• People at Washington's Sidwell Friends School (where Sasha & Malia go) are disappointed that the Obamas "only" donated autographed magazines to their charity auction rather than agreeing to hang out with the highest bidder. [MSNBC]

• Levi Johnston's mother Sherry's prosecutor is pissed that she told him she had to leave the state on family business, since he now knows that "business" was appearing on Tyra. [Huffington Post]
• More torturous than watching all of Sherry Johnston's interviews is listening to John McCain try to defend not investigating any of the Bushies who signed off on torturing people. [ThinkProgress]
• But add him to the list of people who think Dick Cheney should STFU. [Politico]
• Newt Gingrich, having not (yet) been waterboarded, doesn't know whether it is torture. Put him on the sign-up sheet after Mr. Hannity! [ThinkProgress]
• The FBI interrogator who got most of the information out of Abu Zubaydah before the CIA started torturing him thinks that torture is useless. He wanted to arrest the CIA contractors doing it before the Administration made it "legal," but his bosses recalled him to the States instead. [Time]
• Twenty Americans are sick from the swine flu, so it's a public health emergency. There are a million Americans living with HIV and more than 500,000 have died, but I guess 20 Americans throwing up is a big deal. [Politico, Avert]
• Governor Rick Perry plans on getting his state to secede... after he gets his precious federal swine flu dollars, that is. [ThinkProgress]
• Shane Murphy, who was second in command of the American vessel seized by Somali pirates, thinks Rush Limbaugh is a race-baiting asshole. Unlike elected Republican officials, he ain't takin' that assertion back. [Boston.com]
• Hillary Clinton has told Iraqis that we won't let their country go to hell. Any more than we already have, that is. [Associated Press]
• She also thinks Lebanon should try being moderate. The Syrians disagree. [NY Times]
• Minnesotans have had it up to here with Norm Coleman's bullshit. [Politico]
• And prepare to break out the world's smallest violin: lobbyists are complaining they don't have enough access to the White House to lobby effectively! [Washington Post]

• Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid has decided that the entire Democratic caucus will vote next week whether Independent Senator Joe Lieberman will keep his seat as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee after having back John McCain and gone negative against Obama. [TPM Election Central]
• How negative did Lieberman really go? There's a video to count the ways. [Politico]
• And both the Clintons swear that — despite leaked reports that rather obviously came from Lieberman's camp — they aren't pushing to keep Lieberman at Homeland Security or in the caucus. [Politico]
• Racist Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, who, according to the Constitution represents all the citizens of Georgia regardless of their race, knows the reason he didn't avoid a run-off election because not enough of "his" people turned out. You know, white people. That always vote for the white guy. Because they're white. [Think Progress]

• In the meantime, the Bushies are mad that the Obama folks leaked that Bush will only support an auto industry bailout if the Dems pass the Colombia FTA, as though that wasn't a legit assumption given that the Bushies already told the Hill that exact thing the day before. [Politico]
• Obama released his guidelines covering lobbyists' activities for his transition team and good government types think he is, like, so cool. [The Hill]
• And if the fact that he was able to outspend John McCain by crazy margins wasn't reason enough, it turns out that skipping public financing means Obama's campaign won't face a crazy audit. Raising tons of money means that if they did get some unlawful contributions, they would be so minor the FEC doesn't really care, either. McCain, though, gets the full accountant treatment, which is not as sexy-dirty as it sounds, sort of like how fucking an accountant isn't. [Politico]
• And Latino groups expect that Obama will appoint Latinos to the Cabinet. They are, apparently, pushing for Governor Bill "McGrabbyhands" Richardson, but I'm throwing my completely inconsiderable weight behind New York Congresswoman (and Small Business Committee Chair) Nydia Velázquez for the top spot at the Small Business Administration. LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is supposedly on the list for something (and is, strangely, one of Obama's economic transition advisers), but I think he's more likely to get a sub-Cabinet appointment than a Cabinet slot. [Washington Post]
• Alaska's verified 50,000 of its early and absentee ballots and will start counting them this week to see if convicted and corrupt Senator Ted Stevens will actually win re-election and thus give Governor Sarah Palin a shiny new Senate feather to add to her political cap. [CNN]
• The GOP has started smearing Minnesota's Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie in a misguided attempt to provoke peals of laughter from every Democrat that ever dealt with Katherine Harris and stop the legally-mandated recount in Minnesota because the margin separating Coleman and Franken is still teeny-tiny. Apparently, since 3 people heard him speak at a non-prime-time spot during the Democratic convention, Minnesotans don't need a recount. [TPM Muckraker]
• Noted cursing afficianado Joe Scarborough has earned himself a 7-second on-air delay for saying "Fuck you" earlier this week. My momma would've washed my mouth out with soap, but I could run faster. Not 7 seconds faster, though. [Politico]
• John Edwards has decided to give make his first public appearance following his admission that he fucked around on his wife. What do you think the odds are that audience members will ask him how he's coping with having cuckolded his wife the way that people seemingly insist on asking Elizabeth how she feels about it? Slim to none? [Time]
• Hopefully, the odds are better that the next Congress really will examine Bush's abuses of power next year. [Washington Independent]

