• On Sunday, Michelle Wie won her first LPGA tour title. This was her 65th LPGA tour event, and while she had finished second six times, she had never managed a win. ''Wowww-w-w ...... never thought this would feel THIS great!!!!" she said on Twitter. • President Obama told - not asked - Burma's junta to free pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi at a recent summit with the Burmese prime minister. •  A Zambian reporter has been acquitted of pornography charges, which could have held a five year sentence if she had been convicted. The so-called porn possessed by Chansa Kabwela was actually photographs of a mother giving birth in a car park, which Kabwela did not publish but instead sent out to women's rights groups. • The suburban swim club outside Philadelphia that was accused of discrimination earlier this year has announced plans to declare bankruptcy. The club reportedly asked several children not to return because of "racial animus" expressed by a member. But the swim club's president denies that their closing has anything to do with the legal proceedings. •  A bushfire on the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve has turned the area into an "animal graveyard." Some blame Terri Irwin for improperly managing the property, but Irwin blames it on pig hunters, who she claims were probably trying to clear the land. •  A recent study published in the British Medical Journal found that current policies to reduce teen pregnancies are simply not working. The study also linked certain factors to teen pregnancy, including dislike of school, poverty, unhappy childhoods and low expectations for the future. •  For the first time in decades, the U.S. skating team has no clear-cut Olympic medal contender. "In the past, we've had Michelle Kwan, Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill year after year, and every time we felt that they were going to win the gold medal," said David Ruth, executive director of US Figure Skating. "But when Michael Jordan left the N.B.A, they were looking for a new star, and we're looking for a new star." • Researchers have found that texting may be linked to neck pain, caused primarily by the hunched-over body position favored by serial texters. • Doctors are hopeful that a vaccine for chlamydia isn't far away. However, previous research has shown that injections don't work very well, so a vaccine may come in the form of a vaginal cream or spray. •  Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has pissed off some 200 Italian women after he placed an ad recruiting "attractive girls between 18 and 35 years old" for an "event." While most expected a party, the event turned out to be a two hour lesson intended to convert them to Islam. •  A recent report touts the benefits of distributing contraceptives in Uganda. The report estimates that meeting just half of Ugandan women's unmet needs for contraceptives would yield dramatic health benefits, including an expected 21% decline in maternal deaths. • Angie Young's film The Coat Hanger Project tells the story of how abortions have actually become increasingly less accessible in the decades since Roe vs. Wade. One good example: the Stupak amendment. You can take action against the pro-choice Democrats who supported the amendment by signing a petition to send them a coat hanger. • The Association of Chief Police Officers in England and Wales has proposed a domestic violence register to track an estimated 25,000 serial abusers. The register would allow people to look up a man's history including convictions and unproven allegations. The Association is also pushing for the creation of a "course of conduct" offense to make it easier to go after serial offenders, even if there isn't enough evidence to prosecute each individual case. • Janet Clark went to a British hospital because she believed she'd gone into labor in her 25th week of pregnancy, but a doctor and four midwives told her to go home. The next day she went back and was told to go home again, and then started giving birth on the toilet. "A pregnant woman shouldn't have to plead with medical staff," said Clark, who had a healthy baby boy. • In a study 54 Caucasian subjects were asked to manipulate the skin color of male and female faces on a computer screen to make them appear as healthy as possible. Most increased the rosiness, yellowness, and brightness of the skin. "In the West we often think that sun tanning is the best way to improve the color of your skin," said researcher Dr. Ian Stephen, "But our research suggests that living a healthy lifestyle with a good diet might actually be better." The study didn't address what makes non-white faces appear healthier and attractive. • Researchers found that in business, gender is a factor in measuring a team's performance, but but not the leaders themselves. In industries in which most leadership positions are held by men, people will expect more of teams led by men, but expectations of the leaders themselves are not influenced by gender. • In an interview on CBS' Early Show Mary Lou Quinlan, author of What She's Not Telling You: Why Women Hide the Whole Truth and What Marketers Can Do About It, says women tell "half truths" about "anything with a number in it. Their age, their weight, how many drinks they had." • In a new interview with CBS News, Laura Bush said Texas feels like it's a million miles away from Washington. "...Not that I ever felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, or that George did when I lived there — but when it was gone, I could notice it," she said. "There's a great feeling of freedom." •

[Baghdad, September 3. Image via Getty]

A little Iraqi girl runs around the house past her mother (R) holding a poster of her uncle, jailed journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi at his home in central Baghdad on September 03, 2009. Zaidi became a star in the Arab world when he hurled his shoes at visiting US President George W. Bush on December 14, 2008, during a press conference in Baghdad. According to government official sources Zaidi will be released later this month. AFP PHOTO / AHMAD AL-RUBAYE (Photo credit should read AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images)

