A programming note: tomorrow's final Crappy Hour will be a group affair. Meaning you.

Between 8:30 and 10:00, you can submit question or comments on the day's news by going to this site and running the live feed — then hop back over the Jezebel to submit some more and talk with other commenters from 10-11. I'll be answering questions and responding to comments live from 10:00-11:00 in honor of my last day.

Smith (pictured at center, looking weirdly like a friendlier Anna Wintour) says that as managers, "hands down women are better. There's no contest." It's good to hear, especially in light of last year's study purporting to show that women have more problems with female bosses. Smith elaborates,

In my experience, female bosses tend to be better managers, better advisers, mentors, rational thinkers. Men love to hear themselves talk. I'm so generalizing. I know I am. But in a couple of places I've worked, I would often say, "Call me 15 minutes after the meeting starts and then I'll come," because I will have missed all the football. I will have missed all the "what I did on the golf course." I will miss the four jokes, and I can get into the meeting when it's starting.

Sure, she's generalizing, but her generalizations fly in the face of the idea that women are always chatting with each other instead of getting things done, and so they're kind of refreshing. She also says she's "a really good confronter," and that female bosses, "if we have a problem - again, as a generalization - we will confront the problem and deal with it head-on." She explains:

Confrontation - meaning, "You didn't do a good job. That presentation was bad. It didn't work, and here's why it didn't work" - is so much better than walking away from a sales call saying, "Great. Got to get back to the office, O.K.?" It's better for everyone and I've never understood why people won't do it.

Smith does seem, in general, to tell it like it is. In a February interview, Lauren Streib of Forbes asked her, "Do you anticipate Elle's advertising growth to continue?" Smith said bluntly,

No. That's easy. Who's growing? Where's the growth? Even Google's not growing.

And of fashion mags in general, she said,

Our spring was down 22%. I expect full year to be down 15%. I do not think we will recover for the fall. My fall issue closes right in June, and I feel as if retailers are going to keep their inventories down, which means cash is going to be limited. Bottom line: You won't see those big fat issues for a while. There are too many magazines; there are probably too many fashion brands right now. Talk about survival of the fittest.

Recent news indicates that women may actually be better confronters, especially of harsh economic realities. In a piece for Double X, Moe writes about Sheila Bair, "the only government regulator in either administration who can credibly claim to have seen the [financial] crisis coming," and about Meredith Whitney, who "declared Citigroup effectively insolvent in October 2007." Moe writes,

Whitney not only knew when the bust was coming and that Citi would be first to fall-"Hubris is the cause of management mistakes 90 percent of the time," she told Business Week in 2007-she actually had seen it coming two years before, and written about it in a comprehensive October 2005 report on the coming recession. Back then she predicted the economic downturn would be spurred by banks extending "new and unprecedented access to credit" to a swath of Americans living just above poverty level.

What tipped Whitney off? Hurricane Katrina. She said in 2006,

So many Americans saw a side of the U.S. economy that I don't think many of us had seen before or had really digested. It challenged me to drill down deeper into the analysis of who was at risk in terms of any type of consumer softening, or a potential recession.

Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins has an explanation for why women were the first to speak out about the impending financial crisis. Moe writes that there's "a distinction between the types of risk one takes with encouragement from an audience, and the types of risk one takes in spite of the disapproval of the audience. Watkins calls these 'arena risk' and 'moral risk.' Women, she contends, are more likely to take the latter form of plunge." That is, women may be more likely to speak up in times when doing so has no direct benefit to them, when they may even incur kill-the-messenger wrath.

Moe cites a scientific study to back this up, and all makes women look pretty good — apparently, we're the ones who shout "stop!" when everyone's heading over a cliff, rather than cheerfully gunning the engine. But as a commenter points out, this may not be that fun. P Starling writes,

Look, even if it's true, let's keep it quiet. The idea of woman as moral arbiter is great in theory but in practice has gotten us the unenviable job of, say, being the desire-free sexual gatekeepers or the pedestal-dwelling Angel of the House. Can we just ignore the question of whether or not women are more ethical and focus instead on whether or not women tend to show better insight into long-term outcomes?

Being the ones responsible for taking "moral risks" also means women get all the "disapproval of the audience" and none of the "encouragement." And there's the added problem of whether their warnings are even taken seriously. I already mentioned Cassandra once today, but I'll do it again — a lot of good her "moral risk" did her or Troy. So while it's nice to think of women as being great at confronting difficult situations head-on, the more we bash men for being unable to do this, the more we claim this unenviable responsibly for ourselves.

No Doubts: Women Are Better Managers [NY Times]
Why Corporate Women Are More Likely To Blow The Whistle [Double X]
How Smith Keeps Elle Glossy [Forbes]

Earlier: Working For A Female Boss Can Be A Real Bitch

That is, of course, much shorter than the time it took Barack Obama or Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to explain why they knew about the bonuses and had hoped no one would notice but, now that we have, they're totally going to raise a huge stink about it before capitulating as they had previously done when they thought we weren't looking.

The problem, such as it is, is that too often women read crap like this from people who are actually serious so, in a vacuum, it seems almost realistic that someone would actually believe stuff like this:

Of course there will always be a place in the world of business for exceptional women. Women also have an important role to play in jobs that are too demeaning for men, like teaching. But the general employment of women is another matter. Indeed, working women almost certainly caused the credit crunch by bringing a second income into the average household, pushing property prices up to unsustainable levels.

Pick a right-wing, "traditional values" anti-woman conservative, and it's just a little too easy to imagine something like that coming out of his mouth.

Newton then "suggests" that the cure for unemployment and government spending is twofold: eliminate many women's jobs and eliminate most women from the work force. Consider the issue of unemployment.

There were 221,301 men on the live [unemployment] register last month and just under one million women in work.

Surely at least half these women have a partner who is earning? Surely at least half would be happier at home? One half of one half is a quarter and one quarter of a million is roughly 221,301. I think we can all see where this argument is going.

It would be ludicrous to suggest that women should be sacked purely to give men their jobs. In many cases, their jobs should be abolished as well.

It's the shotgun marriage of traditional gender roles and the conservative desire to reduce the size of government at any cost! It's practically the right-wing political platform!

But if you hadn't caught Emerson's tongue stuck firmly in his cheek yet, he then cites supposed statistics from the "Center Gender Mainstreaming Unit" — which, naturally, doesn't exist (except in the Philippines).

Further benefits of sacking women have been uncovered by the Central Gender Mainstreaming Unit at the Department of Justice. According to its research, twice as many woman as men travel to work by bus and train, potentially halving the impact of cutbacks in public transport. However, it is probable that three-quarters of the Central Gender Mainstreaming Unit's staff are women, so these figures should be taken with a pinch of salt.

So what, exactly, is Emerson satirizing besides himself and other conservatives? The idea that men, and men alone, caused the worldwide financial crisis.

In short, women were the driving force behind the greed, consumerism and materialism of the Celtic Tiger years and it was female employment that funded their oestrogen-crazed acquisitiveness.

Satire aside, it's a fair point — particularly in the United States, outrageous consumer spending and a lack of savings isn't limited to one gender. The banking crisis was touched off by the mortgage crisis and both contributed to the financial crisis that most economists had been predicting because of everyone's willingness to spend money they didn't actually have. There's little compelling evidence outside of stereotypes about how women and men supposedly innately act — as, obviously, they aren't trained by the financial sector's reward system to take risks to make profits — to suggest that removing men from the financial sectors would have headed off the financial crisis. While I think that it is a good idea to examine gender diversity in the financial sector (as well as most other sectors) and strive for more equitable representation in all industries, making male-dominated industries female ones for the sake of supposed innate traits of women is about as absurd as suggesting women leave the work force en masse to get men out of unemployment.

