• In the December Elle Sarah Jessica Parker (over?)shares her thoughts on her new twin girls revealing, "I love the smell of diapers; I even like when they're wet and you smell them all warm like a baked good..."

• "I love the smell of Balmex. Love it." As for her decision to hire a surrogate to have the girls, she said, "I knew there would be lots of opinions about, ‘Well, why didn't you adopt? Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that?' and the truth of the matter is, it wasn't one or the other for us. We had explored, and continue to explore all options, and this one just happened first. This isn't the period at the end of the sentence." [Just Jared]
• Yesterday ,Lindsay Lohan Tweeted that Michael Lohan used to threatened to kill her mother Dina if she tried to leave him. Today, Michael responded, "That's a lie... I guess Lindsay is on more drugs than I thought to say something like that … No wonder why God is taking her entire career away from her. Because she's forsaken everything He's given her and she's done nothing but misuse all the gifts she's given." [People]
• Lindsay Lohan missed a business meeting today because she was partying into the wee hours of the morning. "This meeting was very important for her career," said a source. "She simply failed to appear and never called to even cancel." [Radar Online]
• Police sources say they searched the Las Vegas home of 19-year-old Rachel Lee and found clothing belonging to Lindsay Lohan and Audrina Patridge, and three personal photos of Paris Hilton. [L.A.T.]
• Justin Timberlake wants his temporary restraining order against Karen McNeil, the woman he says is stalking him, made permanent. Two of his bodyguards filed testimony against her but when the judge said he wanted JT to show up in court on Monday and speak for himself, his lawyer moved to get a different judge. [TMZ]
• Star's cover story this week featured ridiculous stories about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's "secret life of binge drinking, mind games, drugs, lovers, and more!", ostensibly based on Ian Halperin's upcoming book Brangelina Exposed. "I was stunned... I never spoke to [the magazine]," says Halperin. "In fact, I finished writing the book late last night which was hours after the Star story broke!" [Us]
• In "Party In The USA" Miley Cyrus sings about listening to a Jay-Z song, but in the interview at the link she admits, "I picked that song 'cause I needed something to go with my clothing line, I didn't write it... I've never even heard a Jay-Z song." N.Y. Magazine]
• December 14 has been set as the first court date in TLC's breach of contract lawsuit against Jon Gosselin. [Radar Online]
• According to court papers filed by TLC, several of the network's advertisers complained about Jon Gosselin's "erratic, widely publicized behavior." [Radar Online]
• A man named Ronnie Newt who is trying to prove that a 12-year old boy named Prince Michael Malachi Jet Jackson is Michael Jackson's son says the Jackson family is harassing him. He asked for a restraining order against Randy Jackson and Joe Jackson, saying, "I was told to stay out of the M.J. love child story. That some one could get kill [sic] for that kind of money." [TMZ]
• This Is It has only been out for two weeks but it's already passed the $100 million mark at the international box office. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Randy Quaid sent a letter to a judge claiming that he and his wife Evi Quaid never received the hotel bills they're accused of skipping out on. He also mentions that Evi has earned many people's respect, "including Karl Rove, who on a recent visit to Marfa made more than one flirtatious advance toward Evi!" [Radar Online]
• Paula Abdul has reunited with Arsenio Hall, after dating him 20 years ago. "Arsenio reached out to Paula because he thought she needed a friend to talk to, someone she could relate to. Arsenio knows what it's like to leave a hit TV show. One phone call led to another, and the next thing you know, they were making a date," said a source. "This could be the perfect situation for the two of them. Paula and Arsenio know each other inside and out." [Contact Music]
• Carrie Prejean was removed from a conservative "Defenders of the Family" event in New Jersey after word that she made a sex tape got out. [TMZ]
• Usher's divorce from Tameka Raymond was finalized today. [USA Today]
• Joe Francis avoided jail time today when a judge sentenced him to time served,$250,000 restitution and a $10,000 fine for pleading guilty to filing false tax returns. [TMZ]
• Peter Andre and Katie Price saw each other for the first time since their split in May when their son Harvey was taken to the hospital with breathing difficulties. He's OK and has been discharged. [The Mirror]
• "Becoming a parent is the most selfless act, and you need to be at a point in your life where you can give up anything and everything for a child. I don't know if you know how to that when you're in your 20s," says 32-year-old new mom Sarah Michelle Gellar. Her husband, 33-year-old Freddie Prinze Jr., adds, "I'm so happy we didn't have kids in our 20s – I just didn't know a thing. You have so much more patience in your 30s, and I feel like I appreciate this so much more." [People]
• Jemaine Clement says Flight of the Conchords may not return for another season because, "Bret and I are both fathers," Clement told us during an interview to promote his (troubled) new film Gentlemen Broncos. "We know if we take on another season, that means we're not gonna see our family for a year." [N.Y. Magazine]
• Thandie Newton says she "fell madly in love" with her husband Ol Parker in 1997 when she appeared in a movie he wrote. "I'd never experienced that before. Up until then, my relationships had always been more based on people wanting to be with me. When I met Ol, I was dating a really sweet, lovely man and I had to leave him straight away, even though I wasn't even going out with Ol!" she said. "But as soon as I met Ol, it kind of cut off any other blood vessels to anywhere else. We got married about two years later; we've just had our 11th wedding anniversary." [Daily Express]
• In Precious Erica Watson plays a small role as a little girl's abusive mom. When asked if it was hard to scream at the girl she said, "Not at all! The inner bitch in me was finally allowed to come out, and I had a ball! (laughs) But on a serious note, I was a little nervous about being mean to her, but she loved it! She knew that we were just 'pretending' and she made it very easy for me to treat her horribly!" [The Frisky]
• Jon Hamm once said in an interview that he thinks Don Draper and Rachel Menken were soul mates. Maggie Siff, who played Menken, says she agrees: "I think Matt Weiner is an incredibly smart storyteller, and everybody knows from the beginning that this is a guy who's going to go through a lot of women. But I think that the way that our story ended up getting set up within the series is that you feel her absence. She's gone, and then you're like, Well, where did she go? And I think there are a lot of things in that show that come and go, and you feel their echoes. And so in a way I feel like that's probably true between them." [N.Y. Magazine]
• John Slattery says of Roger Sterling, the character he plays on Mad Men, "I think he may've invented a few of his own S.T.D.'s. There has to be some strain of sexual disease out there that he's responsible for. He was patient zero. It's his namesake. His S.T.D. is a Sterling Transmitted Disease." [Vanity Fair]

What is that, The Secret for the GOP? If we say it's so, we make it so? And he's quoting both Gallup polls and Faux News, meaning: I wasted three minutes of my life on this crap.

However, the health care battle continues to rage onward. As we roll towards reconciliation, all of our lawmakers have their eye on one thing: cost. Attempting to make the bill as cost-effective as possible, the House and Senate are both looking at taxation. But who pays?

Legislation emerging from the House would slap a surtax on upper-income people. But many Democrats, especially in the Senate, fear the political fallout over voting to raise anyone's income taxes.

The most prominent Senate bill would impose a tax on insurance companies that provide expensive policies, sometimes dubbed "Cadillac" plans. But labor unions — a powerful force within the Democratic Party — bitterly oppose the idea,
saying the tax would be passed on to workers in the form of higher premiums or shrunken benefits. [...]

Legislation approved by the chamber's Ways and Means Committee would impose an income tax surcharge of up to 5.4% on individuals who make more than $280,000 and on couples with more than $350,000 annual income.

That, however, did not sit well with centrist Democrats and others from high-cost regions. So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has called for raising the bill's thresholds to $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for couples. [...]

A bill being debated in the Finance Committee would impose a 40% excise tax on insurance companies for plans whose cost exceeds $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families.

Proponents argue that such a steep tax would create an incentive for insurance companies and employers to stop providing such expensive plans, thus helping to slow the growth of healthcare costs. And though companies may drop expensive plans, the CBO has said, the proposal nevertheless would raise revenues because it assumes employers who scale back coverage would repay workers by raising salaries or increasing taxable compensation in other ways.

And the battle continues.

In the meantime, here's part of Keith Olbermann's special comment where he illustrates his frustration with health care reform using the tale of his father's journey through the health care system:

The GOP Is Winning The Health-Care Debate [WSJ]
Democrats Face Dilemma On Taxes To Pay For Healthcare [LA Times]

• While performing stand-up in New York on August 5, Rosie O'Donnell started talking about her stint on The View, which she referred to as The Screw You, and called Elisabeth Hasselbeck "Elisabeth Half-a-brain." But Rosie wasn't done!