I spent years walking among them, these humans, waiting for my chance to enter the corridors of human power and take it for my own. A run for Congress was easy, what with my youthful looks and exuberance... but then I realized that I couldn't stay young and beautiful forever, lest they began to suspect my true nature. Years of slowly searing my flesh in the hot sun, attended to only by my familiar, Lynne, while "working" for the vampire-led Halliburton, aged me enough that I could regain access to those who would lead. And then, one night, left alone with the son of a human scion I once grudgingly served, I was able to whisper sweet fantasies of ultimate power in his ear, causing his member to engorge with blood as I described all that we might rule together. I felt his body tremble against mine, his arms drawing me closer, his lips beseeching me to give all of that to him, as I ever so gently sank my teeth into his neck and began to feed.

Oh, like you didn't think Cheney was a bloodsucker?

It Was a Dark and Stormy Eight Years [Washington Post]

• Hillary Clinton (and Joe Biden) wants President Obama to talk tough on Iran, sympathetic on the opposition. The Secretary of State is also currently recuperating from a fractured elbow, which will require surgery in a few weeks. [Plum Line, CNN]

• Thing is, the Administration is struggling to balance calls to support the Iranian protesters with keeping open an avenue for engagement on nuclear issues with the Ayatollah. [Washington Post]
• The Guardian Council, which backed Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, has offered to meet with Mir Hossein Mousavi and the other, failed Presidential candidates. [NY Times]
• In the meantime, Iranian security forces are rounding up everyone who knows or supports Mousavi and tossing them in jail. [London Times]
• Iran's Interior Ministry has ordered an investigation into the Basji militia's and military's attack on Tehran University that left students dead and injured. [Wall Street Journal]
• Increasingly jealous of all the attention Iran is getting, Kim Jong Il has threatened to launch a missile towards Hawai'i. (Because attacking the Pacific archipelago worked out so well for the Japanese in the 40s!) [CBS News]
• Senator John "Fuckmaster Flex" Ensign has resigned from his Senate leadership position, because you can't have sex with a woman and be a leader in the GOP. Just ask Mitch McConnell! [Associated Press]
• Michelle Bachmann is refusing to participate in the United States Census because she's afraid it will steal her soul. [ThinkProgress]
• Former President George W. Bush has emerged from his gated Texas community, saying that he believes the best way to fix the poor economy is for Americans to spend more money. [Washington Times]

• Kim Kardashian is ticked Us used a picture of her alongside a story about Forever 21's just-launched plus-size line. "I love my curves, but curvy and plus-sized are two very different things," Kardashian protested. [PerezHilton]

