing...but...Ken Starr? Ken fucking Starr? Not that I want anyone seeing my tax returns. In fact, I am going to change the subject how bout.
And now how about I call everyone's attention to this somewhat puzzling comment of yesterday regarding Hillary's assertion that she had felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. It's about Smurfette.
MEGAN: Things I thought when tracking back to the Holy Spirit article: OMG, Christian Broadcasting Network? Wait, They have a "senior" national news correspondent? Wait, this article isn't negative? Wow, the right really does want her to win the nomination. OMG, head exploding
Also someone has spent waaaay too much time thinking about the Smurfs.

es
MOE: Um, okay, topic switch. Back to Pennsylvania. Hillary has Governor Ed Rendell on her side, former mayor of Philadelphia, crusty lecherous fat gregarious machine politician known for busting unions and trying to get with writer Lisa De Paulo. His son is an Evangelical Christian, which is weird since he's a Jew, but whatev. Anyway, Anna sent me this story about how Pennsylvania could tip for Obama and I just don't see it. it's just...nah. People take orders from their block captains there, you know? Obama is fucked in Pennsylvania. I'm pretty sure. Fuck, I could be wrong. But you know.
MEGAN: Pennsylvania's a pretty machine state. Of course, the unions screwed the pooch in 04 where they split their own fucking ticket and backed both Arlen Specter and John Kerry, but whatevs.
MOE: Oh look fun, the Economist has turned it into a contest of wine drinkers vs. beer drinkers. I should take this opportunity to point out that Pennsylvania is a very good place to buy wine, as long as you do so before 9 pm., because the state is the largest purchaser of wine in the country, making it like the Wal Mart of decent wines. Props to the antiquated liquor laws; I never appreciated you till I saw Louisiana.
Arlen Specter is the machine. Ed Rendell is the machine. Comcast, the airport, a few law firms, the insurance company...they're all in this together, and none of them are particularly ideological, but if there's one thing they're not big on it's, you know, CHANGE.
MEGAN: Side note: fuck you, Comcast!
Ugh, Pennsylvania politics sound fun, and vaguely mobbed up.
MOE: You know what's also big in Pennsylvania, no surprise? ANARCHISTS. People say "change" and you think "oh those nasty dirty rotten crust punks squatting in the crack den? We thought that place was bad when it was a crack den..." And speaking of anarchists, they took credit for yesterday's terror attack on Times Square by sending postcards to Congress saying "We did it!" whereas Hamas, in stating it didn't bomb that Israeli school, just sent a text message. "We bless this operation. It will not be the last." Just notes on evildoer etiquette.
MEGAN: Except now they're saying that that LA-based anarchist/weird dude is not involved, he's just crazy and a bad writer.
MOE: Ah, so the lesson is, if you want people to take you seriously, just send a text message.
MEGAN: Unless you're dumping the person.
MOE: By the way, the Hamas text message...was that like, a group text message i.e. "karaoke sing sing 11 p.m. come out BYO!!!!" or an individual text message sent to the New York Times??
MEGAN: Dude, why does Hamas have the cell numbers of people for the NYT? Also, I'm guessing it's a blast text.
It's like, is there some terrorist Pr guy who walks around Gaza with a cell full of journalist numbers so he can text message everyone when they bomb stuff or kill people?
if that's the case, btw, I'm pretty sure there world is fucked.
MOE: P.S. did you hear about
>this story in Vanity Fair blaming Bush Condi et al for a botched coup that led to the Hamas takeover of Gaza?
Think on that for a second. I have to brew coffee before I like die or something.
MEGAN: Wow, for an Administration filled with neocons, they certainly didn't learn any lessons from previous Cold War Administrations about how to run a motherfucking coup in a small country in order to install friendly regimes.
Oh, wait, whoops, sorry, they've actually always sucks at it. My bad.

MOE: Apparently even "avowed neocons" were mad about it which is why Cheney's chief Middle East adviser resigned. But yeah, I mean, reading it you're just sort of struck with, wow, Bush was in a big hurry to do SOMETHING with Israel and Palestine...why exactly? Just bored?

"Everyone was against the elections," Dahlan says. Everyone except Bush. "Bush decided, 'I need an election. I want elections in the Palestinian Authority.' Everyone is following him in the American administration, and everyone is nagging Abbas, telling him, 'The president wants elections.' Fine. For what purpose?

"Everyone blamed everyone else," says an official with the Department of Defense. "We sat there in the Pentagon and said, 'Who the fuck recommended this?' "

MEGAN: I want to say that, in Boeing's case, it was bolts or rivets or something
Yeah, I vaguely recall being in anti-counterfeiting meetings with a really lovely Boeing lobbyist and hearing her talk abut that.
MOE: Oh, look, here's a story on airplane parts. Frank Ahrens, didn't he used to cover...something inconsequential I actually used to read about? Music maybe? Good going on the aerospace beat Frank!
MEGAN: OMG, quality control

During a visit to one parts supplier, the inspector general's office observed an employee who "used a piece of paper, scotch-taped to the work surface, as a measuring device for a length of wire on an oil and fuel pressure transmitter."