• An audience member says, "Rosie said when she first met Elisabeth, she thought she would love her, because they're both Christians... Then she stopped and said, 'But then she turned on me.' Then Rosie called her a 'twat.' O'Donnell then moved on to a different subject, saying she really didn't want to start a new feud, or restart an old one." Too late Rosie! [Fox News]
• Jon and Kate Gosselin's divorce will be finalized by the end of the month. Also Hailey Glassman has agreed to do an interview with E!'s Giuliana Rancic on August 17 in a one-hour special at 7pm ET. She's going to stay away from the kids until the divorce is official, but then all bets are off. [Radar Online, Ok]
• This week's episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8 had only 3.5 million viewers, down 4 million from the week before. [Us]
• Let's hope no one gets in Taylor Lautner's way! "I love that kid," says Kristen Stewart. "I would do anything for him. I would kill for him, literally." [People]
• Though it was reported that Jennie Garth, who is married to Twilight's Peter Facinelli said Robert Pattinson was either dating Kristen Stewart or Nikki Reed, rep says she actually said, "I can't say [who Rob's dating]. That will be breaking my promise to my husband. But I do know." [Radar Online]
• This morning on Today, Brad Pitt says he's seen the "Brad Pitt for mayor" shirts many New Orleans resident have been wearing, but he's not considering a run because, "I don't have a chance." [AP]
• Three sources say Dr. Conrad Murray left Michael Jackson alone after giving him propofol to make phone calls on the morning he died. He'd left him alone after giving him the drug before, but not monitoring MJ may legally meet the level of negligence required for an involuntary manslaughter charge. [L.A. Times]
• Michael Jackson and a man named Henry Vaccaro had been fighting over some of MJ's memorabilia, including 26 unreleased songs for years. When two of Jackson's lawyers went to retrieve eight of the items last month Vaccaro said they were missing, but the items were later auctioned off. Police are investigating. [TMZ]
• Motown founder Berry Gordon will write the introduction to the rerelease of Michael Jackson's memoir Moonwalk. [AP]
• Though Amy Winehouse was previously banned from entering the U.S. she still wants to do a tour and her spokesperson said that now, "There is nothing to stop her getting a visa to travel to America." [Contact Music]
• Patrick Swayze was recently hospitalized for a week, possibly because of intestinal bleeding, but he's home now. [Radar Online]
• Madonna is renovating her recently purchased New York townhouse and now huge dumpsters are blocking the entire road. [The Sun]
• If Philadelphia school officials approve, Tony Danza may co-teach 10th grade English at Northeast High School this fall for a reality TV show called Teach on A&E. [AP]
• Billy Mays' health insurance commercial for the iCAN benefit group has been pulled from the air. [TMZ]
• Kourtney Kardashian has revealed that boyfriend Scott Disick is the father of her child. As for how she could have gotten pregnant she said, "There's so many times I'll forget to take my pill. I've done that several times and never really thought about it…I know, it's stupid." When she told Disick, "He was like way more like excited than I was. Like he definitely wasn't as nervous and scared." But she's not sure if they'll get married. She says, "We've talked about it, but I feel like there's so much going on that I like can't even go there." [E!]
• Kourtney's mom Kris Jenner says, "I am beyond thrilled and excited and cannot wait to meet my new grandchild! We are truly blessed." [People]
• Sky Blu of the hip-hop group LMFAO has a crush on Khloe Kardashian. [E!]
• Though she initially didn't show much interest in Beatles Rock Band, which will be released in September, Yoko Oko visited Harmonix studios in Boston a few months ago. "She gave the designers hell," said a VP at the company. "We were like, ‘Oh, gee. Thanks'. It would have been nice to know that six months ago, but yes, ‘Thank you very much'." [Mirror]
• Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh are going to guest star in an upcoming episode of Family Guy in which Brian becomes a Republican because he's upset he has nothing to complain about anymore with Barack Obama in the White House. [Politico]
• Toby Keith's new song and music video American Ride may become the theme for town hallers. It makes fun of global warming, terrorists, and illegal immigrants, and the video shows "President Bush in front of the White House giving Christian-right leader Pat Robertson a piggyback ride. Another shows bankers hoisting President Obama in a walk through a destroyed Wall Street district as dollars fall from the sky." Check it out here: [U.S. News & World Report]
• The Miss Universe Organization has releasing topless photos of outgoing Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela, to Maxim for the September issue. While previously similar organizations have always condemned contestants for releasing such pictures (Mendoza's arm covers her breasts), a pageant official said, "She just loved the way they turned out and she really wanted to be able to share them. If she had taken these photos and sent them to a magazine, that would be a different issue. But she handled this so appropriately. She came to us and said, ‘I understand I'm Miss Universe and I have this title, but as Dayana Mendoza, I'd like to share these photos.'" [MSNBC]
• Jerry O'Connell has enrolled at Los Angeles' Southwestern Law School. When his wife Rebecca Romijn was asked why he enrolled there she said he was, "very impressed with the faculty and the vibe here. This is brand new to him as well. He's very much looking forward to his education." [Us]
• In the video at the link Jessica Capshaw of Grey's Anatomy explains that the next season will be "heavy." [E!]
• Reese Witherspoon, who is filming the baseball movie How Do You Know has just recovered from getting a black eye a few weeks ago, and now she has another one. [Daily Express]
• Abbie Cornish, who was accuse of breaking up Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Philippe's relationship says, "It was a really difficult time for me... It was just this world of tabloid magazines that I'd never been exposed to. In a normal successful career, someone usually learns these things bit by bit. For me, it was like night and day. I woke up one day and there was this whole new thing I had to process and deal with." [W]
• Mike Tyson has given his first interview since the accidental death of his 4-year-old daughter Exodus. "I am working with dealing with it," he says. "I have spoken to a lot of people. I have become a member of an exclusive club no one wants to join. I have been told the pain never stops but you get over it. I am going through a process, trying to heal. I am in denial, because I don't know how to handle it. I don't know what to do or say. I appreciate everybody who supported me." [Entertainment Tonight]
• Victoria Beckman's rep says, "there are no talks of her being a permanent judge [on American Idol]. They felt she was natural in Denver. [But] she has Fashion Week coming up, and she is focusing on that." [L.A. Times]
• Lily Allen has but a Breitling watch she bough for herself that's too big up for sale on Twitter for £3,200. [Daily Mail]
• Here's a picture of Katie Price's new boyfriend, Alex Reid, hanging out with Katie and Peter Andre's son. Both are topless for some reason. [Daily Mail]
• "I love England. It would be a wonderful life experience to have an excuse to work here for six or nine months..." says Quentin Tarantino. "I am a huge fan of Simon Pegg, so I would definitely love to work with him. I also think Kate Winslet is one of the best actresses that ever lived, so I would be honoured to work with her. I am also a huge admirer of Anthony Hopkins. I would also love to work with Michael Caine. I can see them appearing in my movies, it just has to be right." [Daily Express]
• Q: How does it feel to be the face of Twitter. Ashton Kutcher: "It feels like I should own some of it but unfortunately I don't. However one person does not make a community." [Time]
• Q: Does it bother you to be called Mr. Demi Moore? Ashton Kutcher: No. Why would it? People have called me much worse. [Time]
• Rachel McAdams says of playing a mother for the first time, "I was excited and nervous about it because I haven't done it before. It was a welcome challenge. The little girls [Hailey McCann and Tatum McCann] in this film were so fantastic. They are real sisters and they made my job really easy. So I didn't have to work too hard at that." [People]
• "I think Pete's really honest, and there's something to be said for that, on this show. He's honest even when it works against him. He can't help himself. He has to say the blatant thing. He's like that guy who meets someone and says, "Oh wow, you have a mole on your nose!" I like people like that. They're not ashamed to go up to a guy and be like, 'Hey, how'd you lose your arms?' Like, 'Come on, everyone else is wondering, I had to ask!' But then, the guy without the arms is probably so sick of answering that question! ... He's no Don Draper. Like you said, he's the biggest rube in the room. And he's the biggest buffoon in the room." — Vincent Kartheiser of Mad Men [Salon]

• Yale University awarded Secretary of State Hillary Clinton an honorary Doctorate of Law yesterday, after which she spoke to the Law School graduating class. You know some of the undergraduate seniors were pissed. [Associated Press]

• Clinton will soon extend spousal benefits to all domestic partners (same sex or otherwise) of Foreign Service Officers, making other federal employees jealous. [Washington Post]
• One of her predecessors, Colin Powell, is sick of taking shit from Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. [Reuters]
• Karl Rove, for his part, still thinks Dick Cheney rulez and Colin Powell droolz. [Think Progress]
• Seventy percent of Americans disagree with Rove, but what else is new. [Time]
• Oh, and if you were wondering why, other than an Elektra Complex, Liz Cheney is running around kissing her dad's ass and talking about how good torture is for America's moral authority in the world, it's 'cause she's gonna run for office. [ThinkProgress]
• Kim Jong Il shot off a couple of missiles at that news. Then he launched some nukes. [NY Times]
• The RNC can't decide whether it wants to screw Nancy Pelosi or hurt her, but it certainly doesn't want to debate her policies because its full of a bunch of misogynist frat boys jerking off to old James Bond films. [Politico]

• Hillary Clinton is having a lottery to retire her campaign debt — and the prizes are a day in New York with Bill, one in D.C. with James Carville, or American Idol tickets. [Washington Post]

• Karl Rove called Vice President Joe Biden a serial exaggerator, a liar and a blowhard. Apparently, Rove sees Mr. Biden in the mirror every morning. [Politico]
• Rove also had a run-in at a restaurant with former Congressman Tom Feeney's former chief of staff. Rove said that Feeney lost his re-election because he was stupid, his staffer took exception and Rove admitted he has a file of everything Feeney ever said that disagreed with Bush. Is it just me or does Karl Rove actually seem more evil and crazy now than he used to? [Politico]
• Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus has a list of all the Socialists in Congress. Spencer Bachus sees Karl Rove being chased by Bolsheviks in his mirror every morning. [Huffington Post]
• Conservative blogger Erick Erickson thinks Levi and Mercede Johnston are fucking. Some people write about politics, other people write about their masturbatory fantasies. [Huffington Post]
• Bill O'Reilly really hates the Eminem video portraying Sarah Palin because it features neither loofahs nor falafel. [Us Weekly]
• Barack Obama himself prefers pizza. [People]
• And Obama wants more money to finish up those Iraq and Afghanistan wars. [Washington Post]
• And, finally, the best and possibly only good thing about the day: watch Rachel Maddow say "teabagging" over and over again, only to be joined by Ana Marie Cox, who then says "teabagging" over and over again, and Maddow only loses it once. That's a news professional, or Howard Stern's sidekick, for you.

• Reports suggest that the Obama puppy has been selected and that it may well be an Easter gift to the Obama girls. Ted Kennedy may or may not be the Easter Bunny. [Washington Post]

• In other news of the cute, Jezebel favorite Damon Weaver will be on 20/20, and it turns out that Tim Geithner is the jerk keeping him from getting his Obama interview. [Huffington Post]
• Republicans have their thongs in a bunch that the Senate might possible consider ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which would obligate the U.S. to keep Republicans from abusing children, forcing them into a specific religion and codify the right to free expression that Damon Weaver is using. Apparently, hitting your kids is a patriotic act. [Politico]
• Karl Rove is claiming that it's Obama who's unwilling to be bipartisan, since he won't back the legislation proposed by the Congressional Republicans who bash him daily and refuse to vote for anything he backs. [Wall Street Journal]
• Ted Stevens is maybe running in 2014 to retake his Senate seat if he doesn't die first. [Huffington Post]
• Sarah Palin has officially declined to run in a primary against Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who threatened to kick her ass. [Politico]
• The final tally on her RNC wardrobe was $173,000 — and still no one knows when it's all getting donated to charity. [Politico]
• In better news, Obama is going to push for immigration reform, what with the immigration situation in this country being completely fucked up. [NY Times]
• His outreach to Iran is going about as well as the fight for immigration reform is likely to — which is to say, not well. [CBS News]
• New York Governor David Paterson has decided that if he's going to lose a primary to Andrew "Shucking And Jiving Is Not A Racist Term" Cuomo next year anyway, he's going to go out with some good shit started. He's started with legislation to legalize same sex marriage in New York. Hear that, Pilgrim Soul? Now we just need an end to DOMA and our love can blossom. [ThinkProgress]

MEGAN: It is very rare that the news is so full of crap as today, which is why I guess they call Fridays "news dumps." That said, I believe Obama's dump of his advisers' Blago contacts is best represented by this doll which portrays him taking a physical dump. I love this doll. I want one so bad that I actually mentally scrolled through everyone I had ever met — including in Spain in 1995 — to think if there was anyone I could get to buy me one.

SPENCER: Can you summarize the Blago stuff for me? I don't want to read it. Like I really don't care.

MEGAN: Rahm Emanuel called him twice pro forma and everyone is as clean as a whistle. The end. Duh.

SPENCER: I see that even this Weekly Standard writer says, "Yep, not raising any flags for me, either. Now, everybody go on vacation." So is this actually the end or will it go on endlessly like Whitewater?

MEGAN: It will go on endlessly like Whitewater, no doubt. I'm just waiting for someone's cats to disappear or Michelle Obama to be accused of faking someone's suicide. I cannot believe you are ignoring the pooping Obama doll. In other crap, Karl Rove thinks Joe Biden is trying to consolidate power too much. I mean, I just mention it because it seemed like you might need a good laugh. We can stop laughing when Joe Biden gets a man safe, a secret bunker from which he can practice his necromancy and begins to age in reverse, but until then...