• Kanye West's shoot with Amber Rose, the buzzcut model he was frequently seen with at the fall/winter collections, was not a campaign for his Louis Vuitton sneakers, after all. The Cut offers their take: "So to answer the question we all asked when we first saw these images, no, Louis Vuitton is not out of its mind. We're still not sure what the shots are for. We're guessing some kind of urban magazine like Giant." Because an urban magazine would be the only venue low-class enough to value shots of Amber Rose's ass? Oh, I forgot myself for a minute there! Obviously when someone with Iekeliene Stange's complexion goes entirely nude for six pages in Velvet, that's fashion. When a woman of color does it, that's crass and tacky. But of potential interest to urban readers. [The Cut]
• In some real Louis Vuitton news, tomorrow, for Earth Day, the company will donate 15% of all its US online sales to The Climate Project, Al Gore's non-profit. [WWD]
• Speaking of campaigns, Alexander Wang says he won't be doing one, because his lookbooks are so beautiful already. Is that canny or what? Lookbooks get picked up by blogs like this one nowadays; and what's more you can pay the creative team — model, photographer, stylist, art director, etc — relatively little to shoot a "lookbook" as compared with the cost if one were to call it a "campaign." [Style.com]
• Nicole Richie modeled for the lookbook for her line of costume jewelry, House of Harlow 1960. Of course she did: the whole point is to sell the stuff by associating it with her image. [Fabsugar]
• Tracey Ullman added Donna Karan and Miuccia Prada to her compendium of impersonations on her show this week. [WWD]
• Barbara Hulanicki, the legendary designer and illustrator of 1960s London, has descriptions but no pictures of her line for Topshop, which goes on sale on April 27. There will be shoulderpads, chiffon, grey suede, bloomers, and leopard print. Crazy like a fox? [UK Elle]
• Wait, Fashionista's got the lookbook! Definitely foxy. [Fashionista]
• Jefferson Hack, the founder of Dazed & Confused and Another Magazine — and erstwhile boyfriend of one Kate Moss — says things we wish other magazine editors would think, like, "Our readers' love of fashion shouldn't exclude an interest in the world around them." One of his favorite selections from the new Another Magazine photography book? The spread where Moss was shot at the back of the Hollywood sign. Reminisces Hack, "And then she climbed up and hung off the back of the 'O,' in this long McQueen dress. The dress is kind of metallic, but it's shredded, too, and to me, that image works as a symbol of a shredded optimism. A shredding of values. The Iraq war had just started when we ran that photo, and the Patriot Act was going through, and there was that whole ramping up of Bush's, you know, anti-democratic leadership. We were referencing those events in more direct ways in the rest of the magazine — in interviews and so on — but we also echoed it in some of the fashion imagery. And so for me, you know, that image encapsulates that moment." [Style.com]
• Meanwhile in London, Ms. Moss scooped up a beauty industry award for her fragrance, Velvet Hour. [News.uk.msn]
• American Apparel has a new argument about why it should get to talk about Woody Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi Previn in defending a lawsuit about using the film-maker's image in its advertising without authorization: because they talk about the company amongst themselves, sometimes! I think this is the moment on Law and Order where one lawyer says, "She opened the door," and the other one says, "Spousal privilege!" and then the judge calls them into the chambers. [Racked]
• Burberry's same-store sales fell slightly less than expected in the second half; it was partly because the weakening of the pound made their offerings more attractive. [WSJ]
• Coach's profit fell 29.3% in the third quarter. [Crain's]
• Fancy yourself a Sean John men's wear model? The company's doing an online search for its fall campaign. [WWD]
• And John Varvatos and Island Records are holding a battle of the bands. [WWD]

• Gene Robinson, the gay Episcopal bishop, delivered a four-minute invocation at the Mall on Sunday. Although HBO had exclusive rights to broadcast the invocation it did not make it to air. [Politico]

• Thoroughly reliable source and garbage PUMA blogger Perez Hilton says that Robinson's invocation didn't air because Obama's people told HBO not to air it. [Perez Hilton]
• HBO says that the invocation did not air because of a "planning error." The Inaugural concert began its live broadcast at 2:30pm (ET) and Robinson's invocation started at 2:20pm (ET). The invocation will air in repeats and will stream on HBO.com. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Meanwhile, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 61% of people surveyed said they back Rick Warren as the inaugural invocation pick. [Washington Post]
• Dick Cheney pulled a muscle in his back yesterday while moving boxes into his new house. He will be attending Obama's inauguration in a wheelchair. [Reuters]
• Meanwhile, on Monday a federal judge lifted an injunction requiring preservation of Dick Cheney's records because she said she expected Cheney to preserve them himself. The injunction was put in place when a group of government watchdogs and historians claimed that Cheney might destroy some of his records. [UPI]
• Blogette Meghan McCain got an exclusive interview with her mother for The Daily Beast. Cindy said that although she "is not bitter" she did think there was a strong bias in the media against her husband, John McCain. [Wonkette, Poynter]
• Last night Obama held a dinner honoring McCain whom he called an American hero and whose bipartisanship he hopes to follow. [MSNBC, The Page]
• McCain has told Fox News that Palin could someday be President. [The Page]
• An effigy of Sarah Palin with a noose around her neck was taken off of eBay on Sunday. This is the same effigy that was protested by the Mayor of West Hollywood when it was hung outside of a West Hollywood home of a professional window dresser and his partner before the election. [UPI]
• George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, died peacefully in his sleep last night. He was 62. [The Onion]
• Nancy Pelosi went on Fox News to say that she wants Obama to extend the Bush tax cuts (for families earning more than $250,000) when they expire in 2010. [Politico]
• Adorable child-reporter Damon Weaver is still looking to lock down a one-on-one with Obama as he covers the inauguration today. [NPR]
• Ha ha: Bush has decided to not pardon Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, for his 2007 conviction in the CIA leak case. [Newsweek]
• Sources say that Obama may quickly issue an executive order to reverse a Bush abortion policy (commonly called "the Mexico City policy") that prohibited funding for international family planning groups that provided, promoted or provided information about abortion services. [CNN]
• Bill Ayers has been denied entry into Canada because of a 1969 conviction during an anti-war demonstration. [MSNBC]
• Oh yeah: in keeping with tradition, Bush left a note for Obama . [MSNBC]

[Washington, D.C.; January 7. Image via Getty]