MEGAN: So, Spencer, I have a favorite new Internet game this morning. "McCain's Lobbyists" allows you to check out where he's getting his cash from BUT even better... every time you click a face or an issue area, the page goes "cha-ching" and moneybags pile up at his feet and that's the sort of thing that amuses me before 9 am.
SPENCER: i clicked on Juleanna Glover Weiss!
MEGAN: Me too! But mostly because she's Liz Glover's sister, and she was actually super nice to me when Liz and I worked together.
SPENCER: who, in all due credit, I recently saw ask a genuinely-intellectually-curious question of a couple Iraqi parliamentarians
oh no shit? i didn't know that
MEGAN: Also, I clicked Kirsten Chadwick because I worked with her and she hated me and vice versa.
SPENCER: anyway, the game says Juleanna profitted $9 million off a measely $1.3 million McCain donation by her clients
what a titan
MEGAN: And I'm just going to put this out there, she only ever got hired based on the strength of her connection (whatever it was) with Roy Blunt and couldn't actually run an issue up the flagpole herself or lift anything heavy legislatively without him (or his staff) doing all the work.
(Kirsten, not Juleanna)
SPENCER: except look at Rick Davis, who's McCain's campagin chairman: $2 million off a $625,000 client donation
I'm going to be playing this when I should be working on Afghanistan stuff
MEGAN: Kirsten's clients gave $1.5 mil and she (or her company) made almost $38
SPENCER: OK, Kristen clearly wins
holy shit that's so much money
MEGAN: I know!
SPENCER: And McCain got a huge financial boost after he started calling for offshore drilling
hang on while i google the stuff that my leftwing interlocutors email me...
MEGAN: Which he would totally come back to vote for, even though he missed votes for FISA, the GI bill, the Ledbetter/equal pay bill, the Medicare reimbursement bill, the stimulus package (despite actually being in DC) and 15 energy/environment bills.
SPENCER: Here's one of my favorite right-wing bloggers, James Joyner, on this shit:

The latest campaign kerfuffle is the shocking fact that John McCain is receiving significant donations from the oil industry. A new Obama ad says the amount is $2.1 million; FactCheck.org says it’s a mere $1.33 million. Either way, it’s about triple what the industry is giving to Obama.
More damning, critics say, is that there has been an uptick in oil money flowing to McCain’s coffers since he started pushing for offshore drilling, a position he previously opposed. Aha! Many on the Left seem to think this is a big winner.

well, yeah we do!
McCain mortgaged America's coastline to boost his quarterly fundraising — that's kind of a big deal!
MEGAN: Don't we all sort of love how the Maverick Campaign Finance Reformer is fundraising so prodigiously from the same money sources he was so keen to stamp out 6 years ago?
SPENCER: This is the stuff that kills me, Megan — if McCain was a Democrat who'd gone through as many reinventions in order to run for president for the last 10 years, he'd be mercilessly mocked as the basest kind of opportunist
but oh well, gotta get (get) that (that) dirt off your shoulder
and speaking of, check out the ever-charming toby keith:

During Keith's appearance on the July 30 broadcast of Beck's show, he remarked, "I think the black people would say he [Obama] don't talk, act or carry himself as a black person."