Working Women Almost Certainly Caused The Credit Crunch [Irish Times]
Would You Eve It? [The F Word]

Related: That's All Jokes [BBC]
Gender Mainstreaming [TESDA Women's Center]

Earlier: Could Women Have Saved The World?

There are fewer castings. The jobs pay less. Some friends who aren't already with agencies in New York, Paris, London or Milan are having trouble getting representation. Some friends who were represented in those places have been dropped, or told that they shouldn't bother coming to town for the shows. Some of the top names, including Coco Rocha, were missing from Paris couture week (which did not actually last a "week" but rather ran for three days); I wonder if it was because rates had fallen to a level that Rocha found untenable (but which a 23-year-old Ukrainian you've never heard of did not)? Ali Michaels is apparently sitting this whole season out.

And that's logical enough, because this fashion week, everyone's putting on a group show or a less-expensive presentation where models pose in a tableau vivant or even a showroom presentation that involves using only a couple girls who change into dozens of outfits each. Or not showing at all. Financial backers are in retrenchment. Some labels simply won't survive. A few weeks ago we learned Marc Jacobs was canceling his famous after-party; this morning came news that he's slashing the guestlist for his show by more than half.

If I could have one wish, it might be that news stories about fashion models losing income would not lead with canards about us getting free designer dresses and being paid $15,000 to walk on the runway. I can't imagine anyone who's not Naomi Campbell has ever, in the history of fashion, been able to ask that kind of a fee. What we're talking about here is, in 99% of cases, a matter of a dress, and, if you are very lucky, $100. Those dresses aren't "free", they're earnings. Models do shows for the luster, the allure of being seen by the right editor in the front row, the chance at getting enough buzz to book a campaign: it's hard to imagine buzz featuring highly in a fashion season defined mainly by its lack of after-parties and economic austerity.

This business has a more direct connection to consumers' whims than perhaps some others. As soon as people stop buying dresses, I get paid less to advertise them. Fashion is a tenuous concern at the best of times because it involves convincing women who earn a third less than men to spend $1200 on a dress to do certain things that perhaps include attracting the attention of men. As soon the light changes and that particular creative distribution of priorities takes on a sudden aspect of farce, consumer spending falls, and people get laid off or, in my self-employed case, have fewer opportunities to work for less money. It's that simple. So, yes, CNN Money and lady at that dinner, this crisis is real and it should be no surprise "even" models feel it.

Fashion Models Feel Financial Crunch [Reuters]
Ali Skips The Season [Fashionista]

Related: Revolutionary Thinking [Fashion Week Daily]
Monique Lhuillier And Naeem Khan Decide Against February Runway Shows [WSJ]
Iodice To Give Away Free Dresses Instead Of Staging Runway Show [WSJ]
Sass & Bide Drop Out Of New York Fashion Week [The Cut]

• The race for who will ultimately lose to New York Governor David Paterson's desire to appoint state Attorney General Andrew "Shucking And Jiving Is Not A Racist Phrase" Cuomo to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat is on! Bill Clinton, Nita Lowey and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are out, Caroline Kennedy might be in. [CNN, The Hill, New York Times, The New Republic]
• Senator Lisa Murkowski told Governor Sarah Palin not to even think about the 2010 primary, but plans to kick her designer-clad ass if she does. [Politico]
• Governor Bill McGrabbyhand Richardson will be your next Secretary of Commerce. [Washington Post]

• Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, imitating Clinton, Kennedy and Lowey, swears that he asked to not be considered by Obama for a Cabinet position.[LA Times]
• Al Franken might really be closing the gap in his never-ending race for Minnesota's Senate seat. [The Hill]
• A judge in Texas has thrown out the crazytown indictments against Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales, as if that were unexpected. [Huffington Post]
• The Canadian government is in turmoil because of the financial crisis, so the Prime Minister is going to try to get the Governor General to suspend Parliament while he cuts some commercials and this sounds all way more complicated than it probably needs to be. Hooray for the separation of powers. [Reuters]
• Still wondering why the financial crisis happened? Moe Tkacik digs out this little tidbit from the biography of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, when he tried to sell 19 financial sector CEOs on the Sarbanes-Oxley requirements that they sign off on their own financial statements: "I would resign rather than be expected to know everything that's going on in my company. It's just not tenable," said an unnamed financial-services CEO. "That's what I have a board for, that 's what I have a chief financial officer for. I simply can't be held responsible for what all of those people do." Well, I guess that explains it. [Slate]

• 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]

Trebay asked himself: "Was that Santa ornament really wearing camouflage, with a shotgun held to his torso and a dead mallard slung from his belt?" Of course he was! The ornaments may bring joy and color to the lives of shoppers, but the folks at Bronner's know that the tacky holiday crap they shill is, in fact, totally useless. "There is not a thing out there that anybody needs," Wayne Bronner, the president of Bronner’s, tells Trebay. But:

Not much on the sales floor at Bronner’s costs more than $10, [Bronner] said. "Even in times of economic turmoil, there comes a moment every fall when people look at the calendar and see that Christmas is still coming and it’s still on Dec. 25," added the company president, who that day had chosen from among his collection of novelty neckties one patterned with Christmas bulbs. "The $10 ornament that’s the perfect gift for Grandpa or Uncle Rob is not going to make or break anybody’s budget," he said.

And yet. The cold, hard truth is: You don't need this stuff. Trebay writes about the "150 different styles of nutcrackers; ornaments that said 'Merry Christmas' in 70 languages; display cases filled with ranks of sinister Hummel kiddies; 1,700 Precious Moments cherubs with woeful teardrop eyes; 500 Nativity sets from 70 nations; and Christmas balls in 6,000 styles" and it seems unjustifiably lavish. Christ himself didn't have a Christmas tree, and didn't he live in poverty? At a time of lay-offs, a weak U.S. dollar and general malaise, does spending hard-earned cash on sparkly do-dads make sense? Can a person — on a budget or with cash to burn — justify a glittery Elvis or Bigfoot ornament when the country is in financial crisis?

Excuse Me, Where’s Thanksgiving? [NY Times]

Earlier: 9 Really Weird Christmas Ornaments From Bronner's
9 More Weird Christmas Ornaments From Bronner's

Bair might have learned about politics at the feet of her political mentor and former boss, former Republican Presidential candidate and Senator from Kansas, Bob Dole, but she certainly doesn't sound like any hard-hearted partisan hack:

"This myth of all these people making sophisticated calculations and trying to game the system, that wasn't it," Ms. Bair says of the event [on avoiding foreclosure] hosted by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "These were just regular people, working families trying to hold onto their homes. They were scared and I saw a lot of fear on their faces, and I think that struck me more than anything."

Bair, unlike many a mortgage-holder and deregulation apologist, doesn't see an upside to putting more mortgagees on the street and boarding up more homes — a key part of Obama's recovery plan which calls for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures, if you've been paying attention.

Her willingness to consider what Obama likes to call a "Main Street bailout" focusing on distressed homeowners has gotten her in a little bit of hot water with the Administration that appointed her. While Camden Fine, the president and chief executive of the Independent Community Bankers of America, says of her, "She very likely will be the only agency head to come out of this crisis with an enhanced reputation," and Democratic Congressman and House Financial Services Committee Chair Barney Frank says, "She's shown you can be concerned about consumers and not skimp on your job as a regulator," she has fewer fans down by the White House. Bair's plan to use the resources of the FDIC to help homeowners has come under fire and is being re-written by White House aides, who are also resisting calls by Frank and Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) to put Bair officially in charge of managing the foreclosure crisis.