WASHINGTON - JANUARY 07: U.S. President George W. Bush (C) meets with President-elect Barack Obama (2nd-L), former President Bill Clinton (2nd-R), former President Jimmy Carter (R) and former President George H.W. Bush (L) in the Oval Office January 7, 2009 in Washington, DC. On January 20, 2009 Barack Obama will be sworn in as the nations�s 44th president. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

• Courtney Love vs. PETA: "Yep, I'm a fur whore... I've been very, very good for a very, very long time, and this ermine is ancient and tattered and feels like it belonged to a Queen." [Daily Express]

• We know Kate Moss has been a big hit for TopShop but...Christina Aguilera? The megastore “believes she would add something new to TopShop. Christina is the blonde bombshell who is into pop whereas Kate is the rock chick and model." [The Mirror]
• The utilitarian shoes famously ducked by lame-ducker Bush has become best-sellers for their Istanbul cobbler. "I have a sensitive relationship with this shoe. I designed it myself, so it's like a father and a child. I was very happy when I saw it on the video," quoth he. [Christian Science Monitor]
• Boyfriend jeans have spread their poison to India. "You might soon see Bipasha Basu in John Abraham’s jeans and Kareena Kapoor in Saif’s denims. This trend — ‘Boyfriend jeans’ — has become quite a rage in west and is fast catching up here, with Delhi’s hi-street brand outlets stocking the style." [Hindustan Times]
• Embattled jersey-porn peddlers American Apparel are being sued by an alleged European whistle-blower. [WWD]
• The New Yorker does the wincey treatment on Marni."This holiday season, I longed for world peace, universal health care, an end to poverty and disease, and, most of all, one of those chunky Marni necklaces made from colorful shapes of melted and stretched bovine horn. Oh, and could I also have that strand of fabric-covered beads anchoring a large plastron of midnight-blue resin? And the pendant that looks like a conference pass except that, instead of a name tag inside the clear plastic pouch, there’s a grid of acrylic gems?" [New Yorker]
• Sahar Daftary, the model who tragically fell to her death from a Manchester apartment, may have recently suffered a miscarriage after learning her boyfriend was married. Her family denies suicide and has requested a second post-mortem. [Telegraph]
• Dspite generally disappointing results from Target's accessories collaborations (accessories just can't help looking kinda budget, we suppose) we're cautiously optimistic about Hayden-Harnett's upcoming line. Quoth the Brooklyn twosome: “The thought, print development and design approach for the Target collection was exactly the same as for our own collection - style, quality, function and uniqueness...The only real difference is that we didn't do the Target collection production ourselves.” [The Fashion Informer]
• Chanel lays off 200 as luxury market continues its slump. [Guardian]
• The luxe sector is hoping Asia will be a more fruitful market. [CBS News]
• Online sales were slightly better this holiday season...which is not to say good. [WSJ]
• Is this because more women are online nowadays? Because why would we be online except to SHOP TIL WE DROP?! [WWD]
• NB kids: the much-ballyhooed Thakoon for Target is spreading cut-rate patterned cheer as we speak! [Fashionista]
• Fabsugar has named Leighton Meester aka Blair Waldorf the year's best-dressed. What say you? [Fabsugar]

• Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has removed her name from Cabinet consideration. [The Hill]
• New York Governor David Paterson wants to be your next President because "Once you go black, you don't go back." [Politico]
• Fred Thompson is so cheap that he's renting his apartment out for the inauguration. [Huffington Post]
• The Supreme Court rejected the crazypants challenge to Obama's citizenship. [Politico]

• Your tax dollars at work: the State Department is now on Twitter. [Washington Independent]
• Karl Rove's gonna write a book about everyone who was mean to George Bush. Florists in D.C. are already planning on mass deliveries when the index is out. [CNN]
• President Bush's new neighbors are concerned that their community might become a target after he moves in. Now they know how all the residents of D.C. feel. [Raw Story]
• All the women out there who were concerned about Chris Matthews' run for the Senate in Pennsylvania might be able to breathe a sigh of relief. His brother doesn't think he'll leave television. [The New Republic, Politico]
• Christie Hefner's apparently leaving Playboy Enterprises... to angle for a job with the Obama Administration? [Portfolio]
• Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit is trying to grant Sandra Samuel, the Indian nanny who rescued Moeshe Holtzberg during the Mumbai terror attacks, the status of "Righteous among the Nations" to allow her to stay in Israel as long as she wishes. The honor is given to non-Jews who save the lives of Jews. [Associated Press]
• Pakistan actually arrested one of the suspected Mumbai plotters, by the way. [Huffington Post]
• In your official holiday-themed uplifting end to the roundup, homeless men at Detroit's Mariners Inn shelter and treatment center are raising $500 for each of 4 poor families they are adopting for the holidays. [Breitbart]