MEGAN: That shit is fucked the fuck up.
SPENCER: That's courtesy of my friend Max Blumenthal, he of the LOLtastic campaign videos
even Glenn Motherfucking Beck was astounded:

"What does that even mean?" the audibly shocked Beck replied.

"Well, I don't know what that means," Keith drawled, "but I think that that's what they would say. Even though the black society would pull for him I still think that they think in the back of their mind that the only reason he is in [the general election] is because he talks, acts and carries himself as a Caucasian."

MEGAN: I love how the fucker immediately backtracks on that shit. "Well, I don't know what that means..." Bullshit!
SPENCER: i know, what a PUSSY
when I want to take the temperature of black America, Toby Keith is my trusty thermometer
who's blacker than Toby Keith?
MEGAN: Toby Keith has probably met a black person or two in his time, and he totes has black friends so he knows what he's talking about.
SPENCER: one of his bodyguards is totally black
MEGAN: Can we make up some stereotypes about Toby Keith?
SPENCER: Toby Keith still uses VHS like a real man
Toby Keith attacks Keith Gessen on his Tumblr
MEGAN: Toby Keith doesn't talk, act or carry himself like a homosexual
Toby Keith knows how to plug in a computer but lets someone else press the keys because he doesn't want to get his hands dirty.
SPENCER: Toby Keith's favorite Dallas Cowboy is Charles Haley
MEGAN: Toby Keith doesn't like the Cowboys, anyway, he's a Pats fan.
SPENCER: Toby Keith plays his guitar with finger guards because he can't develop calluses no matter how hard he tries
MEGAN: Toby Keith used to root for the Yankees, but now he's part of the Red Sox Nation.
SPENCER: Toby Keith wouldn't have actually put a boot in the Taliban's ass because his boots are Jimmy Choo
MEGAN: But Toby Keith is intimately familiar with how to have things inserted in your butt with a minimum of pain.
Speaking of having things up your ass...
SPENCER: Toby Keith is upset that Jason Giambi shaved his mustache because he wanted to shave it
oh yeah this shit
i'd like your perspective, as a woman, on what the fuck Samantha Sault is upset with Pelosi for
what's really at work here, Megan?
MEGAN: The first thing I thought when reading it was that it was written by a petulant child.
SPENCER: the Weekly Standard is an outpost of maturity, so that can't be right
MEGAN: So, let's recap: 1. Bipartisanship means allowing John Boehner to get his way on everything and especially drilling off the coast of California where John Boehner doesn't live and Nancy Pelosi does, but that's her being mean.
2. Nancy Pelosi is on a book tour when she should be working even though it's August recess and, um, NO ONE is working because that's what happens during August recess.
SPENCER: isn't the implication that, uh, Pelosi should lie back and take it from Boehner?
MEGAN: Probably bend over, but maybe that's just a personal preference.
SPENCER: she does always wear that pearl necklace
MEGAN: 3. Also, Nancy Pelosi's book is short and uses big print because Nancy Pelosi is a 19 year old college student that thinks her professors don't notice font sizes.
(not that Little Miss Sault knows anything about that)
SPENCER: ok so Samantha Sault from the Standard doesn't like this about Pelosi:

Pelosi complains that when San Francisco mayor Joe Alioto phoned to ask her to join the city Library Commission, he asked if she was "making a great big pot of pasta e fagioli." He "assumed that the only thing I could be doing at five in the afternoon was cooking," she says—never mind that she happily stayed home "cooking meals for five children for 20 years."

