MOE: Well, at least we still have The Corner

MEGAN: Aw, too bad SUCKAH. Go drink you bitter juice in your bitter house and cling to your God and your guns and your false idea that this country belongs to you and yours and always has and always will. We won, square and fair despite everything your guys tried to do to keep Americans from voting — and it was the biggest turn out since women got the right to vote.

MOE: What's there to agonize about here?

MEGAN: Four years in a WH, which he's already done, vs. the rest of his life in a House seat, with increasing power. I don't know, I'm a big believer in the legislative branch, I want some big guns in it. Every President tries to increase the power of the Executive at the legislative's expense, and look where it's gotten us. We should also talk about the end of gay marriage in California, the dark cloud on an otherwise sunny day.

MOE: I guess, but this WH, elected by much wider margins than his last, occupied by a much more historically significant holder than that administration, versus 434 other guys, no precarious minority to try and hold on to, etc. etc. So…where do we begin? For some reason I woke up this morning thinking of the moment when he thanked his two sisters by name and then addressed all his other brothers and sisters, and I thought not of that new illegal immigrant guy but the guy running a small business in Shenzhen. I bet that guy had a pretty good party this morning.

MEGAN: I think most people had pretty good parties, from the looks of things. I was actually sort of fascinated last night, flipping channels, Juan Williams, Eugene Robinson and Roland Martin (Fox, MSNBC, and CNN, respectively) were all crying. I mean, these are men who, while not anchors, are literally quite close to the tops of their professions, and yet it took this to make them feel actually accepted, was the sense that I got. It was kind of amazing.

MOE: Seventy four million dollars spent Proposition 8, oy. In a state flirting with default with an awe-inspiring foreclosure rate where 30$ of car purchases in 2007 were financed with home equity, someone has seventy four million dollars to spend on this stupid thing. I'm actually not that sad about it right now. It's a "Yup, still America!" moment. Hundreds of thousands of people in that state voted in the first black president while simultaneously voting to exclude gays from an exponentially more quotidian "institution," an "institution" one associates in much of that state with Vegas. What is the divorce rate in California anyway? Oh god, whatever.

MEGAN: The Institution of Straight Marriage, brought to you by the Knights of Columbus and the Church of Latter Day Saints.

MOE: One of my favorite discoveries in the context of researching Barney Frank was an Orange County former congressman named BIll Dannemeyer who sponsored a bill to expel Barney Frank over his whorescandal.

MEGAN: Please tell me he was a client.

MOE: No no no, he was one of those rare rabid homophobes who just seemed to me to be indiscriminately obsessed with everything he finds to be "outrageous."

MEGAN: You mean "one of those rare rabid homophobes" that isn't self-loathing and obsessed with other men's penii, right?

MOE: Right one of those rare rabid homophobes that isn't a self-hating homo I guess? I called him up; at this point he is a lot less fascinated by gay sex — he did maintain it was an unhealthy lifestyle that had no doubt taken a toll on Barney Frank's rectum — than he is by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Council of Foreign Relations, which control everything.

MEGAN: Angelina Jolie is part of the cabal?

MOE: Look, I should probably not make generalizations about these right-wing people.

MEGAN: Also, isn't Barney a top?

MOE: Well, his whore was a bottom, but that was in 1985. I am not going to speculate, again I am not actually that interested in this topic, and like I said I am pleased to report Bill Dannemeyer has moved on as well.

MEGAN: To blaming the vicious CFR and Federal Reserve cabal.

MOE: Now he is outraged by the myths of Western medicine and agribusiness — he is a vegan pronounced veGANNE — and also the European laws against Holocaust denial.

MEGAN: So, did he vote for Bob Barr or John McCain?

MOE: And Alan Greenspan. He has been advocating a return to the gold standard for some time. IN ANY CASE, I am just telling you that California is an odd place, with a perspective permanently warped by an overabundance of beauty, sun, space, time spent in cars and optimism but nevertheless permanently changing, And I'm pretty sure he wrote in Ron Paul, for whom he had much esteem.

MEGAN: Oh, well, if you had said gold standard I would have known. If you watch enough Fox News, you see a lot of gold commercials, it's pretty humorous, though I doubt a return to the gold standard is what Nicolas Sarkozy meant when he said he wanted us to all rethink Bretton Woods.