• The Bushes spent about $3.7 million dollars on real estate in a pricey Dallas neighborhood, and boy, are you going to seethe with jealousy when you see the house the Presidency can buy you. [Washington Post, The Smoking Gun]
• Italy is struggling with a rise in puppy smuggling due to a love of specific breeds and a declining economy. More than 70,000 puppies are smuggled into Italy every year, despite the fact that nearly a quarter of them die on the way and half die within a few months of arrival. There's a video. [BBC]
• Pastor Rick Warren says the Bible calls us to invade Iran. I don't think it says what he thinks it says, but that might be because I read it for my own edification and not to use it to make zillions of dollars or justify my existence. [Washington Independent]

• The recently-published jury instructions in the Lori Drew case make it more clear why she didn't get convicted of any felony counts. [Wired]
• Fred Thompson recently promised that he was getting out of politics and going back to acting. He lied to you. [Time]
• Conservative scribe and Earl of Minor Despair Bob Novak would totally out Valerie Plame again because the media was mean to him after his did so the first time. [Think Progress]
• Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee doesn't think enough LGBT people have been beaten or killed while seeking equality in this country to qualify as a civil rights movement. Also, he thinks if they would just quit choosing to have teh buttsecks, they could have all the rights they ever wanted. [Think Progress]
• Some wacky Republicans who probably spend a portion of their time bitching about tort reform and vexatious litigation are filing lawsuits upon lawsuits about Barack Obama's birth certificate because blah blah blah crazytown nonsense. [Honolulu Advertiser]
• Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, she of the horror of women who don't always wear stockings, is going to challenge Texas Governor Rick Perry in the 2010 gubernatorial primary because she doesn't think he's Republican-y enough. [Dallas Morning News]
• Sarah Palin is totally snubbing Oprah, because Real Americans would definitely go talk to Larry King first. [Huffington Post]
• Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, with an assist from Governor General Michaëlle Jean, has shut down the Canadian Parliament to keep from being thrown out of office. And here you were all worried that George W. Bush was going to be the one to try to upend the democracy he supposedly serves. [NY Times]

• Though Laura did admit she disagreed with George about abortion, like Daum says, don't expect her to publicly bash most of what George did in office. She's clearly a very loyal wife, and I think has too much of a sense of decorum to disavow her husband's disastrous Presidency.
• Do expect her to talk more about the good work she did in the White House, like her initiatives on education, books, and women's health.
• Don't expect her to dish too much dirt on her daughters, Jenna and Barbara. Though there may be a warm or irreverent anecdote or two, like when Laura told her biographer Ann Gerhart about how "then-20-year-old Jenna Bush call[ed] her father right before he was to deliver the post-9/11 State of the Union address to announce she'd lost the sticker for her car," Laura will not be talking about that time Jenna got arrested for underage drinking.
• Do expect her to throw at least one curve ball. I would wager that she dishes about one of two things. 1. the tragic car accident she got into as a 17-year-old girl. Laura hit another car being driven by a classmate of hers and he died in the crash. She allegedly had a crush on the guy. 2. George's alcoholism. Everyone already knows that George used to be a huge lush and then found Jesus. She may reveal her reaction to George's substance abuse, because it's just adding emotional content to something that's widely known already.
• Don't expect her to reveal overmuch about the inner workings of her husband's administration. She'll probably talk about 9/11 and the events surrounding it, but the only secrets from inside the White House we'll get from Laura will likely be about draperies.

Of course, it's possible I've misjudged the situation. Maybe Laura's fed up enough to go rogue and write a bonkers tell-all where she discusses what George's lil' W looks like. Maybe it will have as much salacious detail as Sittenfeld's fictionalized interpretation of Laura, American Wife. Laura will be on Meet The Press this Sunday, and perhaps she'll give us a little taste of her autobiographical naughties. What would you like to hear Laura reveal in her forthcoming memoir?

Laura Bush Confirms She's Shopping A Book Proposal [USA Today]
Bushes' Books [LA Times]
The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush [Amazon]
Why I Love Laura Bush [Salon]
On The Sunday Shows [Time]

Earlier: Social Awkwardness, Long Odds & Sarah Palin: A Chat With Curtis Sittenfeld

Bush Endorsement [NBC]
Laughing Matters: Saturday Night Politics [New Yorker]

[Paris, October 20. Image via INF]

From a sweater-clad Jimmy Carter telling Americans that turning down their thermostats at night would save more energy than any government program to Walter Mondale (correctly) telling Americans that the next President was going to have to raise taxes to resolve the government's debt, Americans have never been fans of the unvarnished truth. In fact, Reagan won every state in 1984 except Mondale's home state of Minnesota (and D.C.) in part based on Mondale's comments and despite the fact that he had already presided over tax increases. He then raised corporate taxes by almost half a billion over 5 years, not that most Republicans like to talk about it.