i know! Who could possibly find that objectionable????
MEGAN: Also, Samantha doesn't like calling women "women," she calls them "girls." Oh, Spencer, there's nothing sexist about expecting a woman to cook all the time. I mean, not women, "girls." "Modern girls."
SPENCER: she took her money/ and bought a do-nut/ the hole's the size of this whole world
MEGAN: But Samantha does give her props for knowing her place and staying home with her kids until they were out of school, which is one of the big reasons that there aren't more women in politics. For every Adam Putnam who gets to play off the power of incumbency before his 30th birthday, there are, oh, wait, pretty much all the women in Congress who waited until they were more established.
But what Samantha giveth, Samantha taketh away: Nancy Pelosi is a harpy for not picking up her husband's dry-cleaning or ever ironing his shirts.
MEGAN: I offered, once, to pick up my ex-boyfriends dry-cleaning because we used the same dry-cleaner and he was horrified at the thought of me doing that.
SPENCER: um, i would take someone up on an offer to pick up my dry cleaning
the fucking place is always closing before i get home from work
MEGAN: But he felt like accepting it was practically sexist.
SPENCER: see, knowing a bit about the opinion-journalism game, i look at a piece like this and think a couple things:
1. Sault is apparently rather young
MEGAN: Oooh, I nailed the petulant child thing!
SPENCER: 2. Sault works at a right-wing magazine, and surely wants to succeed at it
MEGAN: Right, and we all know that you can't possibly call women anything but "girls" there. Man, she even does it in her profile piece. How incredibly annoying.
SPENCER: 3. The Weekly Standard is not exactly known for its surfeit of women writers — there's batshit-insane Noemie Emery, whom a Standardite once told me files her would-be-Peggy-Noonan pieces on yellow legal paper
SPENCER: handwritten
4. so you scrape for a story wherever you can, and a rightwing magazine is going to feel innoculated if say, you have a woman attacking woman politicians for being too feministy
and what better way to do that than to sift through Pelosi's book, find examples of her committing flagrant acts of feminism, and then clucking your teeth at her? That's going into pages for sure
MEGAN: Does she even ever get around to attacking Pelosi's politics for anything other than being not bipartisan enough, which makes me breathless with laughter when Republicans accuse Democrats of that?
SPENCER: her politics are too feministy, and that's Sault's problem with them

he says more women could run for office if they had access to "quality child care." She doesn't explain what this means or who will pay, although we can guess.

that's just fucking lazy, come on
MEGAN: Sault should have a look at the masthead 30 years ago and reconsider what the problem with feminism is.
SPENCER: or her masthead today
MEGAN: Well, but that's obviously a meritocracy. Sexism doesn't exist anymore.
SPENCER: whatever, the fact that she's getting criticized on Jezebel for her Pelosi piece will earn her lots of accolades from the other Standard staffers, who'll then expect a quick break-room handjob

cMOE: Dude I don't want to forget this so I'm just showing you now. From Dick Morris's column on how McCain can beat Obama:

If the GOP nominee were Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, independents and Democrats might not vote Republican even if they became convinced that Obama is some kind of sleeper agent sent to charm and conquer our democracy.

MOE: um no kidding!
MEGAN: Why doesn't Dick Morris go back to sucking prostitutes' toes and leave the rest of us alone. Have you seen his teeth? He ain't stopped sucking stanky feet yet.

MOE: So there is too much to write about today but anyway Iran is still building a nuclear program, treaties be damned and we can't do anything about it, Burma is still letting its people die and Asian governments won't do anything about it, Hugo Chavez is supporting FARC and by any standard probably now qualifies for our state sponsors of terror list but we probably shouldn't give him the satisfaction, and now they're saying it's the end of American Superpower. For realz?!
MEGAN: Wait, wait! The NY Times is reporting this morning that Myanmar/Burma is going to let ASEAN help. I'm skeptical but maybe they actually will?

MOE: Ah, so their "soft approach" did work!

In a clear departure from the usually secretive style of the military junta, state television in Myanmar on Sunday showed video of the leader, Senior General Than Shwe, touring a refugee camp, checking supplies, patting the heads of babies and shaking hands with survivors. Some of the cyclone victims, surrounded by neat rows of blue tents, clasped their hands and bowed as the general and other senior military officials walked by.

MOE:

"Are we going to continue to cover the earthquake?" the Guangzhou-based reporter asked in an instant message to his editor, a day after China's deadliest earthquake in three decades struck Sichuan province."Of course," replied the editor, surnamed Yang. "Why not?"
Then, the reporter said, he forwarded to his boss the text of the latest edict from the propaganda department of the Communist Party Central Committee, ordering domestic news media not to send any more journalists to Sichuan.
Yang wrote back, "If everyone pays no attention to this, then it won't really be a ban."