SPENCER: Maybe it's because it's Christmas but I can't bring myself to care about a pooping Obama doll. Also can we stop using the word "pooping." What happened to respectable slang terms like "shitting"? "Poop" sounds like something you coo to a baby. It's not like you can't curse on this blog

MEGAN: Shit smells. This is plastic. Ergo, in my mind, it is poop. These things are very strictly delineated in my mind. Also, my parents are walking in and out of the room, so I am apparently unconsciously self-censoring like I did in high school.

SPENCER: What's beautiful about that Rove quote, aside from the hypocrisy — which is pro forma at this point — is his bald assertion that he knows what Biden and Obama talk about. Hilarious. I can't wait for this asshole's book.

MEGAN: I believe we can say "Until he shits out his book," because, man, that's going to reek.

SPENCER: Also, did you catch Jason Linkins' Twitter-meltdown last night? WTF

MEGAN: I will admit something right now that likely makes me a bad friend to Jason. I follow him online but no longer get updates to my phone since he started Twittering football.

SPENCER: Oh I took him off my phone long ago. I have a zero-tolerance policy for over-twitterers.

MEGAN: To make up for that embarrassing admission, I will post what he would have said last Friday had circumstances preventing us from doing Crappy Hour:

Since circumstance robbed us of our Friday Crappy Houring, I wasn't able to say something that I wanted, which was what a highlight of the year it was for me to participate in Crappy Hour, and to thank the jezebel community for their many kindnesses. It was a real honor and a privilege.

SPENCER: And in fairness, I think I might have been live-tweeting that particular Redskins game with him and Greg Greene and Amanda Mattos. AWWWWWW I would say the same thing, but I'm not gay. :)

MEGAN: Aw, you guys.

SPENCER: OK so now to discuss Chris Cox?

MEGAN: Oh, fuck yeah.

SPENCER:

Christopher Cox, the embattled chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, is defending his restrained approach to the financial crisis, saying he has provided steady leadership as Wall Street's main regulator at a time when other federal regulators have responded precipitously to upheaval in the markets.

This is a great quote:

"What we have done in this current turmoil is stay calm, which has been our greatest contribution — not being impulsive, not changing the rules willy-nilly, but going through a very professional and orderly process that takes into account unintended consequences and gives ample notice to market participants."

Like watching every investment bank it oversees self-destruct?

MEGAN: But that's not his job!!

"The public might not understand that that wasn't the SEC's job," he said, adding that the agency was not responsible for preventing investment banks from collapsing but rather for sheltering their securities trading units from problems in the broader corporation. "The SEC is not a safety and soundness regulator," he said.

I also like this part:

Cox said the biggest mistake of his tenure was agreeing in September to an extraordinary three-week ban on short selling of financial company stocks. But in publicly acknowledging for the first time that this ban was not productive, Cox said he had been under intense pressure from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to take this action and did so reluctantly. They "were of the view that if we did not act and act at that instant, these financial institutions could fail as a result and there would be nothing left to save," Cox said.

Um, hey, asshole? There's a reason why you got a 5-year term instead of a political appointment: so you wouldn't cave to political pressure to do stuff you know if bad.

SPENCER: No one can resist Hank Paulson. That's how you got those hickeys. What would Dennis Prager say?

MEGAN: Dennis Prager would say that Chrissy Cox should just lie down and spread her legs even if she's not in the mood! Which is apparently what Cox did!

It became the agency's responsibility to monitor them for financial and operational weaknesses under a program set up before Cox's tenure, but under his watch they got into such trouble that today they no longer exist as investment banks. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers failed, Merrill Lynch had to be taken over, and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley converted themselves into bank holding companies.

The March collapse of Bear Stearns illustrated an array of agency shortcomings, according to a review by the SEC's inspector general. He concluded that agency officials had been aware of "numerous potential red flags" at Bear Stearns "but did not take actions to limit these risk factors."

"It is undisputable," the inspector general concluded, that the "program failed to carry out its mission in its oversight of Bear Stearns."

SPENCER: That's how Cox thought the country needed to show the markets it loved them

MEGAN: I mean, the problem is that Cox was kind of a slut, he'd just spread 'em for anyone.

Treasury and Fed officials viewed Cox and his staff as nonplayers who had failed to foresee the brewing problems, according to people who were involved in those efforts but spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. They said Cox was often brought in for consultation only after major decisions had been made by Treasury and Fed officials.

Let's just say it: Bush nominated a random conservative Congressman from New Jersey to head the SEC because he didn't want anyone there who was particularly smart, engaged, knowledgeable or into regulating jackshit, and Cox fit the bill because he was a reflexive deregulator. And would get confirmed easily because Congress rarely fails to confirm its own.

SPENCER: Since I am not qualified to talk about what actually happened in the financial crisis I want to remind everyone that Chris Cox has been a conservative darling forever. Here's the American Spectator on who should be McCain's running mate:

Chris Cox: The best choice, bar none. This thoughtful and reform-minded chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission made his name for 16 years as the brainiest and perhaps most principled Reaganite conservative in Congress, as well as one of the best on TV.

MEGAN: I needed a good laugh, thanks. "Reform-minded," meaning, "let's get government out of the way of the markets so they can run the universe and make everything sunshine and rainbows!!"

SPENCER: Here's another such column. And here's Lisa Schiffren of NRO who needs no Prageresque advice when it comes to Cox:

Chris Cox is fabulous. He should be president. The only negative — alas, a big one — is that he has never managed to generate real excitement, even when running what should have been sexy hearings on big issues. He is obviously very smart, and a true policy wonk — the sort of guy who usually runs big, serious, difficult government institutions or departments. Is he a vote getter?

So at least that's fairminded!

MEGAN: "Sexy hearings on big issues?" Because the American public loves a wonk, and particularly the Republican American public. The last eight years have completely proved that. Speaking of, the red states are about to get more Congress members in 2011. California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Florida and Pennsylvania are gonna lose. Which means: vote in your state elections next year and in 2010!!

SPENCER: Oh beautiful. This will bolster the arguments of all conservatives who don't see themselves leading the GOP into regional-party marginality to push the party rightward. And here I was thinking Afghanistan will doom the Obama administration.

MEGAN: And I was all excited that a judge ordered the release of 4 Gitmo detainees and The Europeans might be willing to accept some Gitmo detainees in resettlements deals. But we should end on a high note. Of the people Bush pardoned for Christmas, one was Charlie Winters, posthumously.

Mr. Winters was among a group of several hundred Americans and Canadians referred to by the Israelis by the Hebrew acronym of “machal,” or “volunteers from outside Israel.” They secretly helped in Israel’s war of independence in 1948, a year after its creation as a Jewish state.

He was an Irish-Catholic from Boston, and never said a word about it to his son. He was also the only one who did any prison time for it.

SPENCER: Yeah I have to give Bush credit for that. Dayenu. What a merry Jewish Christmas.

A very heartfelt thanks to Esquire's James Folta for the news (and picture) of the squatting Obama doll

• 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]

• Oprah Winfrey is talking her show on the road to D.C. during the Inauguration. Let the speculation begin about which members of the new Administration will be appearing. [Access Hollywood]
• Congress is going to pass a law to reduce the salary of the Secretary of State to block Republican efforts to keep Hillary Clinton from serving on Constitutional grounds. So much for pay equity in an Obama Administration. [Talking Points Memo]
• Al Franken says he's pulled ahead of Norm Coleman in the Minnesota Senate race. [Politico]

• Bill Richardson didn't win any points with Barack Obama when he showed up at the presser announcing his appointment sans beard. [Washington Post, CNN]
• But could the Commerce Department just be a stepping stone on Bill Richardson's path to his beloved State Department? [Washington Independent]
• Barack Obama told all the ambassadors appointed by Bush to be out by January 20th.There's no word whether the ambassadors to India or Pakistan might be staying on. [Washington Post]
• By the way, the Mumbai terrorists were high as shit on coke and LSD the entire time they were killing people. [Boing Boing]
• Possibly also high as shit was Karl Rove, who told a roomful of New Yorkers that George Bush is totally not the worst President in modern history. [Washington Times]
• Eliot Spitzer will begin penning a finance-and-government column for Slate. It won't talk about financing high-end sex with prostitution while being in government. [New York Observer via Attackerman]
• The anti Prop 8 folks get every actor you've ever seen to act in a musical. [Funny Or Die]

MEGAN: For a campaign that attempted to accuse everyone and anyone of sexism in regards to Sarah Palin, there's some sort of irony in campaign staff now calling her a "diva", I think. Also, I love the back-stabbing of the end of a campaign because it just shows you who is in it for the candidate and who's only in it for what the candidate winning can do for his/her career. And, yes, I'm looking at all the lobbyists in the McCain campaign.

LATOYA: I just feel like it's karma — you asked for a maverick, didn't you? Well now, she's just gone maverick on the trail. I watched McCain on Meet the Press on Sunday, he still says he's proud of her.

MEGAN: Not that her remarks this weekend were "the remarks [they] sent to the plane [that] morning."

LATOYA: I'm loving how some polls are calling Palin "a bigger drag on the campaign than Bush" — that's cold. Yet, there seems to be a strong push for Palin in 2012. (OMG, I am sleepy — I keep typing Plain when I mean Palin. Is my subconscious trying to tell me something?)

MEGAN: Apparently because she can deliver the xenophobes and the racists.

LATOYA: And the VPILF set.

MEGAN: Then Stephanie Herseth for VP in 2012!

LATOYA: Don't forget them. I was watching D.L. Hughley's comedy show on CNN on Saturday and Palin supporters were obviously playing bingo with the campaign buzzwords. "Maverick." "Real American." "Hot"

MEGAN: Palin supporters are the most boring people ever, like, how do you not just make that a drinking game?

LATOYA: See, I was thinking scrabble myself. I know I could hit a couple triple word scores with "RealAmerican", hit "maverick" with the M... I was amused at Hughley's sketch though — he kept telling the supporters that Palin needs a black guy to win, and handed out Palin/Hughley 2012 signs.

MEGAN: The only board game I am really good at is Trivial Pursuit, and even that I haven't played in years.

LATOYA: Response from the one guy — "We don't know you!" (Doesn't that sound familiar?)

Response from an angry woman: "Are you for abortion?"
DL: "I would never have one."

MEGAN: Maybe they're just worried that all black people aren't really Americans.

LATOYA: Neither are you latte-sipping coasters.

MEGAN: Screw lattes, it's all about the café au laits for me.

LATOYA: I think we need to start a campaign for fake America. American Faux. We need a tee shirt.

MEGAN: What would be our symbol? Lattes, arugula and diversity?

LATOYA: Oh, we should make a crest! "In cosmopolitia, we trust."

MEGAN: Do we still have to use the eagle? Could we go with the turkey like Ben Franklin, the ultimate latte-sipper if there ever was one? And then like in those old grade school drawings where you make it from an outline of your hang, we could put a different symbol for our cause on every feather!

LATOYA: See, this is shaping up nicely. I vote for Ben Franklin, Crispus Attucks, and Phyllis Wheatley as our symbols of American Faux. Though I think the first tee we make should be telling K. Rove to sit his ass down somewhere and stop being Captain Obvious. I thought he was a strategist. Who changed the job description?