MOE: Another happy discovery I made in the course of reporting this was Paul Kanjorski, congressman from Scranton, PA, who held onto his seat in the face of a formidable challenge from the rabidly anti-immigration mayor of Hazelton, PA last night. Kanjorski is a dead ringer for my late grandfather, who also happens to be from Scranton, although my grandfather was Irish and Kanjorski does not strike me as a particularly Irish name, but the point is none of this stuff matters and what really endeared me to the guy was his testimony on the Finance Committee, where his skepticism toward the Federal Reserve Board of Governors will surely make Bill Dannemeyer proud. But hey, this election was about other folks than old white guys.

MEGAN: Hazelton is a weird place that I drive past every time I drive home and have attempted to avoiding stopping in because of said mayor. I don't want to give him the tax revenue. So, congrats Kanjorski!

MOE: I hear Philly was totally awesome last night.

MEGAN: Hell, I heard D.C. was awesome last night, but I was too busy working and then too tired to go check it out.

MOE: Ha, I love this: McCain lost because he pandered insufficiently to the base.

MEGAN: Crazy Michelle Bachmann won, by the way, if you wanted to be bummed by something other than Prop 8 in California.

MOE: OH Jesus Christ SERIOUSLY?

MEGAN: Right, independent voters didn't vote for McCain because he wasn't right wing enough! Keep thinking that, GOP!

MOE: But no, here's my public service to you guys: McCain lost because voters changed their minds. They turn out to have them.

MEGAN: Shhh! Don't help! Let them keep thinking that the way to win independent voters is be more right-wingnutty, more against immigration, meaner, more anti-Muslim, more cutting taxes for the wealthy. Obama will need 2 terms to not be GHWB.

MOE: Also, it looks like that guy's numbers are off. Also bummed about Al Franken losing. But whatever, VIRGINIA. Not since Pocahantas had I really pegged you as a beacon of tolerance and inclusiveness.

MEGAN: I know, I almost feel like I could maybe stop apologetically telling people I'm from upstate New York now despite the fact that I've lived almost my entire adult life here (in Virginia).

MOE: Which brings us to: John McCain. Such a great speech. Such a poignant moment. Such despicable fans. I was blown away! I wonder what he was thinking looking out at all those douchebags. I was also surprised to see all his weird rage toward Obama seem to melt so thoroughly away. "Extraordinarily gracious," yes; wow.

MEGAN: I couldn't believe that either! I was watching here going, well, who the fuck wrote that speech, and, damn, am I glad that he didn't write the other ones. Because that was the 2000-era John McCain that Democrats used to swoon over. And, yeah, those people last night, like, damn. Do you have to have a political operative come out and be like, "Hey, people, the eyes of the world are upon us like they have been for the last few weeks, so could you please try showing everyone that Republicans and McCain supporters are a gracious lot?" Hell, maybe they did.

MOE: What else do we have to say? Lehman Brothers died so hope could live. Thank you Hank Paulson for the random little policy inconsistency that sealed the election. And thank you by extension Dick Fuld for being such a uniquely unsympathetic character that not even Hank Paulson your white megawealthy brother in plutocratic whiteness did not want to help you.

MEGAN: Thanks, GOP, for delivering such bad candidates (Jim Gillmore) and hate-filled campaigns (Elizabeth Dole) that even your own voters rejected your candidates. We couldn't have done it without your hubris and incompetence.

MOE: I cried. I cried the whole way up on the train. I even cried reading Vibe's idiotic "election issue" which also explains the five variables you need to choose a good Cognac, one of them being "region," which is not actually a variable if you have already decided to go drink cognac, but whatever. yes, I cried reading about Will.i.am. Yeah what the fuck, Liddy Dole?

MEGAN: Apparently, it's okay to hit below the belt if you are losing. Did you know it's the first time since the 50s that neither a Bush nor a Dole is serving in elected office? It's true!

MOE: That's insane. See, those names I guess I always equated with a sort of moderate conservatism I guess I should have equated with an entrenched and amoral power it would defend by any means at any costs

MEGAN: I don't think that those things are mutually exclusive. I think moderate conservatism is, in fact, the way to defend entrenched and amoral power.

MOE: My head hurts. Is this over? I think I need to shower. I lost my wallet again last night.

MEGAN: It's lower taxes, higher spending, foreign wars to distract the populace but not really dangerous ones that would shift the balance of power, it's keeping the government out of your lives as long as you're not gay or don't wish to use birth control or have an abortion.