MEGAN: Oh, she's probably still under house arrest. Like the regime wants to allow her ot be showed doing good work?
MOE: 40 years of mind control, propaganda, a string of incomprehensible, and incomprehensibly destructive political campaigns combined with severe rationing and poverty followed by 15 years of steady marginal increases in living standards and the appearance of openness will...do that to a citizenry!

MOE: I guess we should talk about how the crowd that showed up for Obama was like 1/8 the population of Portland? And maybe we should talk about how tiny his advance for Dreams From My Father was?
MOE: Oh and how a place as shit poor as Yemen manages to hide a guy with a $5 million price on his head. And also we should talk about oil prices. And McCain's continued purge of his aides who love lobbyists, which is getting like New York politicos with whores. And Anthony Shahid's fucking depressing story on Lebanon.

MEGAN: Ok, well, I can speak to the continued purge of lobbyists. Because there's one guy who isn't getting out. He's McCain's Mark Penn only potentially slightly less stupid. He's practically consolidating power in the campaign by getting rid of the other guys with lobbying ties, so that in November-January when clients are looking for someone with a good relationship to McCain that hasn't been accused of fucking him, he's the only one left. It's all very wonderfully Machiavellian.

MEGAN: Also, I think it's fair to say that Republican lobbyists understand the least about why people think they're shills out to destroy America and don't love McCain that much anyway, so it probably never occurred to anyone that it might be a teeny tiny problem to the electorate that the guy writing McCain's energy policy was an active lobbyist for energy companies. Because, hey, that's how this Administration has run things for 8 years anyway.
9:15 AM
MEGAN: As for the Yemen thing, it's actually a little funny because here, more and more people are tipping off their neighbors to pay their electric bills and shit and the economy goes into the toilet. So either the Yemenis are more loyal, or we're just that more desperate? Either way, my position has always been that I would totally turn in criminals for money, which is probably why my friends are all nerdy-upstanding types. One year at college there was a $1200 reward for a serial fire alarm puller and I was dying to know who it was because that was like, half of the money I'd make all semester otherwise.

MOE: Which reminds me of a point that I hope that Obama can make fairly. Re the "eight more years" thing. I think anyone who goes out of his way to say that a McCain administration would be "another eight years of the same" is doing a disservice to history. I think it's safe to say it would be historically impossible for another Administration to match this administration's singleminded dedication to the pursuit the interests of such a tiny group of corrupt people in all blatant disregard of democracy. I think we would be ill-advised to cheapen George W. Bush's "Worst President Ever" stain that way. No matter what happens in the general election January 20 will be a relatively good day for this country.
MOE: And regarding Yemen, I think it's safe to say we are less desperate.

MOE: And don't let me forget to bring up this fucking depressing story on the end of the era of cooperation between First and Third World countries that SOMEHOW begat the Green Revolution on the basis of a basic shared interest in the end of human suffering and not ADM profit margins.
MEGAN: Um, I don't thing McCain will be bad in the same way, but I think he's spent the last 8 years selling his soul to the Rovian devils in order to secure the nomination, and that doesn't make me particularly happy. There won't be a ton of turnover in terms of the kinds of people in middle management and shit because they're all working on his campaign and will be "owed"
MOE: This is pretty stark.

Adjusted for inflation, the World Bank cut its agricultural lending to $2 billion in 2004 from $7.7 billion in 1980.

MOE: Well, but what does McCain need with the Rovian devils now? Karl Rove is dispensing him free advice via his various punditry positions now.
MOE: There is just something that chills me about the "eight more years" refrain.

MEGAN: Well, and let's not forget that part of the problem with the IRRI's budget and people not working there is the fact that they were a proponent of biotechnology to get certain properties out of rice (salinity resistance, vitamins) that simply could not be bred in by convention means, and they were shit on by the world and the environmental movement, targeted for eco-terrorism and a lot of their developed-world money dried up over it, even though the Gold Rice project could've had serious benefits for the malnourished people of the world. I kept waiting for the article to mention that and it didn't.
MOE: Fuckin ecoterrorists. Anyway here we see shades of the pharmaceutical industry.

The insect is not a new problem. In the 1960s, the rice institute, nestled between jungle and the bustling town of Los Ba os, pioneered ways to help farmers grow two and even three crops a season, instead of one.