MEGAN: A strategist is something even other Republicans think McCain lacks. Rove's a pundit now and so like Bill Kristol he has to walk that fine line between a level of intellectual honesty that can leave his job intact and party loyalty, so that's about all he can say. At least David Frum had some helpful suggestions, even if they were basically to let McCain continue to run his campaign into the ground on his own and start fighting to keep some Republicans in office.

LATOYA: Yeah, well it looks like they switched strategies — maybe they are hoping that they can just stop people from voting outright. Or that the election boards will do their work for them:

Berry is one of more than 50,000 registered Georgia voters who have been "flagged" because of a computer mismatch in their personal identification information. At least 4,500 of those people are having their citizenship questioned and the burden is on them to prove eligibility to vote. Experts say lists of people with mismatches are often systematically cut, or "purged," from voter rolls.

It's a scenario that's being repeated all across the country, with cases like Berry's raising fears of potential vote suppression in crucial swing states. "What most people don't know is that every year, elections officials strike millions of names from the voter rolls using processes that are secret, prone to error and vulnerable to manipulation," said Wendy Weiser, an elections expert with New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. "That means that lots and lots of eligible voters could get knocked off the voter rolls without any notice and, in many cases, without any opportunity to correct it before Election Day." Weiser acknowledged that "purging done well and with proper accountability" is necessary to remove people who have died or moved out of state. "But the problem is it's not necessary to do inaccurate purges that catch up thousands of eligible voters without any notice or any opportunity to fix it before Election Day and really without any public scrutiny at all," she said. Such allegations have flared up across the United States during this election cycle, most notably in Ohio, where a recent lawsuit has already gone to the U.S. Supreme Court.

MEGAN: I love how even Scalia was like, oh, Christ, fuck off, Ohio Republicans.

LATOYA: I feel like I need to call the election board and make sure I'm on the guest list. I didn't know voting was like clubbing — "I swear I'm on the list! I registered on Thursday! Can I please get my free drink ticket?"

MEGAN: Well, even if they purged you, they have to let you cast a provisional ballot.

LATOYA: Yeah, like someone is going to count those. And those ballots are shady anyway.

MEGAN: Well, I mean, that is the issue. I think, though, if they have purged so many people that the provisionals could make a difference, Obama's lawyers will probably have your back. I saw Recall. God, I love that movie.

LATOYA: One would hope. In good news, it seems that a lot of former felons have been re-enfranchised.

According to advocacy groups, about 5.3 million Americans, or 1 in 41 adults, have lost their right to vote because of a felony conviction.

"The issue here is really if someone should have a permanent scarlet letter on them — if there are certain offenses for which there is no redemption," said Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who played a lead role in revising Tennessee's voting law in 2006.

The suffrage laws vary by state and often by felony, with violent crimes incurring greater restrictions. Only two states — Maine and Vermont — permit voting by all felons, including those still in prison. California, along with states such as New York and Colorado, automatically reinstates voting rights to felons once they are released from prison and are off parole.

MEGAN: I think that if you've served your time, you've served your time, you shouldn't have to re-apply for citizenship. But people on probation and parole aren't done repaying their debt to society.

LATOYA: But unfortunately, we're still hating on Native Americans. And, um, Ohio voters.

MEGAN: I mean, there are reliable voting blocs that go Democratic, right? Why does the GOP not try to systematically disenfranchise groups of white people? Why is it always people of color?
Why do they hate your freedom?

LATOYA: Because, obviously, I'm not a real American. Therefore, it is obvious that I should only have fake rights and fake freedoms.

MEGAN: Good morning! I am struggling for something funny or interesting to say here, so let's just pretend I said something pithy, okay?

SPENCER: God, show some effort, will you? Though you always have something pithy to say. You're pith filled. Talking to you is like screening Revenge Of The Pith. Unlike this asshole.

MEGAN: I had the pith taken out of my by the last half of the bottle of red I drank last night.

SPENCER:

“I’m from Arkansas. I understand why she’s popular…. It’s the job of our side not to attack who she is but to focus on differences in policy.”

MEGAN: Well, now, see, I don't disagree with Clinton, but I'm not the fucking former President of the United States saying it either.

SPENCER: Please no more sir. Enough of this. You're not wrong, substantively. But you really ought to come to terms with the fact that you are no longer in a position to hector the Democratic Party on strategy. Notice that the comment implicitly presumes the Democrats are attacking Palin's character, which is a key GOP meme right now. And you know what Bill Clinton was great at, throughout the 90s? Attacking his opponents' characters.

MEGAN: Right, the full article makes mention of the fact that it's echoing Karl Rove's advice, which is not something I like to hear said about Bill Clinton. The great thing about Clinton used to be that he could do it without getting caught doing it.

SPENCER: Yes, Bill Clinton never got caught doing anything. Anyway.

MEGAN: Well, except that one thing that one time...

SPENCER: Let's not waste any time: Steve Schmidt is shanking the New York Times! And Politico's Ben Smith! And soon Marc Ambinder! You're next, whore.

MEGAN: Steve Schmidt can come and get me! I will be a partisan on the rag, which is way worse than "a partisan rag".

SPENCER: Sridhar Pappu and I were tossing this around in our office: clearly this is a cynical move to rally troglodyte-cons who for some reason feel threatened by a fucking newspaper. Blah blah blah that's obvious. But when you're really the sort of politician those troglodyte-cons embrace and identify with, you don't need to sound the media-bias alarm. Like Bush never did. Palin never does. Dole and Bush Senior were the ones who whined about the press. It comes from a position of weakness, exposing itself like a twisted Foucaultian undercurrent. No?

MEGAN: Well, Cheney did call a reporter an asshole on mike, I think that was probably better than screaming about media bias. I honestly think it makes them look really stupid, especially when they didn't do it when the Times was all intimating that he was boinking the lobbyist. Now they're biased? Please. Even George Will is attacking McCain right now.

SPENCER: No no no, they absolutely did. Rick Davis put out a huge fundraising letter that represented the campaign's first opportunity in 2008 for McCain to make a serious pitch for troglodytecons. They've been laying the groundwork to get rid of the sense on the right that McCain has always been the media's candidate. If I'm not mistaken, they rejected the NYT's endorsement. My personal favorite part in Ben Smith's piece is this cameo from tittyboy Michael Goldfarb:

One McCain aide, Michael Goldfarb, said Politico was “quibbling with ridiculously small details when the basic things are completely right.”

Hahahahahahaha! I remember when Goldfarb's still-employers at the Weekly Standard were harping on that line about CBS's Bush-National Guard fabrication-story being "fake but accurate."

MEGAN: Well, they have criticisms! That the criticisms themselves are flat-out lies doesn't mean the spirit of the criticisms are wrong!

SPENCER: Speaking of ample-bosomed gentlemen on the right, we should probably discuss the latest moment of incandescent grace from Jonah Goldberg

MEGAN: I think Jonah Goldberg should stop buying up all the nice bras in my size.

SPENCER: What bra-buying tips would you offer him? I'm serious. This is potentially lifechanging for the poor fellow.

MEGAN: If he's looking for a supportive garment, he should make sure to get the appropriate strap size and avoid demi-cups and balconette bras. Otherwise, he'll look like his boobs are about to spill out everywhere, which is pretty much why I buy exclusively demi-cup bras. That, and the ability to fool my eyes about their size if there isn't enough material to cover all of my breasts.

SPENCER: But do you think pieces like this — wherein observations of racist intimations become indicators of a deeper-seated racism — result from, say, poor back support?

MEGAN: I think that, really, the poor back-support is less problematic than the weight pulling on the muscles on the front of his chest. Only that painful sensation you get from too much jiggling would cause Jonah Goldberg to completely exonerate any potential racists in the Republican party by pointing out that there are racists everywhere! Including in the Democratic party! Well, ho-kay, Jonah, you caught us. Racism is a problem in this country. Also, I think the earlier part of his article in which he says it isn't why people are not going to vote for Obama but then admits that it is, that's totally from feeling sad watching them droop. Gravity's a bitch.

SPENCER: Just a few moments of Googling resulted in such beautiful moments in rightwingery as this:

You: a racist who is not planning to vote.
Me: a guy who thinks this country will be worse off if Obama is elected
This comment is for you! Perhaps you won’t vote, but Oprah and her followers will.
You might decide to sit out the election, but Sharpton and his followers won’t.

Um, what?

MEGAN: Yes, I am a huge follower of Al Sharpton. Well, there was that time at the DNC when I followed him to try to get a picture, but he was walking really fast so I gave up following him.

SPENCER:

You might be too busy to vote for McCain, but 85-90% of blacks will vote for Obama.
Get your lazy racist scum of the earth butt out there and vote for McCain. Why? Because it is best for America. Is McCain perfect? NO! Is Obama evil, or bad, or would he be a rotten President? Nope. Obama is a liberal. That’s my agenda. I don’t want some liberal partisan hack from the Chicago political machine to run this great country. Will he ruin it? Nah. It would take more than one man to ruin this country, but we will be worse off with him as Obama as President, in my opinion. So vote. Everybody who is not a racist hates you, and ignores you, so I am reaching out to you and asking you to vote for John McCain for President

How brave of this fellow! He clearly was too modest to accept such accolades, so he posted this anonymously.

MEGAN: Bravo, good sir! Racists have voting rights too! Unless they've been to prison.

SPENCER: Here's my favorite part:

To our liberal and Democrat friends and readers: Shut up. Don’t even complain about this comment.

MEGAN: Oh, well, I feel pwned.

SPENCER: Jonah, is that you? Don't make me hunt down any IP addresses!

MOE: Hey we can sort of start now if you want, though I'm still mostly reading through stuff. I just bought some beer because I think I'm the soberest person in Philadelphia right now. (The Eagles won a REALLY CLOSE game with the Rams today.) But here's something fun:

Mr. Rove said Mr. Schmidt’s increased authority — which came about after what amounted to a coup by Mr. Schmidt and other McCain aides with ties to the 2004 campaign, that gave him equal status with the campaign manager, Rick Davis — has been the best thing to have happened to Mr. McCain.

Oh God, Karl Rove. How do you do it, Karl Rove? You secure the election of a president so incompetent and widely loathed he decimates your party, then you leave the business for the media. Once in the media you commence bashing the media. You bash the media for asking questions about — not reporting, just asking around about — a rumor.

MEGAN: I am well on my way to non-Eagles-related drunkenness and I still cannot believe Steve Schmidt. Or Karl Rove. Like, seriously, did we watch the same speech? Only I thought it totally bombed and I talked to a shit load of Republicans at the wake today and people thought it fucking killed.

MOE: The sordid details of which are clearly, creepily reminiscent of the (much more easily refutable) rumor you disseminated to nastily defeat your boss's rival in the 2000 Republican primaries. And eight years later, said rival's distance from your old boss being the single-most compelling trait for Republicans to safely rally around, your old cronies take over his campaign, choosing a running mate whose most salient characteristic besides her nice bod is that she was the only member of the shortlist with a dearth of accomplishments deeper than that of your old boss in 2000, and then exploit the scurrilousness of said (much less obviously mendacious) rumor about said running mate's "personal" life to smear the "media"… (And who is paying for this? The media. "I'm not in the media, I'm around the media" is I believe how Rove put it…)

MEGAN: I wonder, honestly, if Rove even takes himself seriously at this point. I mean, the Palin Blake Slate is one of the reasons she was chosen.

