The Wall Street Journal (natch) provides the most concise summary of the resolution and the text of the actual proposal.

But first, writer Peter Wallsten offers this interesting observation:

RNC meetings, traditionally fairly staid affairs focused on mundane rules and convention planning, have become lively in recent years as the party has slipped into minority status. Many committee members are elected by conservative party activists in their home states, and some pushed resolutions in the waning years of the George W. Bush presidency challenging his support for more open immigration laws.

Organizers of the new purity test said they decided to allow deviation on no more than two issues in deference to the mantra of the late President Ronald Reagan, who, as the resolution states, believed "that someone who agreed with him eight out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent."

Still worshiping at the altar of Reagan? Good to know!

The actual proposal is even better - was there any Republican Party before Ronald Reagan - and reads as follows (all emphasis mine):

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed that the Republican Party should support and espouse conservative principles and public policies; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan also believed the Republican Party should welcome those with diverse views; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed, as a result, that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies and Republican solidarity in opposition to Obama's socialist agenda is necessary to preserve the security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way of life; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies is necessary to restore the trust of the American people in the Republican Party and to lead to Republican electoral victories; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee shares President Ronald Reagan's belief that the Republican Party should espouse conservative principles and public policies and welcome persons of diverse views; and (Wait, is this a repeat from three lines ago?)

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee desires to implement President Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates; and

WHEREAS, in addition to supporting candidates, the Republican National Committee provides financial support for Republican state and local parties for party building and federal election activities, which benefits all candidates and is not affected by this resolution; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support [...]

And what are these ten key public policy positions? Here's a hint - the list is defined by what they oppose, not what they support.

1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;
(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; be further,

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy positions of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee [...]

The Party of NO has spoken. (And in the case of number nine, spoken in circles. Isn't denial of health care and rationing occurring because of this prohibition on government funding of abortion? Whatever, details, details!)

The NY Times' Caucus blog accurately summarizes the nature of the proposal by explaining:

The resolution invokes Ronald Reagan, and noted that Mr. Reagan had said the Republican Party should be devoted to conservative principles but also be open to diverse views. President Reagan believed, the resolution notes, "that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent."

Hence the provision calling for cutting off Republicans who agree with the party on seven of 10 items.

The Times also explains how the proposal is going to cause problems for RNC Chairman Michael Steele:

While it is unclear whether the test will be adopted when it is put up for consideration before the Republican National Committee early next year, its drafting is a striking example of the intensified internal debate among Republicans about how best to handle pressure from conservatives to move the party more to the right and to recapture control of Congress and the White House.

Its introduction increases pressure on the party chairman, Michael Steele, as he tries to maintain a balance between those in his party who have been saying the road to a Republican comeback is to include divergent views and appeal to the political center, and those who say the party needs to more fully embrace conservative principles.

The Times reached out to spurned GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava, who was so thoroughly attacked for her "liberal" views by the Republican establishment that she ultimately ended up endorsing a Democrat earlier this month:

The list was clearly influenced by the divisive Congressional race in upstate New York this fall, when conservative activists deemed the Republican nominee for the seat, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, too liberal and instead supported a third-party candidate, Douglas L. Hoffman.

Under conservative pressure, Ms. Scozzafava withdrew from the race but supported the Democratic nominee, Bill Owens, whose victory removed the seat from Republican hands for the first time in more than 100 years.

On first blush Ms. Scozzafava said she found the new proposal "ridiculous," though she said she would have to read it in full before drawing a final conclusion. "I'm not a big fan of pledges," she said in an interview, "because things don't always fit through a keyhole and governing isn't always that easy."

However, by choosing to create the we-embrace-diversity-until-we-don't doctrine, the GOP has assured the prediction from BarbinMD over at DailyKos: "They're all teabaggers now."

Some Conservatives Push a ‘Purity Test' for GOP Candidates [Wall Street Journal]
G.O.P. Considers ‘Purity' Resolution for Candidates [NY Times]
Conservatives Make a List to Measure Candidates' Commitment [NY Times]
Purity Now, Purity Tomorrow, Purity Forever ... [Daily Kos]

On the Republican side, Michael Steele has written an op-ed for Politico, in which he says, "As an African American, I know what racism is and that is not racism." I can't dispute that Michael Steele has an experience of racism that I, as a white woman, have no clue about. But I certainly can dispute his logic when he says, "It is becoming increasingly clear that some in the Democratic Party need a serious history lesson. Slavery was racist, Jim Crow laws were racist, segregation was racist – opposing a radical political agenda is not."