MEGAN: Oooh, oooh, so the woman ABC is suggesting started the photo controversy (though she denies)? A Washington lobbyist previously identified as in charge of Hillary's unsuccessful Drudge outreach initiative.

MOE: I love that they called that an "initiative." You wonder how they burned through all that cash and it's hard to conclude it wasn't by setting up "initiatives" to achieve such complex tasks as leaking shit to Drudge.

MEGAN: Because, really, you know Tracy wasn't doing that for free. She's a lobbyist.

MOE: So have you been paying attention to these mailer scandals? And did you read Michelle Obama's thesis? Because those things seem to be the only things we haven't discussed that are not "hey did you see that story about Hillary losing?"
 
MEGAN: Can we call them "scandals"?
 But, yes
Basically, according to the Post, he's using a Newsweek characterization of her feelings (a "boon").
  She's likewise taking his shit out of context
And neither one of them hates it as much as the unions.
  
Also, one time I lobbied a pro-union Congress member on a trade agreement and he told me and the other lobbyist I was with that he couldn't vote for the one we wanted because he'd just met with the unions and they told him they were mad that "NAFTA sent their jobs to China."
And I was like, um, sir, did you perchance correct that ever-so-slightly inaccurate impression that the North American Free Trade Agreement doesn't include China? And he laughed at me.

MOE: Hahahaha WOW. I don't even know what to say about that. Can you even isolate which trade agreement lost which jobs? Or like, what about fast track? OH, I know what we were supposed to discuss
Oh yes, I Refuse To Buy Into The Obama Hype

MEGAN: Ok, well, I applaud her research.
  
That's a lot of it.
Though she misses the fact that resolutions have no real force of law, but, good. And, um, well, I don't do that much bill research unless someone is paying me.
 
MOE: Um like I'm so glad re: "S.RES.222 : A resolution supporting the goals and ideals of Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month."
Oh are you watching CNN?
I didn't realize it had gotten so mean!
 
MEGAN: Oh, and everyone? The next time you get that Lifetime TV breast cancer bill forwarded email? Delete it. It's a PR campaign for Lifetime and the bill never passes. It just racks up co-sponsors and nver goes anywhere because no one really cares.
 
MOE: And Hillary's voice: sho shrill?
 
MEGAN: Oh, God, you didn't see that little sarcastic thing from the weekend? Yeah.

MOE: I fucking feel like death. "Grassroots mom" is cool though. It's like, aw: "Truth be told, it was very depressing doing this research to see all these great ideas and how little actually gets done."
OH we should also discuss North Korea. I love how CNN is dictating my agenda today.
 
MEGAN: Yeah, that's like the reason I thought Grassroots Mom is true. Like, I thought everyone already knew that that's how Congress works.
Wow, Alina Cho's aunt starved herself to avoid Korean rape squads? Is that the subtext of "kidnapping teenage girls, but only the healthy ones?"
We might want to explain for people that don't obsessively watch cable television that the New York Philharmonic performed in North Korea today. Also, by the way, we don't have a peace treaty with them. We're, like, still at war with them, technically. It's not good. And Kim Jong Il is a crazy fucker. The end.

MOE: Um, and according to this Style piece about the visit

"It's just a country." And, one might add: It's the music that matters most.

MEGAN: Just a country with nuclear capabilities and a mentally disturbed leader who claims and expects people to believe/confirm lies like he only gets holes-in-ones while golfing.
  Also, he didn't apparently attend the concert.

MOE: I'm kinda uh surprised the Post ran this thing!  
It's very counterintuitive!
North Korea = normal!
Somehow I don't really buy it though.
  I know, I know, I've been brainwashed.

MEGAN: Yeah, I actually don't buy it either. I love that it starts off with "musical pundits don't know anything about politics" and then quotes a British singer and a Austrian professor about how normal everyone is.

MOE: Yeah it's really stomach churning. I think we must have discussed the story in the much-acclaimed Parade magazine in which the guide tells the writer Kim Jong-Il wants everyone to play basketball, to help close the 8-inch height gap between North Korean adolescents and their southern brothers.

MEGAN: Probably. It seems like one or the other of us might've mentioned that not starving said adolescents would be a better plan. Crazy fucking Kim Jong Il.