MOE: Nah, he can't possibly. I actually find him more amusing than offensive at this point. Although maybe that's just because I read Safire today.

MEGAN: I did not read Safire today. I honestly feel like reading columnists is like a job that I don't get paid enough to do.

MOE: Don't let it hurt your teeth too much.

MEGAN: Honestly, at the point at which he says that Broder was the only fair pundit in attendance that night, it's hard to gag while I'm laughing so fucking hard.

MOE: And in shades of Friday's "Wow, I can't believe I'm going to calm myself down by talking about Bill O'Reilly," I entreat you to calm yourself down, after taking a gander over there, with the soothing relative sanity being preached by Chuck Krauthammer.

MEGAN: Oh, wait, he said something true:

The McCain acceptance speech reads better than it was read.

Oh, wait, here he's back to teabagging McCain:

That called for McCain to set aside his longtime reluctance to recount publicly his wartime suffering.

Ummmm, you know, except for his FUCKING MEMOIRS.

MOE: Oh shit, I am starting to find Palin so relatable though! Back in Wasilla they used to call her base of support the Liquor Cabinet.

MEGAN: Man, I would totally vote for the Liquor Cabinet.

MOE: Oh dear, and here her ex-brother in law admits he used a Taser on his 10-year-old son.

MEGAN: Ugh, that is super lame. Also, did you notice that after her announcement, she took her bouffant-y twist out? One of my reporter friends was like, she wears it like that to seem taller, she's gonna have to take it out for the campaign, McCain isn't tall enough.

MOE: Oh God Janice Min Janice Minnnn I'm boycotting you now:

“She out Obama’ed Obama with her speech,” said Janice Min, the editor of Us Weekly, who said the criticism of its coverage would pass soon enough. “She came on like a supermom who is not going to take a lot of guff from anyone. The way media works now, it is impossible to separate the personal from the political, and I think her role as a celebrity — how she does on that level — could have a significant effect on the election.”

Yeah I noticed it; I believe they decreed it to be Hepburn-esque in the New York Post. Here, exhibit five.

MEGAN: I didn't tell you! David Carr interviewed me for that piece at the Vanity Fair-Google party... and didn't use my quote. But it might be because I was drinking enough that Ana Marie Cox was like... um, what are you drinking? Because I was sort of lapping her on her alcohol acquisition. That's not the best sign, probably. Ok, I've found my first reason to be actively and yet completely unreasonably against Sarah Palin, other than the whole anti-choice thing: the use of multiple exclamation points:

"New administration finally allows new input, fresh ideas and ENERGY to work with the public to shape this city!!!"

MOE: Ok and I've found my first reason to reconsider my general assertion that the media hasn't been overstepping:

And yet, you get the feeling that at the end of the day, she could shake out that lustrous mane (longer than any other major female U.S. political figure's) and get it on with her man. She wears skirts that are quite form-fitting and often goes without stockings. As ZZ Top might say, she's got legs, and she knows how to use 'em. When Sen. John McCain introduced her at an Aug. 29 campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio, she was wearing open-toed red patent leather shoes.

That is the resident fashion critic at the LA Times.

MEGAN: Um, fucking gross. Also, I have peep toed pumps, that obviously means I'm a fucking whore.

MOE: Well you're obviously a fucking whore. But so am I and I have three pairs of shoes, everyone knows that.

But, oh my God and she is totally the Britney Spears of MILFs.

Palin held her baby in her arms as the warden drove a short distance around the facility, said corrections director Joe Schmidt, who sat next to Palin. A few days later, the governor got a warning from her public safety commissioner that someone had complained that she did not strap Trig into a car seat for the ride.

Palin dismissed the complaint as petty, and the commissioner, whom she appointed, took no formal action. But the incident shows the degree to which family and politics are bound together in Palin's career.

MEGAN: Yes, I mean, shoes do not equal whore, like, wtf is the LA Times fashion critic talking about?

MOE: Um, is that really what "the incident shows" Washington Post?? Or does the incident show that SARAH PALIN IS A TERRIBLE MOTHER WHO NOT FOR NO REASON AT ALL LEAKED AMNIOTIC FLUID ALL OVER THAT PLANE (or whatever.)

MEGAN: Ok, well, that doesn't say back seat or front seat, plus it doesn't mention whether she was breast feeding or not. I dunno, I got kicked out of a bar for being there with a pregnant friend who was like I JUST WANTED ONE GLASS OF WINE. Also, my vagina leaks a lot, particularly when I'm ovulating. I'm like sloppy, annoyingly wet.

MOE: Ugh that is so annoying. Didn't they read the story about how you can actually binge drink during pregnancy so long as you only do it a few times a month or so?

MEGAN: I don't know, they were complete assholic assholes about it.

MOE: OOOOOOH maybe you are just female ejaculating all the time like those women in those other stories who have orgasms all the time and have to strap miniature vibrators to their underwear just to get through the day????

MEGAN: Nah, when I was a teenager, I went to my doctor and she said it was normal. Like, it's my body being like IMPREGNATE ME!! But, fuck that bitch, I have an IUD.
Anyway, so if she got 600 votes in her first election and 900 in her second, then despite what Mitt Romney said, she didn't get as many votes in two elections as Joe Biden got in Iowa.

MOE: Hahaha oh Mitt Romney, please watch him now in this clip I made of that speech — well actually I had Nick McGlynn make it, thank you Nick — but I sat through the speech for the purpose of conveying in 42 seconds how insane it was. And I was pretty sure that crap about Biden getting fewer votes was, in Noonan parlance, "bullshit" but thanks for that.

MEGAN: I heard that and I was like... yeah, there's no way that's true. I used up 90 percent of my internet connection Wednesday night proving it.

MOE: Yeah, the thing that sucks about these Republicans is that they don't care if you fact-check them. I really wish Plouffe or whoever could just get up and say something equally outrageous and blasphemous like…hold on…like how about, "Sarah Palin ran a town that is smaller than many high schools!" Oh wait, that's true, hm, or like, what about "Sarah Palin's fiscally conservative policies managed to sink that tiny little town into enough debt to buy a brand-new Prius for every household in it TOO BAD HER HUSBAND IS THE TOOL OF ALL THOSE STUPID OIL COMPANIES." Ughhhhhh but that would also be true I think!

MEGAN: Oh, shit, another convention story I meant to mention: I met David Gregory in a Starbucks. He's replacing Matthews and Olbermann as anchors. Only, back at Wonkette (now erased in this server migration), I posted this video of him dancing to Mary J. and my friend Eric Brewer tracked him to a video of Obama dancing on Ellen and he had a poll about who was better and Gregory won. So, I was like, hey, so, like, I did this video of you and Obama dancing and he was like, oh, I totally saw that. And then I blushed and got totally awkies.

MOE: Well in lieu of lending credence to the scurrilous rumor I heard about Palin's heroic son in the Army I am going to ask you if you read today's Filkins piece in the Times Magazine about how Pakistan has turned into the Minneapolis of the Terrorist Convention and part of that is flaky Benazir Bhutto's fault for thinking it was a good idea to arm the mujahadeen back when we also thought that was a good idea, oh and did we mention history and that repeating itself thing, as comforting as it is to know that people make the same stupid mistakes and repeat all the same fuckups even in places where the average citizen doesn't consume a metric tonne of alcohol every month, it is not very comforting at all actually. Here it is. Obama was good on this issue the other night with O'Reilly, incidentally, not that O'Reilly had any idea.

MEGAN: I keep meaning to watch the O'Reilly shit, but my parents don't have cable. Anyways, anyone who elects Zadari deserves what they get, sort of like how I feel the overwhelming majority of people who either voted in GWB for a second term or — more likely — didn't fucking bother to vote better not now be bitching about their adjustable rate mortgage, I tell you what. Even people in Pakistan know he's a Thaksin-level corrupt asshat — and they probably have some idea who the fuck Thaksin is, too. Also, I object to the assertion that I consume a metric tonne of alcohol a month. That's why I mostly drink wine and hard liquor, to keep the tonnage down.

MOE: Oh god yeah Thailand, we could discuss that too, and Freddie and Fannie, THE NIGHT COULD LAST FOREVER. But what's hot right now? I thought the Times magazine story by Frum on Republicans and income inequality was interesting, if namely for its incongruity following a week during which the proverbial Bullshit, as Janice Min so eloquently pointed out, triumphed so decisively over Shit That Actually Matters.

MEGAN: Wait, income inequality? Get yourself some fucking bootstraps, yo. Does anyone even fucking know what bootstraps are?

MOE: Whoa, the origins of all the Palin kid names! Turns out that taken together they all come together to mean "CANNY ATTEMPTS TO DEFLECT OBVIOUS CORPORATE BEHOLDENNESS BY INGRATIATING SELVES TO NATURE FETISHIZING IDIOCRACY" or just "FLAGRANT POLITICKING RIGHT FROM THE START." Fuck I somehow didn't realize Sarah Palin married Todd because she was knocked up. That is so rouge cou.

MEGAN: I mean, it's like a month, tops that they knew. Chances are, like other super-Catholic friends of mine, they boned a little early and found out a couple weeks after the wedding regardless.

MOE: Nah nah Track was born eight months after they eloped "to save money." I dunno, it's funny. God, who gets pregnant the first time they have sex? Well, I have a friend whose parents did, but how crazy. Oh man it's getting late though I guess. And there's still so much! Damn the weekend for being over.

MEGAN: Well, luckily, I opened a magnum of wine! I got plenty of time!

MOE: Ok i'm getting another beer. Dogfish 90 minute IPA, not that they're sponsoring me. Not that i would LET THEM.

MEGAN: I've got a Yellowtail Cabernet. I am not going to pretend if a winery wanted to sponsor my blogging I would deny them the opportunity, but I would rather it be something non-corporate like Guglielmo or Hecker Pass, two of my favorite family wineries.

MOE: Ugh are we too far-gone — and too far down on the moral authority pay grade — to weigh in on Biden's belief that life begins at conception? Because personally I am inclined to say "well sure it does, so what" but you all know how paranoid I am about seeming "flip."

MEGAN: I mean, Biden's a Catholic, that's the party line, right? I just don't buy that. I don't believe it in the slightest. I'm not sure I believe in a soul. Potential life? Ok, maybe, but all evidence is that plenty of potential lives are ejected regularly from women's bodies. I just... I just don't buy that a zygote is A Life.

MOE: Right, well the "soul" is a different matter. As I think we might have discussed before, there's a genuine debate within the believers in souls as to how a soul could be formed at conception, then split into two separate souls two weeks later. Anyway "Life" …bacteria is life. Now human life is more important than animal life, but ughhhh if embryo life or fetus life was as precious as regular fully formed human life you would think there would be a huge public health campaign to finally put an end to the mysterious plague that silently kills as many as one in four humans before they even have the chance to get heartbeats! But there is not. And now I am tired.

MEGAN: My sister's fiancé was just asking when I was going to bed. I could stop drinking and try that out.

MOE: Yeah this is the longest Crappy Hour ever already I think. I've been drinking really slow and am still tired and I think that is a sign.