At the end of the day, too, she resists placing blame solely on homeowners or individuals that bit off more than they might have been able to chew:

Ms. Bair is optimistic that the U.S. will emerge from the current morass stronger than it was just a few years ago. Institutions and consumers were overleveraged, she says, and the current crisis should usher in a new era of "wise and prudent consumption" and a focus on the "basic notion of thrift."

"Getting back to basics, saving before you buy, thinking through expenditures, and not getting too deep into debt," Ms. Bair says. "We need to get back in touch with those cultural values."

Well, I mean, people were calling Obama un-American before the election. A Treasury Secretary that thinks saving and spending prudently is important is nearly as un-American as it gets (but in a good way).

Sheila Bair Tops The List [Wall Street Journal]
The 50 Women To Watch 2008 [Wall Street Journal]

MOE: Ok so THAT was fun... economic indicator time! I'm sitting in Starbucks and I had resigned myself to paying $10 for a crappy TMobile session, when it turns out they've changed Wifi partners and now AT&T is offering 2 hour blocks for $3.99, the price of a soy latte! How times change, okay, and speaking of Starbucks I think I'm going to be watching the returns in Boston with Barney Frank if anyone's interested in showing up to that. Dixville Notch will already be in bed natch! Landslide for Obama up there! Oh and did I mention that before I hit Boston I have to go to Philadelphia to cast my vote? And then the crappy AT&T Wifi service crapped out.

MEGAN: So you worked out the registration issue that got screwed up from the primaries? Good! Also, that sounds like quite the fun day of train rides, culminating with watching election returns with a seated Congressman. I will be live blogging for Jezebel. In preparation for it, last night I stopped by the grocery store and bought: 2 bottles of Guenoc Petite Sirah, one of cava, a six pack of beer and a bag of chips. I might have a friend over, or not if I don't feel like sharing. I'm already craving the salty chips.

MOE: Now I'm stealing Wifi and it is working better than the Wifi I legitimately clicked the "Terms & Conditions" box and PAID for. Yeah I called the hotline last night. They told me my polling place was at 23rd and Fitzwater!

MEGAN: Mine is around the corner, and has been for the last 5 years.

MOE: Yeah but you have to stand in line right? In Philly polling places are so small you rarely have to stand in line. It's like a few thousand Dixville Notches.

MEGAN: Well, I didn't wait in a line until 2006, when it was an hour wait in the morning and I gave up and decided to come back later but you should have seen the looks I got from people. I then managed to get caught in a deluge which caused three car accidents on the way home from work, ran into the polling place with 2 minutes to spare and there wasn't a line at all. I assume that, even though I will be voting mid-day, there will be a line. We are a swing state and all.

MOE: Hey so it turns out that the AT&T network just can't handle its traffic today. A guy came up to me and just informed me of this.

MEGAN: Great. It's like voting in a swing state, all fucked up. By the way, within the first 90 minutes of voting in Virginia, not one but two cities in Virginia were already having problems.

MOE: And we're back, on Gchat this time. Good thing I'm not voting by internet right??

MEGAN: I'm sure they'd find a way to make that even more fucked up than the system already is. And the system is pretty fucked up.

MOE: So, okay, there are many things to discuss. Many many things. And yet the whole topic feels so exhausted. Yesterday Rachel Maddow had Tim Pawlenty on her show and started grilling him about why McCain wasn't closing up the campaign by going out for Republican congressional candidates etc. etc. and you could tell even she wanted to tell herself to just give it a rest.

MEGAN: That's going to be a question a lot of Republicans start asking tomorrow, when the Dems are, at a minimum, in the high 50s in the Senate and way, way down in the House. I mean, $150,000 is a lot of radio ad time in, say, Tulsa.

MOE: Yeah, well, sure, but the Republican Party has bigger problems than that. As David Brooks captures. Contempt for government turns out to breed bad government! Which Republican Senators are losing btw? I haven't been paying attention ever since I sort of started to inherit Barney Frank's Senatitis.

MEGAN: Oh, gosh, Ted Stevens in Alaska, Liddy Dole in North Carolina and John Sununu in New Hampshire, for starters.

MOE: Right, I knew about them.

MEGAN: And then possibly Mitch McConnell, Roger Wicker, Saxby Chambliss and Norm Coleman.

MOE: I went to a Democratic dinner in NH with BF. Interestingly his favorite person in government is a longtime Dole loyalist, Sheila Bair of the FDIC. Have you written about her? There are few heroes in this financial crisis, but a wildly disproportionate number of them are heroines and she's one. (Also: Brooksley Born, Meredith Whitney, possibly Zoe Cruz.)

MEGAN: No, I have been all politics, all the time! Also, I forgot Gordon Smith in Oregon, because one generally always does. And there are 3 vacancies that the Republicans expect will be Democratic pick-ups. By the way, in case you were curious, Obama's grandmother's absentee ballot will be counted. Countdown to inappropriate Republican comment about a Chicago politician and dead people voting: T minus 2 minutes and counting.

MOE: Well I was going to say if you read one thing read this, but actually, just read that, people, it's nothing you don't sort of know about the crisis but it's horrifying nonetheless. There are parts of California where people who have been paying their mortgages for three and four years have been simultaneously watching their balances and monthly payments balloon while the values of their houses shrink to less than half their balances. It's insane. And anyone who buys, even to a teensy degree, the notion that "people without jobs were getting houses" and that's what got us here, ughhhhh.

MEGAN: Well, but, rich white people don't do things like that! The Wall Street Journal is biased! Of course it was the minorities! How can Ann Coulter be wrong??!!

MOE: What actually happened was people, in particular Hispanic people, were signing on to mortgages with such hair-raisingly exploitative terms it makes no sense in any fractionally-logical universe that anyone would extend such a loan. If not for the fact that none of the mortgage lenders actually every had to keep track of who they were lending to or whether they were paying!

MEGAN: Well, and the fact that some brokers weren't exactly good at things like "disclosure" and "layman's terms" and "honesty" and "integrity."

MOE: Yeah but forget honesty and integrity, I'm talking logical working capitalism here. I am a cynic, I am a skeptic, I sometimes call myself a Marxist, but the more I read about it the level of corruption and internal destructiveness allowed by the current system is actually astonishing.

MEGAN: Well, but ask Adam Smith, the basis of capitalism was supposed to be honesty and integrity. Without it, of course the system doesn't function. You can't have a functional market economy if it's all a zero-sum game of fucking over the other guy with every transaction, and trying to minimize the amount you get fucked over. People do business with one another assuming that they will get what they pay for, and that they will be paid. If that goes away, there's no longer an incentive to do honest business and it just devolves into chaos.

MOE: Well that's the invisible hand. Adam Smith never anticipated the credit default swap is one problem. And here's another thing: I really hate it when Republicans — notably Larry Lindsey, who I talked to the other day and is otherwise a stand-up guy — say stuff like "Don't buy stuff you don't understand…" A bigger part of this crisis — AIG — is that none of the SELLERS of this stuff understood what they were SELLING. In many cases the buyers knew better. And McCain — at the end of the day, he didn't need to pander to the base, which is what has been so sad about this. But better I suppose. It's almost as if their inane resurrection of Reagan era code words and talking points was in the cards all along, so we could sort of definitively put it all to bed. Although they are still screaming about socialism on CNBC.