MOE: Um and by the way this Eugene Robinson piece marveling that Obama has made it okay for Fox News viewers to accept the idea that black people can be smart may be my favorite thing ever.
It starts with Geraldo posturing that Deval Patrick and Barack Obama got together at "black genius camp" and plotted to take over the world.
 
MEGAN: There's a new cabal! And it's members are waaay more attractive then the last one!
Or something,
Also, Mr. Robinson is a Fox News commentator.
Not that that tidbit of info is in the piece.  
OMG, he calls the Obamas the new Huxtables.

MOE: Hahaha he is? Mannnnnn. I don't know if I've ever seen him. Um also there's a story about how some Democrats are worried McCain might win. Meanwhile McCain is worried the war might make him lose! It really is a boring fucking day, right? I guess there is another awesome debate tonight we can talk about tomorrow.

MEGAN: It it boring. Chris Dodd's Obama endorsement is news.

MOE: Aw, Chris Dodd.
  Affable losers.
Oh my GODDDD I feel so crappy.
 I think this is the crappiest crappy hour ever.

MEGAN: No one else is going to get why that's funny.
 
MOE: Why don't we talk about Angelina Jolie and how awesome that she's pregnant again.
MEGAN: Or why, perhaps, advice colums are better in print.
  
Because I don't want to see my aunt discussing a dude's big wang.
MOE: Do you think she could figure out how to adopt a starving child in North Korea and then bring global awareness to the tragedy of North Korean famine and the Obama Administration could meet with Kim Jong Il and play basketball and his sheer height and charisma would cause the Kim regime to fold in a bloodless coup and bring freedom to the poor starving short North Koreans...
MEGAN: Ok, it is officially a slow news day when CNN is airing a story about the Tokyo lost and found. They have 130,000 umbrellas turned in over the last 6 months.
MOE: You know it's a tactic of that "be a millionaire before 30" dude to never buy an umbrella because you should really just lie to bartenders and hostesses and tell them you lost your umbrella and get free ones that way. I guess that's the difference between them and us, huh!
MEGAN: I think the difference between "us" and "them" is that "they" wouldn't pay $25 for a book that tells them the key to financial success is stealing umbrellas.

MEGAN: Good morning! Did you just see Nader on CNN? He smirked when Obama accused him of hubris and threw it right back.

MOE: Wait, was he actually on with Obama?
 
MEGAN: No, but they played video of Obama responding to a question about him yesterday.
(Is it fair to wonder what is up with his left eye and his slightly slurred speech? Was it always like that or have I just been ignoring him that much?)
 
MOE: Ah yes I did read about that.
I totally voted for Nader in 2000. SIGH.
My boyfriend at the time was actually his California campaign manager

MEGAN: I was googling for a picture to figure out the eye thing, and found this picture instead. I like this one better.
 
MOE: Or some title like that that applied to any other candidate would denote some level of importance..

MEGAN: I sort of what to see him debate Cynthia McKinney for the green party nod.

MOE: I think Obama relishes chances to look like a moderate and he doesn't have many what with the Clinton campaign "circulating" shit like this.

MEGAN: He looks like an Ay-Rab! An Ay-Rab!
He's here to destroy our way of life! Ahhhh!
  [commences running in circles with arms waving in the air]

MOE: So...what else. There's an extremely well-timed New York Magazine cover story about Chelsea Clinton... all the columnists are now grousing about how they still have to write about Hillary Clinton as if she actually has a chance, all the universe, ombudsman included, is still grousing about how bad that John McCain story was, and so we are left with... Ralph Nader.
There's also a lot of last-minute hand wringing over whether Obama is good for the Jews including Bernard-Henri Levy who is in town to talk about neo anti Semitism.
  I'm not sure where to begin with this stuff.
It's all so tiresome!
And I'm so tired!
 
MEGAN: I prefer just talking about silly pictures.
Like, whatever CNN producer thought it appropriate to put Ali Velshi in a cowboy outfit on a horse.
And then showed a picture of Yul Brenner in Westworld.
Oh, and they're debating again tomorrow night. Time to stock up on alcohol, people.
  
Do you think that since her new campaign tactic is to be sarcastic and shit the debates will be more interesting tomorrow?
MOE: Uhhhhh, I guess? I mean, I know never to trust the conventional wisdom, but the conventional wisdom is kinda compelling right now!
MEGAN: I'm just sick of them all playing nice. Yawn.
  