MEGAN: Ok, so, I'll check you at an abortion-esque ungodly hour on Tuesday.

MOE: Oh, but that David Gregory story was awesome.

MEGAN: There's nothing like embarrassing oneself in a Starbucks full of Republicans to make embarrassing oneself on the Internet seem totes minor.

MEGAN: Morning! Shall we get right down to analyzing the whole Edwards debacle?

SPENCER: I just wanted to say I went an entire weekend without fathering any illegitimate children OR vindicating Mickey Kaus.

MEGAN: Hey, and I haven't gotten knocked up either, so, congrats to both of us!

SPENCER: But this changes nothing. Mickey Kaus, now and forever, snacks on goat penis.

MEGAN: Well, I mean, he said it was really tasty.

SPENCER: So, you said in your post Friday that Edwards can't be Attorney General, which disappoints me tremendously. Do you think Elizabeth can launch her own political career? She's in remission, right?

MEGAN: Actually, I don't think she's in remission. She's incurable, so it's still going, sadly. I would've rather have seen Elizabeth's stellar political career. Rewind? I mean, the biggest problem is that paternity isn't going to be resolved. Rielle's not going to allow a DNA test, so everyone will continue to suspect it's his kid as I already do.

SPENCER: You saw her dKos diary, yeah? She wrote this like a pro:

John has spoken in a long on-camera interview I hope you watch. Admitting one’s mistakes is a hard thing for anyone to do, and I am proud of the courage John showed by his honesty in the face of shame.

I started singing the Ramones' "Swallow My Pride" to myself when I read this. and also "Swallow Goat Cock" By Kaus and the Goatees.

MEGAN: Which, I'm sorry, totally negates the whole "I asked her not to come on camera" bullshit Edwards pulled on Friday to appeal to us ladies.

SPENCER: He did what now?

MEGAN: On Friday, in his interview, Edwards told Woodruff that he not only didn't ask Elizabeth to appear with him but asked her not to, in effect saying he didn't want to be Spitzer, McGreevey or Craig, getting lambasted for having his wife by his side while admitting to this shit. BUT he had her talk to Bob Schieffer on the phone (sobbing, according to Schieffer) to confirm the 2006 version of events and then she did the thing on Kos.

So, I'm sorry, we don't have the visual, but I don't think he's a better guy. Also, as I said in my piece on Friday, I think he's lying on the timing and nothing I've read since does anything to disabuse me of that notion.

SPENCER: Well shit. But here's something else: in liberal circles in 2007, the drunken chatter was that Edwards didn't want to run for president, but Elizabeth, facing the clarifying prospect of her own mortality, wanted him to. Sounded plausible at the time! He had no chance of getting the nomination as soon as Obama jumped in, and possibly none before. But but but but BUT how could Elizabeth have known he slept with Rielle Hunter and then said "Fuck it, Johnny. You should still be president!"

MEGAN: I'm guessing that was just a story he put out there to look like less of a shitty husband for continuing to run while his wife had cancer. I'm sure she was supportive, but there was no firm indication that she'd live until the 2009 Inauguration when she was first diagnosed.

So, maybe seeing him as President was her semi-dying wish, maybe she'd internalized his desires to that degree that she thought it was, but it sounds to me like a pretty campaign fairy tale intended to make us believe in the John-and-Liz as a team thing. Anyway, back to why I'm sticking by my suspicions that he's still lying: Sam Stein thinks he is, too, and he's got even more evidence about when John and Rielle met, and when she got hired. And the Updated Newsweek story about how Rielle was indeed still going around claiming to be having an affair with someone the reporter knew (which, he didn't know Andrew Young) in January, which is the blind item Page Six had in January 06 as well.

SPENCER: Here's where I get exhausted with the story. OK OK he fucked her, might have fathered an illegitimate child, career's come to an end, it's DONE right? Does it matter if he's lying to the public if he's not going to be a public official anymore? At what point do we say enough, he's out of politics. I say right now!

MEGAN: Oh, you know me, I'm the type of person who hates to let that shit go. But on to new topics, then! Like the leaked Clintonian emails. Damn, I hate when shit makes Mark Penn look less incredibly wrong. Can't we just stick to mocking the chapter of his book about appealing to American snipers?

SPENCER: Let's chew on this a moment:

Penn, the presidential campaign’s chief strategist, wrote in a memo to Clinton excerpted in the article: “I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.”

MEGAN: George Bush in 08?

SPENCER: ... and so begins the header on a million GOP/McCain fundraising emails.

MEGAN: I mean, really, at this point, Penn ought to be getting fucking royalties from McCain's campaign.

SPENCER: so, congratulations, black people! Remember how you thought whites don't see you as American? Mark Penn just confirmed it. You are officially off the hook for the Iraq war.

MEGAN: Wait, according to Virginia Congressman Jim Moran it was all the Jews' fault anyway.

SPENCER: I'm curious to see in Josh's story what the Clinton machine's reaction to that memo was — whether that launched the Wright-based whisper campaign or whether the Clintonites rejected it. Yeah yeah that shit. But really — if that memo was ignored/repudiated, it's one thing. If it was ACTED UPON that is quite another.

MEGAN: Do you think that whether the Clintonistas put the Obama in Somali gear photo out there will be in there?

SPENCER: Mike "who's your celebrity crush" Allen says the Penn memo was 3/30/08 so I think that post-date Somalibama but NOT some of the Wright stuff.

MEGAN: I think this much was acted upon:

Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America American to the middle class in the middle of the last century. And talk about the basic bargain as about the deeply American values you grew up with, learned as a child and that drive you today. Values of fairness, compassion, responsibility, giving back

Which, really, means Penn should pay royalties to Karl Rove.

SPENCER: Except Rove wins elections
MEGAN: What his lackeys will do with John McCain is another question.

SPENCER: ... ok back to Edwards for one second: can he really not be attorney general? He had such balls! He was going to be the leftwing John Ashcroft, fucking with the right just to fuck with them! The mailed fist in Obama's politics-of-hope-and-reconciliation velvet glove? Really? I have to give up the dream? The dream of indictments for torture and rendition and US attorney firings and warrantless surveillance? What if he just says the kid is mine? The Democrats are going to have 57 fucking Senate seats!

MEGAN: I really don't think he can be. Can you imagine those confirmation hearings? Especially if it turns out he was still lying? If he used donor money to pay his mistress (let alone hush up his mistress)? Did you check the Baron angle — that's Edwards' finance chair who paid both Rielle and Andrew Young and his wife and kids to get the fuck out of North Carolina but says he didn't get the money from Edwards or the campaign? Oh, right, and this:

The associate, who asked not to be identified, said Mr. Young has privately made conflicting statements about the extent of his relationship with Ms. Hunter and whether he is the child’s father.

Like, all of that, up for review, in the confirmation hearing for the guy who's supposed to play gotcha with the Bushies? I think you need to get yourself a new legal pitbull, as do I.

SPENCER: BUT GODDAMN IT i need to see someone go to jail on this shit. I guess if you're Obama you want to be light years away from Edwards' cocktrouble, but if he doesn't appoint a real left-wing SOB for AG I will be sorely disappointed. Now I feel fucked by John Edwards. Hopefully I remain unpregnant.

MEGAN: Well, how much would you sorta like to see, um, Bill Clinton in that role. If the Dems get 60 in the Senate.

SPENCER: Well, not if he acquiesced to that Penn memo!

MEGAN: Can you imagine Bill Clinton with subpoena power? His bar membership's been reinstated.

SPENCER: and that's a confirmation hearing you relish?

MEGAN: Hey, I said if they get to 60.

SPENCER: actually on second thought, it would be awesome to see Clinton-as-pugilist putting it back on, say, Inhofe or Sessions.

MEGAN: I'm just enjoying the thought of Bill Clinton with the power to investigate the dirty laundry of those that investigated his blowjobs, because you know there is worse than a couple of intern beejes going on in Washington.

SPENCER: But speaking of going back: the right-wing veterans organization Vets For Freedom are sending right-wing Iraq vets to embed in Iraq. and you know what? I have absolutely no problem with this.

MEGAN: Really? That the Weekly Standard and the National Review are putting a bunch of right-wing non-jouno partisan hacks on the masthead for the purpose of war promotion and we're footing the bill? Please explain.

SPENCER: That "we're footing the bill" bullshit applies to ALL EMBEDS.

MEGAN: Yes, which I'm fine with when their stated purpose is not to promote the war and elect John McCain.

SPENCER: Like, you paid for my trip to Baghdad & Mosul last year, and I reported from a liberal perspective. That's structurally indistinguishable from what the VFF ppl are doing.

MEGAN: Except you're an actual reporter.

SPENCER: It's not something the Pentagon is in the business of stopping. You'd rather not live in a world where the Pentagon starts deciding who is and who isn't a reporter.

MEGAN: No, you're right, I just wonder why the WS and the NR can't find actual reporters to go. Is there a word for that?

SPENCER: A bunch of antiwar bloggers have embedded as well. The embed program is open, and in terms of the "harm" they do, only the 27 Percenters who still back Bush would read this shit anyway.

MEGAN: Chiiiickenhawk or something?

SPENCER: No, I doubt that, I just think the Standard & NRO know a gimmick when they see one, and think that it'll be harder for leftwing antiwarriors to attack pieces written by vets. and to that, I must quote Beyonce: "they must not know 'bout me, they must not know 'bout me." but, look, you know, the game is the game, and let's see how they play it.

MEGAN: I am happy to attack pieces written by vets. Heck, I've gotten into no less than two ugly political arguments with veteran friends of mine and finally threw up my hands and said, "If you want to buy what they're selling, rationality and actual facts aren't going to convince you, so don't ever ask me questions again."

SPENCER: Also, speaking of BALLING, everybody note that my roommate and homie Matt Yglesias launched his new ThinkProgress blog today!

MEGAN: Congrats to him! Should we talk about that little war thing that started this weekend? I hear, by the way, that anything good about Russian cuisine comes from Georgia.

SPENCER: I dunno. I make a kickass borscht.

MEGAN: Georgian wine is definitely better, not that it's not virtually impossible to come by here.

SPENCER: So yeah while I was driving for an internet-free weekend in State College, PA Russia attacked Georgia or something? I should know about this shit so enlighten me.

MEGAN: Well, so, Georgia went into the disputed territory of South Ossetia where the citizens apparently want to go back to being Russian, so the Russians moved in. And because they're the Russian military, they routed the Georgians. Now they're bombing the capital of Tbilisi and sending ground forces to Gori, which is in Georgia proper, about which one diplomat said, "They seem to have gone beyond the logical stopping point."

SPENCER: Also LOL my friend Benny's band is on the cover of the new Kerrang!

MEGAN: Man, your friends are sort of kicking ass today. They're like the Russians of pop culture.

SPENCER: Yeah so that sucks and we should set to work on the diplomatic course of getting the UN Security Council to turn back the invasion and restore the status quo ante.

MEGAN: Yeah, that's sort of what the Georgians think only you know who sits on the Security Council?

SPENCER: Yeah yeah.

MEGAN: That's why the UN has been so effective in Chechnya. And you know we aren't going to do it because Bush is hard at work at the Summer Olympics and he's seen into Putin's soul.