MEGAN: If no one bought things they didn't understand, no one would invest their 401k's in the stock market in the first place.

MOE: What % of the Latin vote is going for Obama this time around?

MEGAN: McCain's numbers are down in the high teens, so I think 70-80 percent.

MEGAN: The Latino community isn't so keen on the Republican's "kick them all out" immigration policy.

MOE: That wasn't McCain's policy, poor guy. Too bad he couldn't remind any of them of that!

MEGAN: He could've reminded them of that, only he had to pander to the base that feels differently, so he pandered and then couldn't pivot.

MOE: Oh here's something about the strategic importance of Hispanic voters. And, not to belabor but the stock market was not the problem here. The stock market is like tic tac toe compared to the securities that caused this.

MEGAN: Well, but the point I was making was not whether stocks were the problem, it's that it was a stupid point. People buy stuff every day they don't understand.

MOE: Hispanics and youngs really got in at the tail end of this debt Ponzi. No, it's a stupid point, but it also has no validity whatsoever.

• 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]

MEGAN: It's Friday, and I am sooooo looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

LATOYA: You know, I must say, it is really nice to have a four day workweek. There's always a three day weekend. But don't worry — my spot is a non profit, and we're advocating for everyone to have a 4 hour work week! We should succeed in a few years, faster if the economy implodes and we convince businesses that happy, productive employees need Friday off and full benefits.

MEGAN: I like your ideas, but somehow I have this chorus running through my head.

LATOYA: Blows kisses. But I still love you Megan!

MEGAN: I am too grumpy in the morning to love almost anyone. I'll love you, too, at about 11:30.

LATOYA: Whatever — we need to spread some love around. Did you see the news? East Asia is looking to set up a funding block to protect themselves from financial crisis.

MEGAN: Ahh, the sweet siren song of capital controls! Nicolas Sarkozy will probably point to that as a reason to re-think Bretton Woods.

LATOYA:

East Asian nations have pledged to set up an $80bn (£51.2bn; 63.6bn euros) swap scheme by mid-2009 to help protect the region from financial turmoil. The move by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is backed by South Korea, China and Japan. Countries could borrow directly from the fund in times of emergency, to boost liquidity. The meeting comes as 43 European and Asian leaders meet in China to discuss how to tackle the financial crisis.

See, this is why we need friends. Rugged individualism isn't going to put 80bn in a pot for us to share. Where the hell is the coalition of the willing? Can we get some help?

MEGAN: Isn't it starting to seem like rather than try to prevent the inevitable from happening — and rather ineffectively — we should start planning for how to get out of it? Like, put some of our money toward that?

LATOYA: It's like Dubya read How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, thinking it was Carnegie's book.

MEGAN: The coalition of the willing told us to go fuck ourselves about the time that McCain declared diplomatic war on Spain (if not far earlier).

LATOYA: One would think it's time to reevalaute how we — as a government and as a nation — view money, investments, solvency, humans and capital.

MEGAN: Workers are a fundamental of the American economy, and they are strong. Strong enough, one hopes, to survive unemployment and a recession, but since they'll still be strong we can totes not call it that. It's a mental recession, for a nation of whiners that are nonetheless fundamental and strong.

LATOYA: That's a lot of strength there. But, umm, can we drop the bullshit for a second.

MEGAN: Is that allowed? It's a Presidential campaign.

LATOYA: See, unlike a maverick (which I learned from my friend Alyssa Quart is an unbranded calf), I am a patriot. I shocked the hell out of my friends by admitting this — they wanted to put me in rehab.

MEGAN: You only love the Fake America, though.

LATOYA: But I really do love my country. And I do believe that America is destined for greatness, if we can stop letting asswipes who fear every little thing stay in charge.

MEGAN: Well, then this might make you happy: the GOP is expecting to lose between 11 and 23 House seats, including Bachmann.

LATOYA: Courtney (of Feministing) has this cool interview on Alternet with Deborah Stone who wrote The Samaritan's Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor?. I think this interview gets at part of the reason why the GOP is imploding. Basically put, this mess isn't working. I know no one wants to pay more taxes. I sure don't, and Joe the Plumber isn't gonna no matter what. But seriously — an educated workforce with basic needs taken care of benefits everyone.

MEGAN: It's an interesting argument, actually. Adam Smith argued that the market and competition fostered trust and interdependence, and that's the basis of a lot of capitalist/democratic theory. But the way this has played out, you sorta gotta wonder about whether that's true. Even economists recognize the value of social goods, though conservatives like to forget it and whine about eliminating the Department of Education.

LATOYA: And with as much money America has, it's shameful that so many of us working (fake or real) American citizens have to hustle and scratch for the basics — and for what? Yeah, Adam Smith's work gets so perverted sometimes. They just pick the parts they like (endless consumption!) and jettison the parts they don't (accountability!) The interview gets really good here:

CEM: You argue that conservative leaders — especially Reagan — have convinced American voters that interdependence is weak and shameful and that rugged individualism is realistic. You also show the ways in which joyful interdependence plays out around us constantly in our personal lives. Why, given our everyday experiences of altruism, did we take to the notion that it was weak writ large?

DS: Partly, I think, the conservative notion of freedom (not having to do anything you don't choose to do) taps into the painful truth of human development. Each of us grows from a helpless, dependent and powerless creature to a reasonably competent and independent adult with a high degree of autonomy. From our teen years on, we savor that freedom from adult control, even as we watch our elders sometimes become frail and revert to childlike dependence. Perhaps that's why it's easy for leaders to evoke terror and shame in us by speaking of dependence.

Partly, too, our culture celebrates individual achievement. Even team sports hype their MVP awards. From the time we're born, when our parents get our Apgar scores of infant health, we are constantly subjected to measures of our individual merits — athletic abilities, intellectual abilities, job performance and financial accumulations. Schools emphasize individual accomplishment, and teachers punish collaboration as "cheating." When parents, schools, employers and others reward people for individual achievement, this way of thinking pushes interdependence into the background of everyone's consciousness. We begin to believe that individuals can do it all on their own if they try hard enough, and we lose sight of all the ways people get help all the time.

MEGAN: Yeah, I haven't lived at home or been financially supported by my parents since I was 18, and even then I had to buy my own shit with the money I could make off of umpiring and temping.

LATOYA: Right — so I don't want to hear that try hard shit. I did. And I do well for myself. But goddamn it, we need more.

MEGAN: Plenty of people try hard and still don't get much of anywhere. And some people don't try at all and get to go places you and I will never be.

LATOYA: Exactly. Like the Real Housewives of ATL.

MEGAN: I was having this conversation over the weekend about my grad school, which was chock full of people from money, many of whom had never gotten a paycheck. And I was working 2 internships — one paid and one unpaid — to make enough money to pay rent and have stuff on my resume that wasn't "Assistant Systems Administrator," so I was always going to class in business clothes (from Marshalls, mostly) because I was going to or coming from work. And I found out later that everyone just thought I was fancy — it didn't occur to people that I was working.

LATOYA: Yeah, some people really don't understand that you can't just ask your parents for money to cover things sometimes because your folks don't have it.

MEGAN: Many of those people have way more money than I can imagine, and it's not because they had bootstraps.

LATOYA: And a lot of people in power willfully shut their eyes to this. We're not saying "take money from the ungrateful rich and redistribute it to the deserving poor." That's a load of fucking bullshit. We're saying, if people with means chip in a bit more and help out those with less, we will all be far better off.