George H.W. Bush was the same way — he was Mr. "Read My Lips" one day and Mr. Tax Increases the next. Not that his son has been any different — once upon a time, he told Americans that he was opposed to "nation-building," felt that, if the military went to war, they needed to have a clear exit strategy from the beginning and that the goal should be to have the people of a nation build their own nation instead of Americans pay for it. Whoops.

So, how is it that Obama can get away with saying things like this:

People are going to have to embrace — revel in — the possibilities of a transformed energy economy. Over the long term it will mean a higher standard of living. But in the short term it means doing things we don't like to do — turn off lights, check your tire gauges, replace your light bulbs. Just being conscious of energy usage in ways other cultures, like Japan, have been for a long time because they're an island nation and just didn't have resources.

Let alone warning his Congressional allies to think small next year, not big:

So digging ourselves out of the fiscal mess we're in is going to be a big, big challenge, and it's going to require some tough decisions that will not always be popular — particularly when there's going to be a lot of pent-up energy among Democrats. If I win, every member of Congress on the Democratic side, and some on the Republican side, is going to have ideas about pressing needs and worthy programs. Trying to set some very hard, clear priorities is going to be tough.

Is it just that McCain's lies are so egregious that the truth sounds good this time around? Or are we finally so sick of being told crap we all know is untrue — like that Republicans are going to reduce the size of government and lower everyone's taxes — that we finally don't mind hearing a politician tell us that things aren't going to be sunshine, unicorns and rainbows?

And how hilarious is it that the candidate of Hope(TM) is the one telling us there won't be gold at the end of his rainbow?

Obama's Moment [Rolling Stone]

Related: Report To The American People on Energy [Miller Center For Public Affairs]
Thursday Video: Mondale's Pledge to Raise Taxes [Tax Foundation]
1984 [President Elect]
Reagan's Liberal Legacy [Washington Monthly]
Read My Lips [Tax Foundation]
George Herbert Walker Bush [MSN Encarta]
Campaign 2000 - Bush On Nation Building [YouTube]
Once Opposed, Bush Begins Nation Building [WCBV TV]
Searching For An Iraq Exit Strategy [Time]
Iraqi Government Expected To Have $79 Billion Surplus [Think Progress]

MOE: OH FOR CHRISSAKES PEGGY

This is the authentic sound of the American mama, of every mother you know at school who joins the board, reads the books, heads the committee, and gets the show on the road.

Don't you mean bans the books??? Can I go back to bed now?

MEGAN: Didn't you read? We the elitist media are sorry for daring to ask questions and will stick to just parroting whatever it is that Sarah Palin has written for her! No more questions! No more questions! Anyway, technically, I am in bed because it was so nice and warm and I didn't really want to get out of it anyway. My back hurts from the crappy chairs at the Xcel Center.

MOE: I need to puke.

Her averageness accentuated her specialness. Her commonality highlighted her uniqueness.

Right, because the middle class has done so much evaporating in the past 18 years and she hasn't changed her hair since the Reagan administration! Because in any other state, Sarah Palin's "First Dude" would be a Ford salesman. UGHHHHH KILL BABY KILL ME NOW Also, who fucking called her Baberaham LIncoln? Isn't that something from like Wayne's World? That used to be Blakeley's commenter name if I recall.

MEGAN: No, now, let's be fair. Sarah Palin had some righteous 80s hair in the 80s, hair the likes of which I found it personally impossible to ever achieve. The little bouffant-twist thingie is not 80s, it's totally something out of the 50s. Yes, I believe that is from Wayne's World: "If she was a President, she's be Baberaham Lincoln." I'm sure some important information no longer resides in my brain so that tidbbit could remains. Also, frankly, the Palinphilia was the least offensive portion of the night. Watching the 9/11 film that made Rudy's refrain seem tasteful really drowns out all the Palin shit.

MOE:

Campbell Brown of CNN did nothing wrong for instance in pressing a campaign spokesman on Palin's foreign policy credentials. She was unjustly criticized for following an appropriate and necessary line of inquiry. But endless front page stories connected to Mrs. Palin's 17-year-old daughter? Cable news shows that had people insinuating Palin, whom America had not yet even met, was a bad mother, and that used her daughter's circumstances to examine Republican views on abstinence education? That was ugly.