SPENCER: You know what sets a really bad precedent? Invading other countries while circumventing the UN Security Council. I mean call me crazy!
MEGAN: Well, right, and that. The Security Council basically functions as a rubber stamp for the foreign policies of its members.

SPENCER: Next he'll look into Rielle Hunter's vagina.

MEGAN: Oh, hey, so, apparently we all agree that Obama hasn't screwed anything up yet on his trip. And I think Obama knows where to recruit door-knockers for Florida, if only because I think the sight of a bunch of Palestinians knocking on doors saying "Ma'am, believe me, we know, Barack Obama isn't going to change the United States' policies on Israel one iota."
MOE: I DRANK SO MUCH LAST NIGHT actually I didn't I just drank enough. Surprising fact: I did not drink on Saturday or Sunday night at all. Not one drop! When that happens it throws my system out of whack you know.
MEGAN: I know, it's like, the sun is less bright on those days. I started buying beer, actually, because it was so hot and to get into shape for Germany but I can't consume enough of it all in one sitting to get drunk, it's a little sad still.
MOE: Oh look David Brooks is talking about debtor nation again huh cool.
MEGAN: In honor of your hangover, I recommend reading this analysis of how, by not publishing McCain's OpEd on Obama and the surge, the New York Times MOE: Holy itshay is that you Bobo??

This third position begins with the notion that people are driven by the desire to earn the respect of their fellows. Individuals don’t build their lives from scratch. They absorb the patterns and norms of the world around them.

Yeah regarding McCain, he wouldn't have looked like an idiot I don't think because who reads op-eds "written" by really important people? (Exception that proves the rule being Angelina of course.)
MEGAN: Dammit, I hate agreeing with Brooks! I mean, he does it without resorting to Marxism which is where you or I would go with it, but the idea that we're eroded a social norm by scaling down luxury goods, accept indebtedness as a way of life and normifying conspicuous consumption, man, dammit, I hate that. It's like, even my friends in Germany were surprised that as an American the only debts I have are student loans and my mortgage.
Like, even they all know we're a fucked up country when it comes to debt, even if they only know if because they're importing our debt culture like the rest of the bits of the worst of American culture we export elsewhere.
Oh, wait, phew, all is right in the world as Brooks descends into madness again.

The Treasury and the Fed are trying to stabilize the system while still ensuring that those who made mistakes feel the pain.

LOLZ, the government is trying to make sure people who made mistakes feel the pain. Sure, unless you're Bear Stearns or Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, sure unless you're the trader that committed the frauds that undermined the stability of IndyMac and cost a bunch of old people their (uninsured) retirement savings and shit. "Feel the pain." The people that caused most of the problems won't feel any pain.
MEGAN: Anyway, so, the GOP has decided to stop suing people for using their logo which is like unAmerican to stop suing people and yet it's anti-trial lawyer and sort of pro-tort reform so perhaps more fitting with Republican ideology.
MOE: And I still don't know what to talk about, I guess there was that meme about how Colin Powell and Condi Rice may endorse Obama because of that whole identity politics factor but Condi identifies more with fellow alienbots so I'm thinking no on that one.
MEGAN: Yeah, I mean, what exactly is fitting with her political ideology that Obama espouses?
MOE: Well I think her exercise regimen is a big component of her ideology, and she totes has a crush on Michelle. But is that enough? Well shit, maybe for Condi!
MEGAN: Ok, can we talk about the fact that Cindy McCain travels with a stylist? I knew her and Megan's hair was too shiny to be true.
MOE: Oh I guess we have to talk about Obama's "fake" interviews. I mean, it would be one thing if someone said this who did not work for the memefactory, but I see what she's saying. That's the one thing I always dug about McCain is his "I'm just going to babble about whatever pops into my mind" PR strategy.
And Meghan HAS to have extensions right?
MEGAN: I don't know, I mean, I have seen her up close, if they are extensions, Ken Paves is grinding his teeth down to little points in envy.
MOE: Whoa I did not realize Cindy

fought her fear of campaigning via small planes by getting her pilot's license without telling her husband

Oh this is a good story, I love Libby Copeland.
MEGAN: I mean, you want to hate her, and then it's just hard. She's so nice-seeming.
The charity work, etc. Also, wtf, Andrea Mitchell? I'm not sure I get that, is she just mad she flew all the way over their and Obama chose Lara Logan or something?
MOE: (The writer.) (Who I was like totally jealous of for like ninety years because she went to school with me and NEVER WORKED A MILLISECOND ON THE SCHOOL PAPER WHERE I TOILED.) I did not think she was so good when she started at the Washington Post but now I love pretty much everything she does and I have to say, it is nice to suspect you would dislike someone and then turn out to be wrong. Okay, so Cindy McCain, she seems cool, I have to say. Not as cool as Michelle, but the thing about having disadvantages or whatever is that it is sometimes its own advantage, and Cindy grew up rich and blond and cheerleadery in Arizona. I wonder if she ever even saw Do The Right Thing. Nevertheless, she was just in Cambodia.
MEGAN: And for Operation Smile, which we all know I have a very soft spot for, even if the founder seemed totally amazed that I didn't have a speech impediment when we met once.
MOE:

"You just can't just help but love her, honey," says John's mother, the irrepressible 96-year-old Roberta McCain, who several times during an interview says she has nothing to say and then keeps adding things. She describes Cindy as a seamless mother who has managed her four children's lives with seeming effortlessness, all while looking fantastic and wearing the most stylish clothes. "I don't see any chink in her armor, and I'm not biased," she says.

MEGAN: Yes, as a mother-in-law, you certainly wouldn't be biased at all Roberta. Now, see, this is a serious question. I can't say from his first wife, as she's not so keen to do interviews, but between his mother, her, and Cindy, how in the world does McCain still not know better than to tell anti-woman jokes? Because, really, he's kind of surrounded by cool-seeming chicks. I want to totally be Roberta McCain when I'm 92, if I don't off myself at 60 of course.
MOE: hahaha

She is, in the words of her brother-in-law Joe McCain, a self-editor. Aware she is under a spotlight, she recognizes that everything she says must be carefully framed, or it can be taken out of context. "The best way to put it in context is to not say it," he says.

I am getting that tattooed on my knuckles.
MEGAN: Fuck my knuckles, I might be wearing gloves! I'm getting that tattooed upside down on my cleavage, the one thing that is always visible.
MOE: omg let's get tattoos together!
MEGAN: Yes, totally, I have been itching for one for years, I'd bet Attackerman knows a place, you know, somehow.
MOE: Yo this is really rough:

"John was with me the first time I lost a baby," she told Harper's Bazaar last year, "but not for those after, which was hard."

MEGAN: Yeah, I read that then and I felt awful for her. I mean, dude, as obviously as she wanted kids and as young as she apparently was, you have to wonder how they got through that. It wasn't like in the 50s or something, you know?
Also, can we all say a heart "Fuck you" to Karl Rove for this again?

She did, however, cry in front of reporters after smear attacks during the 2000 South Carolina primary insinuated that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child — a reference to Bridget, born in Bangladesh.

All together, please: Fuck you, Karl Rove.
MOE: Here's another thing, like, she didn't feel like she was addicted because he didn't notice. Oh my, you know, like that is a lesson: do not rely on dudes to notice you have a problem, or really, anything at all about your condition unless they somehow interpret it to involve you being "mad" at them. I bet she was actually weirdly flattered that one time he called her a trollop for wearing too much makeup because it was like, you noticed?
MEGAN: Oh, God, I hear that for sure. Like, actually, a friend of a friend divorced his wife (eventually) for being a coke addict and he only noticed when he couldn't get money out of an ATM one day and went to the bank to complain and found out they didn't have any more. Like, any. That's an addiction.
Also, I stopped trying long ago with dudes. If I want them to notice, I'll say "Hey, I got my haircut, do you like it," or, "Hey, I dyed it red, what do you think," or, "Hey, I lost 30 pounds, what do you think of my ass now," you know, shit like that.
MOE: Hahaha I feel like dudes are pretty good at noticing that shit. "You look different…good" Hey thanks I washed my hair! I found that purple eyeshadow that vaguely recalls Debbie Gibson circa Electric Youth but oh well! I brushed my hair! I'm wearing a color other than black or gray! It's more like the, I dunno, subtler stuff they are shitty about. That's actually why I don't think it's such a bad thing to write about them on the internet.
MEGAN: Maybe I just date really oblivious dudes. But, also, my emotions aren't really subtle. And I try not to blog about actual dudes I'm currently dating. Dudes I used to date — particularly if they've pissed me off and aren't speaking to me anyway — somehow feel like fair game. Oh, also, before we end this, we should probably mention the fact that Radovan Karadžić was arrested yesterday.
MOE: oh right he totally was!
MEGAN: Amusingly, to tie it back into drinking, reportedly while drinking a beer on the street! Man, who knew Belgrade was so much like Boston?
MOE: This is a really educational blog post that puts things nicely in perspective! So this guy's poetry: crappy or what? Hmm.

In his defense, his supporters say that he is no more guilty than any other war-time political leader. His ability to evade capture for over a decade made him a local hero among the Bosnian Serbs.

So maybe now that he has been arrested while drinking a beer he will look less badass?
MEGAN: Hrm, well, being a bit of a translator myself, I sort of wonder if the reason these sound so incredibly shitty is translation error, but thematically I think they're also overblown and so I'm going to call crappy.
Also, I think Richard Byrne is suggesting that Ratko Mladić, the guy behind Srebrenica, might off himself rather than turn himself or be captured. And, to your point, that's totally what Byrne says, that not only will Karadžić look like a f'idiot, but that the former government that "couldn't find him" might look stupid to the people on whose support they counted. God, if only making an Administration look like a bunch of bumbling incompetent idiots would work here. God, we could dream, right?

MEGAN: Just for the record, I thought it important to note at this juncture that I spent 12 Euro this morning on a T-shirt that says "Good Bush, Bad Bush" and features a picture of a woman yanking down her underwear and one of George Bush, but mostly just because it was 12 Euros and a nice heavy T-shirt. I'm hoping to wear it, like, around the Republican convention or something.

And, I have been wondering for the better part of the last week what gas costs here vs. in America between the exchange rate and the liter/gallon conversion and in the last 3 minutes I have calculated it. At today's exchange rate, gas is about $9.36/gallon in Germany (at least in this part of Germany). So, um, I think we've got a long was to go gas-price-wise.

SPENCER: the Germans had better lift their ban on offshore oil drilling then how else will they maybe bring the price of gas down 3 cents in maybe 30-40 years?

MEGAN: I mean, not even Bush fucking believes that shit, he just wants more gas because you know he ain't getting back on a Segway any time soon.

SPENCER: also, you know what's disgusting? Monster Energy Drink. I don't know how people drink this shit, but I have like 15 oz to go and while the Sunk Cost Fallacy doesn't apply to, say, investment strategy or the Iraq war, I feel like it has a certain logic when it comes to morning beverages.

I drove to Baltimore and back on Saturday but thanks to the miracle of Zipcar's gas-dedicated credit card I did not purchase gas
MEGAN: What happened to you drinking coffee? All those "energy" drinks — and especially Red Bull — taste list over processed Mountian Dew to me.