MEGAN: Also, it's a progressive tax system, motherfuckers, it actually exactly means that if you make more money, you're supposed to pay more taxes. (Sorry, I finally saw the "I'm Joe the Plumber" commercial last night and nearly threw my beer at the TV when that came up)

LATOYA: The fate of a nation falls to all of us — not just those with means. And so if we only consider the needs of those with means, while blindly hoping that one day we will have more means and be rich, we have put ourselves in a precarious position. I'm so over this fake class war though.

MEGAN: I'm over wars in general.

LATOYA: Not the stratification of wealth — that's real — but the manufactured Joe the Plumber bullshit. Luckily for us, it appears that the modern conservative movement is cannibalizing itself so maybe we can have a real conversation about these issues once the election is over with.

MEGAN: Also, it's a little ironic that a conservative talk radio station collected money from listeners to pay his back taxes. Apparently, it IS patriotic to pay more in taxes to help others, as long as it's a white dude who makes $250,000 a year.

LATOYA: See, look at that — a classic example of tribalism, right there. Where's Pat Buchanan's outrage over that? Oh wait, I forgot — it's only tribalism when someone else is doing it. I do hope the GOP implodes and recreates though. You can't have a debate with the willfully stupid and all the smart conservatives are kind of just drifting right now.

MEGAN: Pat Buchanan's outrage is reserved for Colin Powell.

LATOYA: It's like they can't believe what's happening either. (Oh, and like Colin Powell gives a shit what Pat Buchanan thinks. That mofo needs to sit down. The only reason I tolerate him is because he is wealth of comedy for Rachel Maddow.)

MEGAN: It's the fundamental problem with the coalition they built, and with the voters they've encouraged this year. They are the know Know-Nothing party.

LATOYA: Yeah - look at this Jonah Goldberg douchnozzle.

MEGAN: Fucking Jonah Goldberg needs to stop wearing too-tight lace thongs, because they are obviously riding up and cutting off the blood to his brain.

LATOYA: Let's revisit the obvious here. People who aren't affected by racism don't need to comment on when it is or isn't happening? How the fuck would you know?

MEGAN: Well, it's unfair to say that Jonah is unaffected by racism, since he's a racist. It affects him daily.

LATOYA: No, he affects other people with his abject ignorance.

MEGAN: Oh, but dontcha know, racism is just a "false memory."

Instead, Obama has set off a case of full-blown race dementia among precisely the crowd that swears Obama is leading us out of the racial wilderness. Rather than shrink, the tumor of racial paranoia is metastasizing, pressing down on the medulla oblongata or whatever part of the brain that, when poked, causes one to hallucinate, conjure false memories and write astoundingly insipid things.

We're all just paranoics, and we should sit down, shut up, smile and pretend that everything in America is hunky-dory. This, however, is the most blindingly stupid and offensive line of the piece: "[Barack Obama] explicitly chose to have a racial identity when he didn’t have to..."

LATOYA: I've been searching my site for that story where the dude burned a cross on someone's lawn and his mom tried to argue that it wasn't racially motivated or that time when we had to post about racial code words since blacks were getting called "reggins" at work (that's nigger, backwards, for those of y'all still sleeping) but it's all there. All our stuff on identity is there, it is obvious that racism isn't a problem that goes away by people not talking about it.

MEGAN: All not talking about it does is allow people like Jonah Goldberg to not get called out for being racist.

LATOYA: When has that ever worked? Can I ignore my fucked up credit and tell a creditor that my BoA bill was in the past and we all need to move on? No — we have to deal with that shit. And the sooner people like Jonah Goldberg shut the fuck up and get out of our way, the better.

MEGAN: Holy hell, is it morning again?

LATOYA: That it is. The theme for today is "King of Rock" by Run-DMC. Sucka emcees should call me sire! You can't see me, but I'm doing the wop at my desk

MEGAN: I am sitting on the couch I woke up passed out on. Still.

LATOYA: Ooooh — how was Happy Hour?

MEGAN: It was the hours after the happy part that did me in.

LATOYA: Ha — girl, know your limits. I'll join you next time, but I subscribe to the "drunk or sexy" school of thought. The goal is normally to either get fucked up, or sip and be pretty all night and I dress accordingly. I'm generally a sipper though, warning you now. Anyway, on to the news. The news has apparently caught on to the fact that we young'uns are bored with the election and just want it to end.

"By historical standards, the level of interest is extremely high across all ages. But those under 35 are much less likely to be tracking the election closely," Hawkeye Poll Director David Redlawsk said in a statement. "This suggests they're less engaged — and perhaps less likely to turn out, because those who pay attention are more likely to vote."

MEGAN: That's the ADD generation for you. They are not going to be happy if no one is declared the winner before Jon Stewart comes on. Also, I don't know that "not paying attention to the minutiae of the campaign" translates to "not going to vote." Maybe they're already decided and don't give a shit whether Sarah Palin spent $150 or $150,000 on her suits. Or, for that matter, how Obama is spending $150 million.

LATOYA: What Hawkeye is missing though is that us young'uns are also early adopters — and most of us have been riding this election since '07. We're just tired. And last time I checked we were 2 to 1 Obama. We just want to vote and get it over with. Oh, and I second that — if there is no winner for Jon Stewart and Stephen Corbert to mock, I'm going to bed early.

MEGAN: No one is more tired than me this morning. I need a vacation that lasts longer than intoxication, which is just a mini-vacation from Reality.

LATOYA: Yeah, we don't care. (And you do need a vacation.) We have other things to worry about, like losing our jobs because the economy is in the toilet. Fuck Joe the Plumber, can I hear from Lucy the HR Coordinator?

MEGAN: Lucy the HR Coordinator says update your resume and for God's sake spell-check the motherfucker.

LATOYA: Word.

MEGAN: Also, was there anything stupider to come out of anyone's mouth this week than to hear Sarah Palin say "Tito the Builder"? I don't know why I laughed so hard, but I did.

LATOYA: I must have missed that one, but now I'm perplexed. What did she says about this alleged "Tito?"

MEGAN: Tito got into a fight with a journalist at a campaign rally, but he might or might not still vote for Obama. Or McCain. He won't say, but he's mad as hell about Joe the Plumber. He might be a little crazy.

LATOYA: Can we please put some sane people on TV? And when I say sane, I mean "people who act like they got some sense."

MEGAN: Sane people don't make for good TV! Also, by the way, Tito's friend at the end thinks that an Obama win means Armageddon is coming.

LATOYA: Yeah, what else is new? The Armageddon has been on the way since 999. You know what should be on the news?

MEGAN: More Obama dancing?

LATOYA: This discussion Michelle Singletary is hosting:

Personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary hosts an online discussion with Gary Weiss, author of "Wall Street Versus America: A Muckraking Look at the Thieves, Fakers, and Charlatans Who Are Ripping You Off," on Thursday, Oct. 23 at Noon ET.

MEGAN: Michelle's good, but she's so anti-debt she's against student loans and many mortgages, which is easy to say and FAR less easy to do.

LATOYA: Well, she's justifiably anti-debt. Depression era Big Momma's probably aren't playing on that front. Either way, she still has sense.

MEGAN: No, totally, I think her work is a good place to start, and I think the media on the financial crisis hasn't done a good job of communicating how it affects average Americans and what you can do to avoid ending up in a bad place.

LATOYA: Nope, they haven't. I need to keep tabs on Dubya though. No one is paying attention but this bama is still technically in charge for a few more months.