MEGAN: Campbell Brown was completely justified, but that didn't stop the campaign from pulling all MSNBC interviews after that.

MOE: You know what about the media is ugly? That you can get away with, all on the same day, writing a column slamming the media "bubbleheads" for tonedeafly ignoring a candidate's powerful "narrative" on the basis of the rampant falsehood that it's a "nation of Wasillas," then admit in the studio in a gaffe heard round the internet that you think it was dumb for the Republicans to choose a running mate on the basis of this "bullshit about narrative," then watch said candidate give a speech that's inanity is trumped only by its meanness that is for some Bubbleheaded reason considered widely successful

MEGAN: By the way, one of the Republicans I know has the Gchat status "Palin-McCain!".

MOE: And then write a column praising the candidate's fucking narrative (including how she kept that Down syndrome baby!) while attacking the media scrutiny of the veracity of the FUCKING NARRATIVE.

MEGAN: It was successful because it was mean and because it didn't address hard issues. Republicans don't want to talk about issues, they want their Weltanschauung reinforced without the use of foreign words. Also, I looked this up earlier this week but don't have the statistical chart handy, if I recall correctly, older women are more likely to bring a Downs baby to term than younger women. And they probs ought to stop referring to it as her "choice." If they don't want to be pro-choice, they should say stuff like "It was my moral obligation to bring Trig to term. There was no 'choice.'"

MOE: You know what Peggy? I thought it didn't get much more galling to watch fucking Sarah Palin slam Barack Obama's memoir writing when she has achieved so very little herself and her running mate has in fact written more memoirs than Obama, I thought it was audacious to watch fucking Sarah Palin get up and lie yet again about how she singlehandedly shut down construction of the Bridge To Nowhere, but this column, all things considered = actually more audacious!

MEGAN: Also, if Steve Schmidt uses that line, my fees are totally as reasonable as Mark Penn's.

MOE: Ughhh anyway this is probably a first for liberalkind but I am actually going to calm myself down by thinking about what I saw on the O'Reilly Factor last night.

MEGAN: Ummmm, that is kind of completely a first. Watching the boring lead-in speeches, I wished my Internet connection was good enough to have watched a live feed or something.

MOE: Did you watch? It was funny. Bill O'Reilly was a kind of hilarious combination of bullying and deferential. He is so doglike somehow. At the end he told everyone that he'd looked Obama in the eye and said, "This guy is not a wimp. He is tough, that Obama." Obama might have pointed out when O'Reilly kept begging him to promise him he was prepared for war with Iran that Al Qaeda actually funds much of the Iranian resistance, but as it was he just sort of shook that dirt off his shoulder as one does. Then O'Reilly made some hilarious proclamation about how Carrie Underwood was a patriot and Lily Allen and Elton John were pinheads. All around a good night. And then I went out. Did you see McCain? I have no idea what happened between then and now and will probably need coffee to figure that out.

MEGAN: Dude, the reason I didn't see O'Reilly is that I was sitting in rapt boredom at my computer at the Xcel Center waiting, waiting, waiting for John McCain. He came, he saw, he got less applause that Sarah Palin and twice as many disruptive Code Pink protestors.

MOE: Are you afraid of Palin? I cannot get inside the head of someone who doesn't find her vapid, vacuous, one those nice ladies around town that seems harmless enough until you have reason to glimpse inside her soul one day while watching her skin a moose or summarily dissolve a PTA or perjure herself in an attempt to get a state trooper fired. In that sense I think Peggy's right, there was something "I know this lady" about this lady, but what America also knows about that sort of lady is that if that lady is in a position of power chances are she is a total phony.

MEGAN: I don't know that I'm scared of Palin. I think she plays well with a certain demographic. I am scared that the media has decided that she's almost untouchable on the issues and that McCain is using her to argue that they needn't talk to the media anymore and that her written-by-committee speeches delivered to the American People will suffice because the media is eeeevil coming and going . And I'm more scared that too many Americans will buy the Evil Media theme and stop actually trying to learn anything about her.

MOE: Oh wow huh.

MEGAN: Yeah, that's what I was saying earlier. It was seriously amazing offensive. It was like "If you hate 9/11, love us!" as though Democrats are pro-9/11.
Oh, hey, look, my criticism of Sarah Palin was premature! She took a question! Phew. Never mind.