SPENCER: you, my Carolla-wielding friend, are fucked. I like Red Bull

MEGAN: Luckily, I hardly drive my Corolla.

SPENCER: hahahaha one of my friend's status message is "Now I have Toyota Corolla. Just like everybody else."

MEGAN: I mean, I've had it 8 years in December and it's got like 65,000 miles on it, and that includes trips home and all the driving I used to do for work.

SPENCER: I had to stop in a magazine shop to buy a an offensive magazine to get offended at in public and all they had was Monster Energy Drink.

MEGAN: I've just bought fashion magazines to do something with later when I have a scanner, but there's one in which the nipples are airbrushed out just like in America! Anyway, we should probably also talk about the whole Pat Tillman investigation that's going nowhere fast, if only to get to the following quote which I found horrible.

The committee cited one exchange between White House political chief Karl Rove and Ron Fournier, then a political reporter for The Associated Press.
In a chain under the subject line "H-E-R-O," Rove replied to an e-mail from Fournier by saying, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this?"Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

MEGAN: The fuck? And now he's head of the AP's Washington Bureau? I guess it just goes to show you can have political opinions and still get to the top of your profession as a journalist or something like that. Maybe as long as they're Republican.

SPENCER: ok, I saw my old boss flag this, but honestly, BFD. Fournier wrote a source-greasing email that didn't say anything particularly offensive. Reporters do this all the time — Rove would call it "strategery"

MEGAN: I just meant the creepy religio-patriotism about it skeeves me. But I'll trust you on that and defend you when your emails come out in 6 years or something for sure.

SPENCER: As to Fournier's political leanings, I remember watching Recount with you — Fournier was the guy who calls Ron Klain on election night to tell Gore not to concede, which is way more partisan than this email to Rove

MEGAN: Omg, you're so right. So he's really just a slimy suck-up like I always was as a lobbyist. Ah, the good old days.

SPENCER: or am I just part of the journalistic problem now by not being offended by it?

MEGAN: We're all part of the problem, right? Do we care to comment on Rove defending ignoring subpoenas or is it par for the course and we're done caring?

SPENCER: I'm actually trying to write a piece about shit like this for a magazine-that-shall-not-be-named, and I want to call it "The Politics of Retribution"

MEGAN: By the way, Der Speigel's website apparently has a timer counting down to the end of the Bush Administration. And if one more person asks me who is going to win, I'm going to say something crazy like "Ralph Nader" and then laugh hysterically and start speaking in tongues. About the subpoenas thing?

SPENCER: see, Rove and the rest of them will only respect coercion and force, but Obama's candidacy/presidency is predicated on hope and all that shit

MEGAN: So they don't know how to react to people being polite to them?

SPENCER: so the piece would be about how he should use the Senate Democrats and Attorney General John Edwards to launch an onslaught of persecution aimed at uncovering the abuses of the last 8 years

MEGAN: Aw, angry Johnny! I miss him and his pretty hair.

SPENCER: like a smart strategy for Obama in Year One would be to order a mass declassification about, like, rendition, torture, the U.S. attorney firings, everything you see covered on TPM

MEGAN: Ooh, that would be awesome. And not just because maybe someone would eventually hire me to dig through all of that shit and write about it.

SPENCER: not only does that bring all of this shit out into the light, it a) distracts the press while Obama launches into his universal health care/Iraq withdrawal agenda and b) it gets the right to lawyer up and cower in fear, constraining it from blocking said agenda and there's more! Implicitly, it acts as a really satisfying fuck-you

MEGAN: But, it does make Ben Ginsburg and his skeevy lawyer ilk a shit ton of money.

SPENCER: like, "Oh, you want U.S. persons communications' deemed merely 'relevant' to 'foreign intelligence information' wiretapped under a blanket warrant? Cool! Well, Mr. Feith, every time you call Ahmed Chalabi, I'mma be on the other line"

MEGAN: Oh, Dougie Feith! It'll be like all our favorite criminals seated on big panels. It'll be the left-wing McCarthyism. We'll get our own Fred Thompson.Except for he's Watergate, but you know what I mean.

SPENCER: or: "Oh, you want to be able to put a black bag over a motherfucker's head, google him, strap him up in the belly of a C-130 and drop him off into the middle of nowhere? You got it, Mr. Rumsfeld! One minute you're at your Kalorama crib complaining to Joyce about why she can't love you longtime like Midge Decter and the next you're dropped off on the side of the road in Spain, where Judge Baltasar Garzon has an indictment out for you for war crimes. Send me a postcard from the Hague!"

MEGAN: Well, hopefully you know what I mean, because I don't really, but in another interesting German story, I once worked at a language lab in college and got her hear the testimony of Bertold Brecht before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and he wrapped all them bitches up in knots, drove out to Dulles and hopped a plane to East Berlin. Where would Feith go?

SPENCER: speaking of Feith, he's going to be testifying to a House Judiciary panel at 10 about his role in authorizing torture which is why I can't stay crappying with you much longer

MEGAN: Totally cool, are you blogging it for Windy?

SPENCER: yeah

MEGAN: Are they going to ask him about the Beaver memo?

SPENCER: I believe they will! Mr. Feith, how familiar are you with a certain 2002 Beaver communication...?

MEGAN: So many double entendres, so little time.

SPENCER: Congressman, I can safely say no Beaver has ever talked to me, and if one did, I would not listen.

MEGAN: Mr Feith, are you saying you have no familiarity with anything Beaver related?

SPENCER: christ this Monster shit is DISGUSTING and it's making my chest hurt

MEGAN: Um, then, I think you should stop drinking it, your $1.75 be damned.

MOE: let me tell you something pathetic

MEGAN: Away

MOE: I just went down to the deli, bought an iced coffee, forgot the iced coffee at the deli.

MEGAN: Oh, I do that mostly with leftovers at restaurants

MOE: I guess I should go get it.

MOE: What are you reading this morning?

MEGAN: What's crappy hour without caffeine?

MEGAN: Most about how McCain's hiring all of Rove's people

MOE: Oh yeah, honestly, why is he doing that? Reading this "massive campaign shakeup" thing I was thinking, Is it really time for this? What has McCain even done "wrong" so far? And they couldn't get rid of Charlie Black? Also, isn't Charlie Black a weird name? Like an obscure mendacious Peanuts character.

MEGAN: What he's apparently done wrong is not hired enough Rove people? I mean, when I saw the news yesterday about the shake up, I thought it was to get rid of Charlie but there's not a word about it, actually, it's just bringing on more people.

MOE: Wow tell me this isn't a little overly "synergistic"…Also there is totally a joke to be made re zookeeping and Republicans but it is the Thursday before a long weekend so…

MEGAN: And Newt Gingrich grew up in Harrisburg?

MEGAN: Also, I've been reading about how Fox Photoshopped the NY Times writers to make them look uglier.

MOE: Oh this thought did not go through: "Yeah but did you get the Bronx Zoo bugs crawling all over that as you tried to read it? And you know what they say about Pennsylvania being "Alabama in between."" It was pretty deep. I still haven't gone and gotten my coffee. Last night was rough.

MEGAN: If I lived in a 5th floor walk up, I wouldn't leave the house much. I mean, I already don't leave the house much, but still.

MOE: Holy shit that is insane re Fox News. Can the FCC just shut those fuckers DOWN? The other day they were insisting that birth control was an "abortificient." I was screaming at the TV and I have no emotions so it was something.

MEGAN: The FCC has no control over cable, but the liberals have this brilliant idea of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, which would set an arm of the FCC to policing that right wing and left wing views have exactly equal amounts of television time, not that that's not scary and creepy depending on which party is in office but of COURSE the Democratic party will have power forever and ever so it won't be a problem.

MOE: Oh right the FCC can't police cable, duh. Which is kind of hilarious since cable penetration in this country is probably 80% of households. But the misinformation those guys consciously and constantly disseminate surprises and pisses off even me, on a daily basis! Also, the ads on the E&P website are funny. One's about how to deal with your yellow teeth. I wonder if they suggest Photoshop!

MEGAN: Anyway, so, like McCain is best buds with Sarkozy who is going to meet with Syria and Caroline Kennedy is more than window dressing, but I am having trouble caring about anything other than the Brinkley divorce trial in which it turns out that her soon-to-be-ex only banged his teenage mistress 10-12 times in the year he was having an affair with her, but he gave her, like, $300,000? Damn,

MOE: Whoa he gave her three hundred grand? I wrote something the other day in Dirt Bag about how I wasn't so much feeling the Brinkley divorce but then yesterday when he admitted he only hired that girl to do typesetting for his firm because he wanted to fuck her I was like, "Ooooh, oooh, we should probably do a post on how to tell if someone is hiring you for a "job" that is actually prostitution!" And then I promptly forgot natch. Dude, his lawyer is a dick though!

MOE:

"For goodness sake: She's on her fourth husband," Sheresky told the court. "Your honor, we're here because of the self-indulgent wrath of a woman scorned."

MEGAN: Well, she's on her 4th husband because she sadly keeps marrying assholes and idiots, you idiot asshole.

MEGAN: Also, by the way, he reportedly stuck Billy Joel's daughter Alexis's face in a bucket because she took a long shower and something flooded.

MOE: No. fucking. way. I think Alexis is on the cover of Ocean Drive this month and I was going to buy it but…Ocean Drive is really heavy and…I just can't fucking believe this guy! And I wanted to talk about FARC and whether that laptop had anything to do with saving Betancourt and what she is going to say about Hugo Chavez now but…actually this is a really good story. And it's on the covers of the NY tabloids every day so that makes it sorta "news" right? Also it is the third of July motherfuckers!

MEGAN: That's right! Plus, um, can we have a little Bush/Rove conspiracy theory about the timing of his trip to Colombia and the freeing of the prisoners?

MOE: Wait only after you check out the culinary delicacy featured on the Weekly Standard blog I was looking at in hopes of finding some reaction to Hitch getting waterboarded, which I did not find, although I did find a review of a William Safire book by Chris Hitchens, who is still mad about Nixon…anyway.

MEGAN: Um, I really, really wish I hadn't seen that. I didn't mention earlier, but this Crappy Hour is coming to you live from my bathroom floor where I seem to be reliving last night's dinner in reverse in a most unfortunate way and I'm glad I puked after the last sentence I wrote before this because if I hadn't, I would've after seeing that picture. That said, Attackerman talked about Hitchens' waterboarding. He's not a fan of Hitchens, but he thought the video itself was important for people to see.

MOE: Well I was trying to look at right-wing blogger reactions to it you see because the right wing bloggers somehow don't talk about torture a whole lot. Also my coffee drink, which I went down and retrieved, is called "Big Black." Because Steve Albini won't fucking let it go that I wrongly referenced him in that Liz Phair post. Ugh.

MEGAN: I think the right-wing blogosphere is ignoring coverage of torture because, like actual torture, if they ignore it, they won't have to think about it seriously or try to defend the indefensible.

MEGAN: hey, if it's cool to be done, i'd really like to lie down for a while

MOE: go ahead babe. I was looking around for stuff to write about and um failing.