Also, the youngest superdelegate guy just endorsed Obama because Wisconsin and young people are going for Obama.
MOE: Yeah, Jason Rae. I am sick of that kid, too. I'm reading this Chelsea story.
Oooh, fun factoid: Obama's secret service name is Renegade!
MEGAN: Boys.
Also, I love the anecdote about Chelsea flirting with the hot jock on the campaign trail. Like, I want to think I would do it, but I know I'm too much of a weenie.
MOE: Hahaha here it is

Approached by a tall model-handsome college jock at the University of Utah, she literally batted her eyelashes at him. "Hell-o!" she said in a Mae West tone before posing for a snapshot with him.

when Gennifer Flowers sold the story of her affair with Chelsea's dad to Star magazine, including tapes of their intimate phone calls, Hillary took her 11-year-old daughter to the supermarket, pointed out the tabloids, and "told her what we heard was going to be in one of them," because she wanted her "to feel she's a part of this," according to Clinton biographer Sally Bedell Smith. Wead said Chelsea's parents "got a lot of criticism for preparing Chelsea like this. During one of those sessions, she apparently left in tears. Rush Limbaugh said it showed just how ruthless the Clintons were, putting their child through this." Limbaugh's concern was disingenuous, of course. On his TV show, he called her "the White House dog." Wead says, "The Ford children told me they wish they'd had somebody to explain things to them. Instead, they were just thrown upstairs in the White House, with the caveat, 'And by the way, don't make a mistake.' "

That fall, Chelsea couldn't resist reading the Starr report online, including the footnotes. When Bill Clinton learned that she'd read the report, he wept.

"There were these girls around her—it was their mission to have Chelsea be their friend," noted a student who knew her. "The mean girls positioned themselves around Chelsea when everybody was deciding who to live with, and I remember they pushed this sweet girl out of the group. She ended up gaining 25 pounds."

MEGAN: I sorta wanted Chelsea to realize that the girls were mean and be nice to the excluded one, but I'll bet she didn't know. Some women are great at hiding their true nature (and, no, I'm totally not saying that because I found something out this weekend that I was probably better off not knowing about one of my "friends," why do you ask?).
MOE: One of my best friends was good friends with one of her friends at Stanford and visited and told me Chelsea was just kind of unfriendly. Which is totally unsurprising. She's incredibly cautious. The excluded girl ... I dunno.

MEGAN: I mean, I think in that position you surround yourself with people you trust and are hesitant about everyone else. I would be. But I am sort of an unfailingly paranoid person for no reason.

MOE: Okay, so that story was boring. But is it as boring as our next task, which is tallying up the major opinion columnists who are calling for Chelsea's mom to quit?
Colbert King of the Washington Post wants her to quit because she's not black or something.
MEGAN: Oh, for Chrissakes. It's an election, people. Hell, even if you want to assume she's just pounding the potential future nominee, she's airing his dirty laundry far enough in advance of the election to practically inoculate him.
  
*innoculate
MOE: Frank Rich wants her to quit because her campaign reminds him of the Iraq war, with Mark Penn as Rumsfeld.
MEGAN: Mark Penn sucks. This is my completely unbiased and slightly uninformed opinion.
  
But he sucks.
 
MOE: Bob Novak thinks she should quit because she's too clueless to even know she is supposed to quit.

 MEGAN: I can't believe they paid him $10 million and dumped Patti Solis Doyle
Bob Novak is the Earl Of Minor, Creeping Despair. He's like one of the ghosts in The Sixth Sense, insofar and his mere presences causes the temp to plummet.
 
MOE: Eugene Robinson, the early bird here, thinks she should quit because she has the gall not to quit.
MEGAN: Because, God knows, it's important the quit in advance of losing.
*to quit.
  Shit, I can't type this morning.

MOE: Maureen Dowd says she should quit because she's too macho and Obama out-girled her. Umm... how is she not tired of writing the same column every other day?

Obama tapped into his inner chick and turned the other cheek.

MOE: Oooooh, another one: Jonathan Alter thinks she should get out because she will only survive if Obama does something completely retarded and that would be bad for everyone anyway.

MEGAN: Oh, ok, so, she should drop out because Obama fucking up and making himself unelectable is a possibility only if she stays in? I fail to see the logic there.
But it's good to know that political columnists can find 10 ways to say the same thing and get paid! That, like, totally bodes well for my employability.