MEGAN: "Technically" is right.

LATOYA: I found out through a BBC Feed Bush is inviting the world's leaders to come and chat about the crisis. Since life imitates high school, this one is VIP Only:

The summit would be the first of a series announced after talks between Mr Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and EU Commission chief Manuel Barroso.

But the agenda is unclear and differences are already emerging.

Mr Bush said any plan must not undermine free markets. Mr Sarkozy said "hateful practices" must be abandoned.

Looks like Sarkozy is going to be banned from the cool kids table. And can we drop the free market bullshit? We don't have a free market if you can rig the game!

MEGAN: Well, he did say last week that we should reconsider the Bretton Woods agreement, which is the underpinnings of the sort-of-free movement of capital and the intellectual start of the WTO which lowered tariffs. But, Bush is the guy who just nationalized our financial services industry. I think they'll still manage to find something to talk about.

LATOYA: It's not nationalization when we do it. It's smart practices. When other nations do it, it's hindering the free market. sigh We need to switch topics, because I'll be on this for days. I'll start breaking out summary papers and abstracts.

MEGAN: I'm there with you! But, we could talk about Obama's trip to see his grandma. He seems like he comes from a really nice family and I kind of completely want to hang with his sister.

LATOYA: We could. His life just seems so damn normal. I don't understand how people keep saying "they can't relate" to the Obamas. I know that nonwhites have been completely otherized in this country, but I just can't see how after eighteen months of campaigning, pictures, photo ops, investigative articles, and the like, people keep saying crap like "I don't know him." It's not that you don't know him - you just don't want to see who he really is.

MEGAN: I think it is about him being so "other." Like, I think it's sort of hilarious and fucked up that white people think that there is some kind of "being black" that is so intrinsic to the fundamental identity of African-Americans in this country in a way that "being white" is not that it trumps every other identity (husband, father, brother, grandson, Senator, candidate) that a given African-American person has — because, really, as an Official White Person, I really, really, really rarely think about "white" when thinking about my identity. And I think the white people who do believe it probably do add "white" into their identity and think about it more and think about how it separates them from The Others and not in a good, introspective way.

LATOYA: I don't thinks whites think "white" — many of them think "normal" and that's what contributes to the othering.

MEGAN: For the record, I don't think "normal" because most people I know are nearly as fucked up as I am.

LATOYA: That's why you hear people say things like "I don't have race" or "I don't have a culture" — they do, it's just been normalized into the default, and everyone else has been pushed outside of this boundary.

MEGAN: Normal people are "other" to me. But I also think that you're right about the idea that "white" is conflated with "normal."

LATOYA: It is. And it's sad because now the Obama's have to go above and beyond to prove they are an All-American wholesome family when really, that's just what they are.

MEGAN: Because, really, on some level, Obama is super-normal, and yet some people continue to see him and his intact nuclear family and 2-income household as somehow different from their experiences. The thing is that there is no All-American wholesome family, we're a society riddled with divorces, broken homes, step-parents and general dysfunctionality. Maybe that's why the Obamas seem so abnormal: they're the normal we're told is normal and everyone else is just fucked up.

MEGAN: I am sitting here watching CNBC and drinking coffee, which I don't normally do. By the way, the economy: still fucked.

LATOYA: Lucky you — I'm already in the office. I know the economy is still fucked — why do you think I'm here? I think we need to chill for the long haul on this one. It's gonna be a while, new stimulus package or no.

MEGAN: I love, by the way, that John McCain is all like, "Obama just wants to throw money at problems like education and special needs kids!" and in the meantime, he's all Mr. New Spending. And Republicans are shoveling money at the market faster than they shovel bullshit at the American people.

LATOYA: Yeah, some free market this is. I didn't know some people got a string to pull if you fucked up. Looks like Bernake's ProBama.

MEGAN: This is what happens when you tell reporters that the economy isn't your strong suit and the economy goes to shit. Also, insulting your opponent by calling him a Socialist while the government is busy nationalizing entire industries and you're calling for the government to, in effect, buy the mortgage rights to have the country is not good either. Bob Schieffer knows that most Republicans are privately Pro-bama these days, they're just too scared to say. It's just the mouth-breathers who don't actually have to, like, work in the government that are all like JOHN AND SARAH OH MY GOD I LOVE THEM SO.

LATOYA: Details, Megan, Details Is it just me that's hoping for a reverse Bradley effect?

MEGAN: If I prayed, I'd pray for one.

LATOYA: Don't waste your prayer on that. The specter of election '00 still haunts us.

MEGAN: Well, I mean, She's supposedly omnipotent, right?

LATOYA: If this comes down to the Supreme Court, I want everyone on this: protest, prayers, fertility dances. I don't give a damn what you do, do it in the Obama direction.

MEGAN: I'm up for a fertility dance, even if it means I have to be celibate for a month.

LATOYA: Nah, you have to stick with the prayers. We have to counteract the scared evangelicals.

MEGAN: Awww, poor babies, once they've denounced him, called him godless, passed around rumors that he's a Muslim and campaigned against him, they're worried he won't talk to them about their conservative, intolerant social agenda? Color me sad.

LATOYA: It's only unfair when you're losing. I'm just concerned they'll call up the ghost of Jerry Falwell.

MEGAN: Oh, right. I mean, it's his duty to represent all the people in the United States, sort of like it was George Bush's duty.

LATOYA: Define "people". Obviously, some of us who aren't here yet count more than those of us who are here, so maybe they just are counting most of us heathens.

MEGAN: Well, I think that by "people" they mean "those of them that are saved" and so that's anything that's in our uteri, and (white) evangelicals. Other than that, um, oh, wait, I think Bush had Chalabi's back for a while when he went to invade Iraq.

LATOYA: Then again, maybe it isn't the extreme set that we should be worried about. Someone shot a bear cub in the head and dropped some Obama campaign tags over its dead body. Now, there are multiple layers of fucked up in that mix and the story doesn't have many details yet. But that is just sick and disgusting.

MEGAN: Also, I think we need an alibi for Sarah Palin. She was just in North Carolina.

LATOYA: Ha — you can handle that. I'm watching how Obama is leaving the campaign trail to visit his sick grandma. It's the little things that get to me in this election, it really is.

MEGAN: I mean, if they sent her home from the hospital last week, and she's that ill, she's probably in hospice care.

LATOYA: Perhaps. I hope she gets well.

MEGAN: I hope for his sake that he gets there in time, and that he's taking Sasha and Malia.

LATOYA: See, I can't even read a sweet story like that without getting pissed. On one hand you have a family man, someone in a partnership with his wife, a thinking politician, someone who has seen the best and worst of America and wants to serve us anyway...

MEGAN: I mean, his spokesman all but said she's not going to get better. It sucks that she won't get to vote for her grandson. And it probably sucks more that if she votes absentee, some Republican will probably object.

LATOYA: Sigh. Moving on. Oh, did you hear? We apparently hate real Americans. Because obviously, we are fake Americans. This isn't news to me — we talk about how PoC are marginalized in America all day every day at my spot — but I thought you would want to know.

MEGAN: Well, that's good to know, at least. If I'm disenfranchised at the polls in two weeks, at least I'll know why. So, am I to assume there's a new God test for citizenship? Do I have to swear fealty to a particular brand of God to vote? Are they going to make me submit to a lie detector to make sure I really believe in God?

LATOYA: Oh, it gets better:

Warming up a crowd in North Carolina Saturday, Republican Rep. Robin Hayes offered the diagnosis that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

His remarks came shortly after he had said he would “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.”