MOE: You talk to guys who develop drugs at pharmaceutical companies and they think it's absolutely shameful that if they want a drug to come to market these days they have to go to work on the next generation of lipitor or abilify or the drug that finally cures metabolic syndrome when there are still so many infectious diseases to be cured. At one point there was a Nature article suggesting the industry establish a non-profit pharmaceutical company to address diseases whose cures would not be money makers. The same should go for agriculture, you'd think. I don't really understand why all the philanthropy targeted at making life-improving technology more available to the third world seems to focus on hand-cranked laptops and stuff like that.

MEGAN: I think it's because a lot of philanthropy is corporate, it's designed to make companies look good to their consumers and stock holders, but those decisions are made by people within the company. So, of course that's the kind of corporate philanthropy they would engage in. And the pharmaceutical companies will pay tons of money to run those Prescription Partnership for America commercials and send out the buses and take a hit on giving medicines to a small subset of people who can't afford it rather than risk price controls, and they'll give away some AIDS medications in developing countries to keep patent rights.
9:35 AM
MEGAN: And Monsanto will spend millions of dollars spraying RoundUp on farmers fields to see if they're cheating on licensing rather than donating to the IRRI or developing drought-resistant wheat or something.
MEGAN: And everyone will give Bill Gates $1 million to research a cure for malaria or AIDS or whatever and claim that they're doing great shit and then go back to making money.
MEGAN: Anyway, if we're going to take today to be depressed about injustice, how about if you're taking medical marijuana while waiting for a transplant, you're pretty much not eligible for the transplant anymore?
MOE: Well I actually have a better answer to my own question that is not QUITE as cynical. The culture of Silicon Valley and the rapidness of the wealth creation that's happened there, the "open source-ness" of ideals, the existence of Microsoft monopolistic practices as a sort of anti-standard...the newness...the fact that the scientists in the case of the technology industry WERE the business founders and ARE the wealth holders...this swirl of factors makes electrical engineers and software engineers more idealistic and philanthropic I think. Whereas in pharmaceuticals and agriculture a lot of the scientific talent is still being managed by corporate shareholder-driven assholes because the barriers to entry are so much higher.
MEGAN: So, geeks think computers really can save the world, and everyone else is just faking it like I said? I'd buy that in moderation.
MOE: The thing is that: there are certain classes of people you might to run their businesses more ethically, less greedily...more thoughtfully...Hasidic-founded Kosher agriprocessing plants are no longer among them. (Did you read this story?) (Holy shit.)

MEGAN: I would be more surprised and outraged that this Administration is targeting illegal immigrants for arrest and deportation and doing virtually nothing to the management that hires them if I hadn't been living in this country for 30 years, probably.
MEGAN: And/or hadn't read that series in the WaPo last week about how unethically and illegally we treat supposedly-illegal immigrants while in custody.
MOE: And on that note I'll leave you with this from George Packer's New Yorker piece on conservatism:

MOE:

Nixon was coldly mixing and pouring volatile passions. Although he was careful to renounce the extreme fringe of Birchites and racists, his means to power eventually became the end. Buchanan gave me a copy of a seven-page confidential memorandum—"A little raw for today," he warned—that he had written for Nixon in 1971, under the heading "Dividing the Democrats." Drawn up with an acute understanding of the fragilities and fault lines in "the Old Roosevelt Coalition," it recommended that the White House "exacerbate the ideological division" between the Old and New Left by praising Democrats who supported any of Nixon's policies; highlight "the elitism and quasi-anti-Americanism of the National Democratic Party"; nominate for the Supreme Court a Southern strict constructionist who would divide Democrats regionally; use abortion and parochial-school aid to deepen the split between Catholics and social liberals; elicit white working-class support with tax relief and denunciations of welfare.

Finally, the memo recommended exploiting racial tensions among Democrats. "Bumper stickers calling for black Presidential and especially Vice-Presidential candidates should be spread out in the ghettoes of the country," Buchanan wrote. "We should do what is within our power to have a black nominated for Number Two, at least at the Democratic National Convention." Such gambits, he added, could "cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half."