MOE: Ugh as a semi member of the media I can say I feel like letterbombing everyone who has attacked the media in the media over the past few days. The only outlet I believe "overstepped" in any way was Us Weekly and not from a factual perspective but from a "Uhhhhh this is not going to help you at the newsstand" perspective. But I get it now, I get it all; the media is going bananas because somehow this Sarah Palin thing has re-bestowed upon Republicans their ability to tell bald faced lies and repeat them and repeat them and repeat them some more with impunity! (And who knows if there's actual impunity, the point is that Republicans know that the assumption of impunity is more than enough to get them through the next few wars!) Read this little missive by McCain admirer and frustrated media member Jake Tapper . The GOP has everyone riled up. It's totally nuts.

MEGAN: Well, but, Chelsea was, like, an elitist awkward nerdy girl. And you and I were both elitist awkward nerdy girls, and EANGs are always fair game for people to make fun of. It's like a rule in life. John McCain probably started doing it when he was "popular" in high school and, like many asshole jocks, just never stopped. You can't blame him for thinking that making fun of a EANG was still cool, it's like an enduring part of Americana. Now if Sarah and Todd Palin had an unfortunately awkward child... But, instead, they have the brunette version of the Gore girls.

MOE: And what I mean is, because the Republicans no longer feel chastened, because they have this cute little governor mom who bakes cupcakes unironically — does she so much as know about ironic cupcakes? — telling them it's ALL OKAY. Go ahead kids, keep on lying about the Bridge to Nowhere and that eBay plane and my phony record of cutting down pork. Go ahead and use that footage of the terrorists attacking New York to send the message that only Republicans care about the big festering bacchanalian urban centers where no one ever actually votes Republican.

MEGAN: Look, after 10 days of eating on the road, if bitch wants to give me an homemade cupcake, I'm not going to pretend like I wouldn't enjoy every last second of eating it. But I still would be offended by the 9/11 film.

MOE: Oh man and catch Ta-Nehisi Coates with the updates. I feel his pain. And related: half?? why just half??

MEGAN: Maybe for the same reason that even poor Republicans don't like raising taxes on the rich ones? Because they expect to be rich — or VP — some day? Or because after 8 years of GWB, our expectations of what it takes not to send the country spiraling into Armageddon is somewhat... reduced?

MOE: That's just it. The soft bigotry of low expectations etc. etc. Anyway I guess "only" 42% think she's fit to lead. Like only 40% of people thought Saddam Hussein bankrolled September 11 etc. etc. Okay I just went in and tried to make some coffee hoping it will put me in a better mood.

MEGAN: I would be in a better mood if I was back to sleep.

MOE: Doubtful; while I was grinding the beans it occurred to me that O'Reilly and Westmoreland and Mitt Romney are as stubborn and bullying and useless in the face of reason or even advanced rhetoric as CERTAIN DUDES I HAVE DATED. If only America could text message breakup with the GOP.

• Nancy Pelosi said aloud today what everyone knows implicitly and no one ever acknowledges: when the right-wingers talk about "San Francisco values," they're condemning San Franciscans for not spitting on the LGBT community with a wink and a nod. Tolerance is so for liberals. [HuffPo]
• Speaking of the intolerance of the right, an inspector general's report has unsurprisingly concluded that Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson inappropriately used political considerations when hiring at the Justice Department. Goodling asked interviewees what they liked most about Bush, what their stances on abortion were and, in one case, refused to renew a prosecutor's appointment believing him to be gay or at least, very metrosexual. Hey, it was 2006, that phrase was still acceptable! [Washington Post]

• Not to dwell on Bushies, but, um, one of them called the Iraq War "fucking stupid." He helped design a counterinsurgency strategy that relied on more than boots on the ground that we've partially ignored, but he is an Aussie after all. That accent doesn't translate well into "Texan." [Washington Independent]
• What translates a little easier is a McCain adviser promising conservatives that McCain won't really push a greenhouse gas plan because candidates always promise stuff they won't deliver on. Here's hoping he says that about McCain, oh, another couple of hundred times between now and November. [Think Progress]
• Hillary Clinton's totally hitting the trail for Obama once she gets done catching up in the Senate, Terry McAuliffe swears. And he's, like, totally reliable. [CNN]
• John McCain had another mole removed today, which reminds us to always wear sunscreen and that John McCain is really old. [CNN, John McCain Is Really Old]
• Obama is reportedly seriously vetting Virginia Governor Tim "not Mc" Kaine for the VP slot, but Tim just makes us wonder what is up with the eyebrows of Virginia's past 3 governors. They're really bushy and strange. It is becoming a great way to handicap the Governor's race down there, though. [Washington Post]

Little Girl Runs From President Bush [Chicago Tribune]