Hayes had followed Rep. Patrick McHenry, also a North Carolina Republican, who laid out the choice between McCain and Obama.

“It’s like black and white,” yelled someone from the crowd.

You just can't make this shit up. You really can't.

MEGAN: I love how that shit is a) not stupid and b) not something he doesn't mean. Really, can we just pick somewhere for them all to go on November 6th?

LATOYA: Mars?

MEGAN: Perfect! And since it takes 3 years to get there, they won't be back until 2014. I think that's a good plan.

LATOYA: We should tell them real Americans set up camp on Mars.

MEGAN: No, we should tell them that God has called them to journey there, just like God called Moses to lead the Jews out of Egypt. Charlton Heston already left! Outer space is the new desert.

LATOYA: It so is. Mars is red, the Red Sea — we could totally sell this. This is shaping up to be a tough week for McCain. He's running out of cash (down to $47 million!) and he's breaking up with Colin Powell.

MEGAN: I'm actually surprised he has $47 million left when he only had $84 to start. But, then I read about Meg Whitman giving almost $100,000 despite donation "limits" that McCain's supposed campaign finance reform put into place and I'm not that surprised anymore.

LATOYA: I would say something about saving and fiscal responsibility, but it just looks like creative loopholing. I find it interesting that McCain is shocked Colin Powell didn't call.

MEGAN: I mean, why does no one but me point out that McCain wrote the loopholes?

LATOYA: Makes sense though. That's how he knows what to use. I'm still on the McCain/Powell break up. Maybe Powell didn't feel like being called Judas. That title was already flexed on Gov. Richardson. Or maybe Sarah drove a rift in their relationship. Hmmm...

MEGAN: Given how leaky McCain's organization is — as evidenced by no less than 3 staffers telling CNN they're giving up on Colorado — I'm not totally surprised. Plus, when do you think the last time was that McCain called him up? With all the whispers for weeks that Powell was thinking about breaking it off, why wouldn't John call him and be like, Colin, baby, I'm sorry, I've been really busy, let me buy you a drink when this is all over...? Especially since they weren't in an exclusive relationship.

LATOYA: Does Colin Powell have a Facebook page? Maybe John should have checked their status. Telephone is so pre-2000. Maybe Colin sent him a "TTYL" and he just stopped paying attention. I guess after 25 years, the thrill is gone. It's the end of a bromance. We should send him a CD. Or at least email Meghan McCain, have her post "How Come You Don't Call Me" in his honor

MEGAN: Powell's all about "You Don't Own Me."

LATOYA: LOL — "Don't tell me what to say!"

MEGAN: "Don't say I can't go with other boys!"

LATOYA: "Just let me be myself...that's all I ask of you!"

MEGAN: In my head, Colin Powell is, crying, singing this into his hairbrush like Bridget Jones, slightly drunk.

LATOYA: "I'm free — and I love to be free!" See, now that's going to be stuck in my head all day!

MEGAN: I'm a terrible person, I apologize.

LATOYA: Good Morning, Sunshine!

MEGAN: I watched the sun rise this morning, and not in the hot stayed-out-all-night kind of way, but rather in the "shivering in the cold waiting for a dog to pee" kind of way, and I liked it about as much as it sounds like I did. I get the sense that you are more of a morning person than me.

LATOYA: That I am! I tend to wake up around this time anyway — but, look on the bright side. I start falling asleep during prime club hours, so there's a darkside to morning chipperness.

MEGAN: Even my friend's dog was all like, you really want to walk me this early? Ho-kay, if you insist. And he's already back to sleep.

LATOYA: Hahaha — you can join him soon. Let's start with the pride and joy of my Sunday — Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama. Meet the Press never sounded sweeter to my ears.

MEGAN: Except that even my mom last night — who doesn't watch it — was like, can you believe that Rush Limbaugh says it's just because he's black? It's starting to get a little amusing, she's got this growing mental list of all our relatives and neighbors who listen to Rush Limbaugh because they've started admitting to it, and I can practically hear her crossing names off her Christmas card list. She is so offended that people she knows buy his crap, almost like she didn't really know that actual non-crazy-seeming people listen to him. What I want to know is: does this mean every white person that supports McCain is just doing it because they're both white? Are only Michael Steele, J.C. Watts and every white person that backs Obama racially justified?

LATOYA: It only counts when minorities do it — white people obviously have in-depth reasoning skills, the likes of which we pigmented folks do not have. And seriously? Can we talk about how racist that assumption is? People are going to try and act like it's just Rush Limbaugh talking crazy, but come on now — I know you've been hearing the same thing I'm hearing. I get at least one comment a day (that is insta-deleted) where they want to say something like "blacks are the real racists — 90% of them are voting for Obama!" Yeah, that's right. And 90% of us voted for Clinton. And 88% of us voted for Kerry. Only 10% of Blacks are Republican.

MEGAN: Oh, right, God knows there would be NO FUCKING REASON for African-Americans to ever vote for Obama otherwise, y'all would totes be voting for McCain if the Democrats had a white candidate. Or, you know, not.

LATOYA: For real — I mean, Colin could have broke out a thesis statement on the trends of presidents and vice presidents in this country, and a detailed evaluation of his own voting records, alongside a side-by-side analysis of McCain and Obama's platforms with his comments in red ink - and someone would have still been like "yeah, he just voted for the black guy."

MEGAN: Fuck class warfare, wtf is up with those people thinking there's a race war going on?

LATOYA: They're a little early with calls for a race war. They call us minorities for a reason.

MEGAN: Well, I don't want to be on their side, obviously.

LATOYA: Most of us aren't dumb — like Chris Rock said, there's a LOT of white folks out there. We might be able to reclaim Chocolate City, and a couple towns here and there, but we'd lose the war. Uh -oh, Megan — you can't go switching sides now. You got drafted.

MEGAN: Fuck drafted! I swear, my family has been in this country for long enough, there's no way that there's not some non-white in me somewhere.

LATOYA: You know the Army of Joe Six Pack doesn't cotton with quitters!

MEGAN: Joe Sex-Pack will get drunk on his Genny Creme Ale and I will sneak off. Uh, Freudian slip there.

LATOYA: Ha — I noticed. Yeah, I'm sure you can play the one drop rule to your advantage.

MEGAN: Hell, they would. They wouldn't want me, anyway. Rush Limbaugh makes my Tourette's act up. He speaks and I'm all like "Fuckity fuck fuck FUCK!"

LATOYA: But speaking of Joe Sixpack — uh, did we ever find out who this person is? We outed Joe the Plumber. Now I wanna see Joe Six Pack.

MEGAN: Joe Six Pack is they guy with the beer belly, sitting on his porch smoking a Winston and drinking said six pack by himself while listening to Rush Limbaugh and muttering under his breath. No microbrews for him! No elitist bottles! Down with the fancy beer conspiracy! He likes his good old American Molson!

LATOYA: The Kitchen Table blog has some good insight on this. Dr. Yolanda Pierce writes:

"When only Joe Six Pack becomes the target audience for political commercials, tax cuts, legislation, and economic incentives, we ignore the fact that most of this nation does not fit this profile. And finally, we ignore the fact that despite the rhetoric, none of our current political candidates currently fit the Joe Six Pack mode, although some of them have come from humble beginnings. When Sarah Palin indicated that her retirement portfolio lost $20,000 in one week (which means there was much more in there to begin with), she lost her street credentials as a Joe Six Pack wife.

She also mentions she thought "six pack" was slang for abs, but obviously that is out the window in '08.