MOE: Soooooo
MEGAN: Is it grosser, do you think, to watch Gene Simmons bone a bimbo or to think about John McCain bumping uglies with a lobbyist?
  Because, really, for me that is the question of the day.
MOE: My question is, is this what he was talking about when Obama said that thing about how John McCain was a good man who had kept company with the WRONG PEOPLE? Is this Huckabee's "miracle"? Is Vicki Iseman the MOTHER OF MCCAIN'S ILLEGITIMATE BLACK CHILD?
It was easier for me knowing that it was like eight years ago or something. I can't say why that was easier, it just was.
 MEGAN: If Vicki Iseman is the mother of McCain's dirty little secret, I may have to call my shit closed for business for a couple of months until that image is banished from my mind.
Also, I love how his staffers told her to fuck off, and she considered to tell everyone what great ties she had to his office.
Typical bullshit consulting company lobbyist.
McCain's giving a news conference about it later this morning.
 MOE: O yay! Didn't we look up Iseman's name before?
Or didn't we. I forget December.
 MEGAN: Please let him say "I did not have sexual relations with this women."
Please.
  Pretty please.
  
I've been a really, really good girl this year. Sort of.
Well, I looked into it in December, but didn't realize it was a 10 year old story, so I didn't see her picture until then, but, whoo-boy did I see it several times in the Wonkette tips line after that.
Also, the pic the news is using of her in the formal dress makes her totally resemble Cindy McCain more than the profile on her company's website.
MOE: No, you know where she resembles Cindy MCain is this photo with Bush
MEGAN: You know you've trolled the minor corners of the internet too many times when you've seen that story more than once.
MOE: But yeah, her haircut in that pic is soooooo Cindy '00
MEGAN: Totally! Also, expert judgement is required... is she wearing a belly chain?
Press conference time! Cindy's by his side.

MOE: No! But wow, she looks pretty good. Um, soooo John Weaver went on the record with the Post saying HE was the one who told Vicki to "go away."
He also emailed the Times.
 MEGAN: Yeah, I saw that. Also, McCain says he's proud of his service, and he didn't do any favors for any lobbyists. He's "disappointed" by the New York Times piece
  He just characterized their relationship as "friends" for Washington.
MOE: Is he the source of this whole thing? Not for shoddy payment I guess!
 
MEGAN: Which means you know virtually nothing about one another outside of work and don't see each other outside of work functions like receptions and stuff.
MOE: He's all squinty.
Hahahaha he's smirking!
 
MEGAN: Those bad spots keep going on and off.
Cindy's suit is cute.
 MOE: I know!
I HATE her outfits.
But this one is nice
MEGAN: Also, I'd like my eyebrows to look like hers. I have shitty eyebrows.
MOE: So John Weaver is indeed the same strategist who approached Tom Daschle about how his boss might leave his party. 
MEGAN: Also, can you imagine telling your boss to stop boning someone?

MEGAN: I call shenanigans on that part of the story.
MOE: Here's another thing: is this why Mark McKinnon said he'd quit the McCain campaign if it meant running against Obama? Because if there's one sleazy tactic Team Clinton can't really employ effectively, it's the whole "HA HA HA HE'S SUCH A HORNY OLD GOAT HIS ADVISERS NEEDED TO SHOO OFF THAT TELECOM LOBBYIST" ...Which sucks and is a double standard since Hillary didn't cheat, but whatevs.
  
Well, that was over fast!
It's almost like he wanted to get out of there!
MEGAN: That spotlight stage right was annoying.
 
MOE: Here's another question: does it make it better that she looks soooooooo much like Cindy?
  
Like at that age, he might have just confused the two?
 
MEGAN: I have been wondering that all night, actually. The resemblance is a little freaky.
I dunno, I guess if my husband was going to cheat I would like to think it would be for something he wasn't getting at home (besides the sex, which he would most certainly be getting at home).
On the other hand, would that make me more insecure? Like, would he always be boning a younger version of me?
MOE: Well Vicky is not that much younger than Cindy. And McCain just said that he never talked to John Weaver about his relationship w. Vicky. (Is that true or do you make sure not to have that conversation if you suspect something is going on?)
MEGAN: I am just saying, I cannot imagine asking my boss, a Senator, if he is boning some chick and to stop it. Perhaps this is why I don't work on the Hill.
 