Related: A League Of Her Own [Men's Vogue]

You know, that's just not who I am. He was, like"  she broke into a wishy-washy voice  "Marriage, it doesn't mean anything, it's really how you feel.' And I was, like, 'Yeah, right'"

"And he got me into one of these discussions again, where, you know, he sort of just led me down there and got fired up and it's like you've got blah blah blah blah, and then dessert comes out, the tray comes out, and there's a ring!"

In "The Audacity of Hope," Barack Obama perceives a vulnerability in his wife, one so closely guarded that even her brother professed to me never to have noticed it. There was "a glimmer that danced across her round, dark eyes whenever I looked at her," he writes, "the slightest hint of uncertainty, as if, deep inside, she knew how fragile things really were, and that if she ever let go, even for a moment, all her plans might quickly unravel."

The Other Obama [New Yorker]

His name in her phone is "Beautiful Husband"

She reaches for her Blackberry. On the screen, it says "Beautiful Husband." Not Dennis, not a phone number, but "Beautiful husband." He arrives shortly after, walks straight to the booth, and slips his tongue down her throat.

When they got married he was still sleeping (aw!) on a mattress on the floor.

"But it was beautiful!" Elizabeth insists. "It was like a blank canvas, everything white. And I didn't buy or do anything. We were given wedding presents and pretty pictures and things, and I just got to do that. And I got us three dogs. Rescue dogs."

She didn't Google him after they first met.

"I wish I had [Googled him]," she says, because then she could have had a photo of him in those two dreadfully long weeks before they e-maied. "I was longing for a picture of him."

Their three decade age difference is the source of much pain and sorrow.

Do they feel 31 years apart? "Sometimes," Elizabeth says. "Only when I think, Why wasn't I born sooner so I could spend more time with him? I know his story, but why wasn't I there to help him through it? Sometimes I cry about it."

If it all seems so creepy and fanatical you have to wonder if Jesus isn't involved, well...
Dennis's dad beat him for "sneaking out" to church to be the angel in a Holy Communion pageant, and she took off for India to work in one of Mother Teresa's orphanages when she was 18, "something she had wanted to do since the age of nine, when she saw the nun on television serving the poor."

And like just like veganism and UFOs, it can happen for you too.

"Look, In Washington D.C., probably one of the most love-starved places in the planet, our story has captivated a lot of people. Some of the most hardened, grizzled people just open up." At least three people, after spending time with Dennis and Elizabeth, met their soul mates, the couple divulge. "Oh, it's been wonderful." Elizabeth says. "You read the fairy tales, prince, princess, and all that, but people don't really believe that happens in normal people's lives."
"But they want to!" Dennis says.

Earlier: How Dennis Kucinich Landed Smoking Hot Liz, In 8 Minutes!

• This has nothing to do with it being in New Hampshire
• This has nothing to do with Crazy Eyes polling poorly among women voters.
• Crazy Eyes suddenly using only her married name has nothing to do with Hillary Rodham Clinton
• This also has nothing to do with Rudi [sic] polling poorly among women voters because he left his wife to marry Crazy Eyes after announcing their affair on TV.
• This has everything to do with breast cancer.
• Everyone there would rather talk to/ get their picture taken with Elizabeth.

He was my man. I mean, really. Eight-minute meeting on monetary policy, and just as soon as I met him, I knew. I saw him and knew that he was the one.

Which brings me to the important part: isn't there something a little inherently nuts about that "love at first sight" thing? Once I was at a horrible Hamptons fashion show held exclusively for "tastemakers" sponsored by about fifty corporations when a skinny ex-pro skateboarder offered me a swig of his tequila and pronounced the whole scene "late capitalism" and I totally imagined for the next three weeks that I was going to end up having his babies but he never so much as answered my MySpace request. Tracie met a cute guy at a trashy ravey club in London and fell in love when she checked out his ass to find a Toni Morrison book hanging out of his back pocket ("no one at that club read")  she spent the next six years trying to make it work. Clearly when you meet someone in the middle of your old, dry, mindless, numbing boring-ass cynicism-fraught context that OMG believes the same shit you do, it's totally amazing and hot! So um: I think we can safely say Elizabeth, too, has seen UFOs.

Elizabeth Kucinich: Unconventional Political Wife [MSNBC]

• Elizabeth Kucinich has a tongue ring. Maybe you knew this already but still!
  
• And speaking of jewelry, Bill Clinton is so romantic he is always buying Hillary things such as this Chanel watch that reminded him of teeth (Hillary's favorite erogenous zone, ha ha, ouch!)
  
• OMG Elizabeth Edwards UNSUBSCRIBE: "Hillary Clinton in 1992 is a lesson in what not to do. She was dismissive of the range of options women had chosen, declaring, 'I don't bake cookies. . . . I don't stand by my man.' That turned off some people." Um, yeah and the fact that Laura Bush ripped off the line in the Administration's sole well-received move since like ever means...

• Elizabeth maybe should take a hint from Michelle Obama, quoted at a rally in the just-out November O:

  My ability to get through my day greatly depends on the relationships that I have with other women. Y'all know what I'm talking about. We have to be able to champion other women. We have to root for each other's successes and not delight in one another's failures. If there is anyone who has a broken relationship with another woman, if there is a woman in your life that you have not communicated with because of ego or embarrassment or jealousy or fear of rejection, a sister or a friend or a mother or a child who could or should be a part of our community, I ask you to reach out to that woman today."