MEGAN: Yeah, um, Sarah Palin ain't talking about the guy who spends hours at the gym to perfect his abs, though I'd be she would "tolerate" him. She's talking about the guy who drinks 'em. Oh, should we go for verisimilitude? I got my retirement account statement in the mail this weekend. Shall we see in real time how much I lost?

LATOYA: Yes, let's! Help me assuage my guilt over not funding my retirement account yet. (Bad, lazy, self employed consultant!) Then again, maybe just keeping that money liquid was a good idea.

MEGAN: Okay, to put it into context, this is my 401k from two jobs ago, and I only worked there 7 months. I have 80% in stocks, 15% in bonds and 5% in a money market. I lost $326.27. (That's just third quarter, I'm down 20% YTD.)

LATOYA: Ow. Though I would say that if you lost $4. Losing things is not fun, especially when it's money

MEGAN: But that is a Joe Six Pack amount of loss, thank you very much Sarah Palin. It's fake money, I can't even touch it for another 40 years unless Obama wins. Ahem.

LATOYA: Oh boy. Maybe you need a second job. You know, whatever's left at this point. Keep telling yourself that.

MEGAN: That is how I'm not crying. I don't want to know how much my other 401k lost, that's where most of my money is. Also, how happy am I that I was too lazy to take my accountant's advice last fall and start a new 401k? By the way, that means Sarah and Todd had about $150,000+ in their retirement account, assuming equal rates of loss. I'm betting they had more though.

LATOYA: It's ok — you love capitalism. No pain, no gain! If the markets fall, it's all part of the process. You aren't some dirty rotten socialist! Woman up!

MEGAN: I might be a closet Muslim, though! I love, by the way, the way that no one says aloud what this is supposed to indicate:

But some of the other older white diners looked surprised and slightly uncomfortable as Obama stopped at their tables to shake hands. “I’m surprised, but I’m not going to say anything else,” said Pat Smith, who was joined by her husband.

A group of six retired women said they were mostly Democrats — but mostly undecided about how to vote.

“I have to pray about it, think about what’s best for our country,” said Dorothy Buie, one of the women

That's code for "uncomfortable shaking hands with a black man."

LATOYA: Umm-hmm — if you've been paying attention, is clear what's best for our country. Major thinking conservatives are breaking with their own party. All you got left is the people who will drive America into hellfire and hatred headfirst. But no, no - stay afraid of the black man. It's ok — no one needed that commie healthcare scheme anyway.

MEGAN: Who needs health care when you can have tax cuts!

LATOYA: If you can't reach health insurance with your bootstraps, you don't need it!

• McCain and his staff have smartly given up trying to win an electoral mandate and are pursuing a "narrow-victory strategy." What that means is that they have no intention of doing anything other than personally attacking Obama for the next 18 days in order to freak people out that they can squeak out an Electoral College victory rather than a popular one. You know, like in 2000. [NY Times]
• Which is probably why Sarah Palin is flouncing around telling people that they prefer the "real America" which everyone who isn't voting for John McCain isn't a part of. [Huffington Post]
• If that wasn't clear enough for you, Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann called for an investigation into the un-American activities of all self-professed liberals. [Think Progress]

• And a Palin supporter beat up a reporter at a rally for having the audacity to report that there were protesters around outside. "Real" America FTW. [News & Record]
• The United State Supreme Court effectively stopped the Ohio GOP's efforts to throw 200,000 voters off the rolls before election day. [Huffington Post]
• Conservative talk show host Lee Rodgers thinks that "many of the women who are professed leaders of the feminist movement in this country, and they're a bunch of hags. They couldn't get laid in a men's prison, let's be honest about it." How long do we think it's been since Lee Rodgers got laid? I mean, without paying for it, obviously, that doesn't count. [Media Matters]
• Oh, and French President Nicky Sarkozy is suggesting that it may be time to renegotiate Bretton Woods. Sarah Palin said, "Ooh, I'd bet Todd would be a good logger" and all of France simultaneously smacked their foreheads and went to church to pray for an Obama win. [Washington Post]

• P.U.M.A. hunter Katie Halper put together a campaign commercial for John McCain so that his female supporters all understand what they're voting for — including unequal pay, a lack of reproductive choice and half-assed health insurance coverage. Politics starts at home, ladies. [Katie Halper]
• Actual McCain staffers and Sarah Palin are trying to convince John McCain to open up Wright debate again because — as Sarah said yesterday — they've got nothing to lose. McCain, however, still likes his dignity some, so they're sneaking around behind his back to find other people to fund it. [Politico, CBS]
• Yes, of course, Obama is totally prepped to talk about Ayers tonight. He's probably prepped to talk about Wright, too, if it comes to that. [Chicago Tribune]
• McCain's been prepping, too, if this leaked debate prep video is anything to go by. Join in on my liveblog (thread starts at 7:30 ET, I start blogging at 9:00 ET) to see if he takes any of their advice! [The Jed Report]

• Wonder Woman Linda Carter thinks Sarah Palin is the anti-Wonder Woman, calling her "judgmental and dictatorial" and suggesting that Hillary Clinton is more the W.W. archetype. Go Linda Carter! [The Hill]
• Apparently, since Colin Powell is now a confirmed African-American, having announced it at a rally in Africa, Fox News is ready to guarantee that he's going to endorse Obama. There's nothing racist about that, though, nope, not at all. Don't you know all black people do everything together? [Washington Independent]
• Kansas Senator Pat Robert's Democratic opponent, Jim Slattery, has a new ad that makes it look like Wall Street is pissing on us little people. That's kind of what it feels like some days. [Attackerman]
• With another stock sell-off on Wall Street, today was one of those days. [NY Times]

• Barack Obama's economic plan is out and it has: $3,000 tax credit to businesses for hiring new people; penalty-free access to your retirement savings; the elimination of taxes on unemployment benefits; more money for automakers (of course); and a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures. Like Kix, it's kid-tested and mother-approved. [NY Times]
• McCain's got his plans, too, which include: Obama's no-tax unemployment benefits; a reduction in your capital gains tax as though your stock has gained in value since you bought it; and tax breaks for only old people on tapping their retirement savings. I mean, I guess that is his main constituency, but still. [Washington Post]
• Speaking of McCain's core constituency, someone else yelled "Kill him!" at a Palin rally today. [Politico]
• And if we want to talk about who is pallin' around at terrorists, someone should ask why the head of McCain's transition team was pallin' around with Saddam Hussein. Fair's fair, folks. [Washington Independent]

• Sarah Palin told Rush Limbaugh she was "nothing to lose" these days, so she plans to continue her ill-founded attacks on Obama rather than talking about the issues she keeps mixing up the talking points about. [Huffington Post]
• Christopher Buckley, conservative son of National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr., announced that he was going to be voting for Barack Obama given John McCain's being a big dick now and not acting like a small government conservative, so the National Review told him to piss off because differing opinions aren't welcome in the GOP these days. Just ask Kathleen Parker. [Daily Beast, Daily Beast]
• To Buckley's point, McCain's campaign found yet another area of government spending they don't really intend to subject to a freeze when they take office. If you're keeping track, it's now defense spending, homeland security spending, veterans spending and science spending that they're not going to freeze, but there are still 3 weeks until the elections. [The Hill]
• And, by the way, the bailout plan is no longer voluntary for banks. Nine so far have been told they will be participating in it. Nothing like a little nationalizing power to make a Republican Treasury Secretary forget his free market "principles." [Washington Post]

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]