MOE: Because the whole story is so weird, it's just kinda hard to buy. She looks too much like Cindy, and she sounds annoying and clingy. Oh no is that woman hating of me?
MEGAN: But, for my part, when I "turned" up at an event at a Congressman's invite (when I was a lobbyist) not realizing said Member's predelictions, his staff didn't say a word to me, or to him... they just made sure I was seated as far away from him as possible and that he didn't have time to talk to me.
But, yes, I mean, everything the NYT is reporting is totally how shit works in DC. If you're trying to build a relationship with an office, you show up at every event you can, you make nice, etc. Maybe she had a crush, maybe they were boning, but on the surface the behavior, while slightly annoying, isn't outside the norm. Dudes who work for firms like that (mostly earmarks) also fixate on a Member because you only really need one.
But she's a woman, so obviously there was something else going on (and maybe there was), because, of course, she couldn't just be trying to do her job.
  (I might be projecting here, but, still).
MOE: And the fact that the Wash Post had a story ready as soon as the NYT put its own story on the web is also weird. Like there MIGHT have been something going on, but...eh...1999?
MEGAN: Well, everyone was working on it as soon as it got linked to Drudge in December, and, as I said, I got a bunch of tips that it was her once I wrote my piece, so the rumors on the Hill, they wuz a-flying.
Is it funny that CNN is currently running a commercial for the NYT?
MOE: They run that fucking commercial every fucking second. Here's a question: do you think there was any encouragement at all from the Obama campaign to run this story? A few days ago Gail Collins wrote that Barack Obama INSISTS on referring to McCain as a "military hero, in tones that suggest the conflict in question was the Spanish Civil War." Things are icy between them. But are they truly that icy or does McCain just not talk to rookies? Further, isn't it nice to have something to talk about that ISN'T Michelle Obama's patriotism?
MEGAN: See, given that this story was around in December, I'm guessing it was initially a right-wing hit job
 MOE: Oh yeah and that George Will column you sent me points out that "only" 12 of today's senators have been elected to no other office. Only? Jesus Christ. It's the fucking house of lords.
Oh it was DEFINITELY initially a right wing hit job.
MEGAN: I was laughing at that, like, it sort of possibly puts Hillary in good company.
MOE: I bet the Romney campaign flung it around. I bet that's one of the reasons (aside from sheer spite of course!) McCain so hated Romney.
 
MEGAN: God knows Giuliani didn't, what with pot, kettle, dark colors, etc
but i don't see as how either Obama or Clinton would've been able to get the NYT enough corroborating evidence in the meantime to allow them to feel safe publishing it
MOE: Nah I don't see the Obama campaign as having any corroborating evidence, and why would Clinton even bother.
But what I think is that here we go. It's Obama-McCain and from here on out it's going to be an Obama-McCain news cycle.
MEGAN: Next up: Barry's crack-smoking go-to guy for blow jobs.
MOE: Yay! I'm still fixated on this John Weaver thing though. Clearly firing him back in September looks like it was a good move for the McCain campaign. But shit, how has the campaign really moved since then? I thought McCain's rise was mainly a factor of "Well that Giuliani thing didn't work, and that Law & Order guy was better on TV...and this Romney guy is a dweeb..." and then "oh wait look the news in Iraq is actually not getting worse!"
MEGAN: Well, and McCain's got Joe-mentum!
  I mean, I think Weaver was ousted as part of the whole "we don't have any money for anyone anymore" thing
But, in retrospect, probably a good decision.
MOE: Or not!?
MEGAN: I don't know, he might've just been another anonymous source anyway.
Or, he might've been not great at his job.
MOE: Yeah blargh. You know what? The endless cummer scandals totally ruined the fun of heterosex scandals.
Did you catch Jon Stewart on Larry King?
MEGAN: No, sadly! It was, um, the reunion episode of Project Runway.
They ran outtakes of Michael Kors losing his shit during the WWE challenge
Totally worth it.
MOE: Oh my god he was wonderful.
But so was JS.
 
MEGAN: I know! I totally meant to watch it, too, and then just spaced.