In Cohen's latest recital, he responds to those surly detractors (i.e., me) who have accused him of cutting out heart-shaped valentines to John McCain and pasting them in his locker. Coyly he begins:

In politics, we're having a Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr kind of year. It was Karr, a French writer, who coined the phrase plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, which means, as Barack Obama has shown, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. N'est-ce pas?

Oui...
My own French is rusty, so I'm not sure what the proper French equivalent for "fucking embarrassing" is, so forgive me, but really—The Washington Post is not only the most powerful paper in the nation's capital but enjoys an international reputation, and here's one of their premiere columnists blithering away like Mayberry's Howard Sprague with a carnation in his lapel. It's amazing he didn't stick an "ooh la la" in there somewhere.

And if that doesn't rekindle your man crush on Wolcott you can go read the whole post and revel in anticipation of his rebuttal to Tony fucking Blair.

McCain's Core Advantage [Washington Post]
Hick Hack Ho [Vanity Fair]

• We were shocked and appalled to discover that Strawberry Shortcake had been given a berry slutty makeover by her corporate overlords.
• As much as we love the Shortcake, she'd make a really dumb, potentially deal-breaking tattoo.
• This week was mad girly, yo: Omg Unicorns!
• Also, Panda Sex!
• Almost as embarrassing as catching two pandas in flagrante is witnessing two dudes in the throes of a passionate mancrush.

• It's almost as excruciating as this sad tale of star cross'd nursing home lovers.
• So, like Lauren Hutton did, massage your ladyparts with an award statuette and ride your own personal unicorn off into the sunset. It's Friday!

Men always form crushes on other men who are like, the exact opposite of them. (If they're sufficiently alike and the feelings are mutual, they immediately enter into that sort of buddy matrimony wherein the "old married couple" quality of the union obscures the newness of the bond, since dudes sort of instinctively hate the idea of making new friends.) (Like have you ever noticed that, even if two dude friends met last year, they will talk about high school and old hardcore shows as if they attended them together?) Anyway, whereas girls — is this egotistical of us? — tend for form crushes on girls whose, you know, outfits and pop cultural touchstones and pastimes mirror our own, dudes only seem to form man crushes on the sorts of men — torture victims, ladykillers, capitalists, foreigners — who represent a mysterious Other Path, so any girls present are subjected to first watching a dude totally question every facet of his identity, then possibly undergo a mini existential crisis under the influence of infatuation, then gradually become disenchanted as breaks free of both states until he finally grasps that this whole thing has publicly sunk him to the depths of indignity because it turns out his Crush is actually, like, George W. Bush. And that any man who crushes on George W. Bush must hate himself. Yeah, so I guess it's sort of like what happens to us. Anyway.

Does The Media Have A Man Crush On John McCain [Vanity Fair]