Without even getting into the implication that if it's not as bad as slavery and segregation, it doesn't count as racism, let me say I agree with Steele that opposing a radical political agenda is not an intrinsically racist act. The problem with his framing here is that our president does not have a radical political agenda. Our president is, in fact, a centrist who's increasingly pissing off his progressive base. The notion that he's a secret socialist, or that a health care reform proposal designed to increase market competition and regulate only the most monopolistic and downright evil business practices is somehow radically anti-capitalist, is pure bullshit. And it's pure bullshit intended to stoke the fears of those voters already predisposed to assume they cannot trust the president. That mistrust is, of course, largely a function of decades of Republican deception about Democrats in general, but the suggestion that racism is not playing a crucial role in arousing baseless suspicion of the current president is an expression either of willful ignorance or craven politicking. I'm going with number two.

And that goes for the Democrats as well. I can understand perfectly well why white Dems up to and including my beloved senator Dick Durbin are all over the news this morning saying, "Racism isn't the issue at hand, nothing to see here, move along folks." I can understand why Obama is distancing himself from Carter's assertions. Because discussing race makes white people fucking crazy. (Be assured that I include myself in that.) We don't want to examine how racism operates systematically, regardless of whether we as individuals use the N-word or have friends of color. What we want is reassurance that we are good people — and that good people by virtue of their very goodness will never, consciously or unconsciously, behave in racist ways or perpetuate racist systems. So politically, it's wise for Dems from Obama on down to offer that reassurance to the white electorate. There's a mid-term coming up and all.

But those of us who aren't running for office should still be taking this opportunity to discuss why that's the politically savvy move even for liberals, why we crave that reassurance more than an open discussion of racism, why we automatically give the benefit of the doubt to the person saying, "There's no bigotry here" instead of the one saying, "You know, I think there is." Or why we keep making arguments like, "Oh, all of this has happened/would happen to a white president, so it's not racist" without acknowledging that it's impossible to make a useful comparison when our sample size of presidents of color is 1. Why is the default assumption that white people are not behaving in racist ways — again, consciously or unconsciously — when we live in a country that has only had equal rights on paper for a generation? Not to mention a country where the latest meme about Joe Wilson's outburst is that Obama started it — by being a poor guest. (Here in the Midwest, we also prioritize being a gracious host, but maybe etiquette's different in South Carolina.)

Thankfully, Jimmy Carter is not running for reelection, which means he's not shutting his big, fat, beautiful mouth on this subject. Yesterday, he continued his commentary about race and racism, telling students at Emory University in Atlanta:

When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that said we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds.

I think people who are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African American. It's a racist attitude, and my hope is and my expectation is that in the future both Democratic leaders and Republican leaders will take the initiative in condemning that kind of unprecedented attack on the president of the United States.

It's not racism, it's being an American [Politico]
In the race from race, Democrats rebut Jimmy Carter [Politico]
New GOP Meme On Joe Wilson: Obama Started It! [TPM]
Carter again cites racism as factor in Obama's treatment [CNN]

Obama's government-run health "reform" would pay for seniors' meetings with a doctor to discuss end-of-life care. While nonthreatening at first, something that is quite normal for a family to do becomes troublesome when the government gets involved. Seniors know that government programs that seem benign at first can become anything but. The government should simply butt out of conversations about end-of-life care and leave them to seniors, their families and their doctors.

His entire column could probably be summed with "ZOMG death panels!" As George Stephanopoulos challenged Sen. John McCain when he was on "This Week" yesterday, the panels are a misrepresentation of what's actually in the bill. Since the bill proposes voluntary sessions that simply council family members on the costs of treatment, seniors could ask the government to "butt out" whenever they like.

The column also claims that cuts to Medicaid are coming with reform, something Steele himself once said had to be on the table.

Protecting Our Seniors [Washington Post]
McCain Defends Palin On Obamacare Claims [George's Bottom Line]
Steele Now Criticizes Cost-Savings In Medicare, But Wanted Medicare Cuts ‘On The Table' In ‘06 [Think Progress]

• The Justice Department is asking a judge to dismiss the stupid lawsuit trying to prevent Hillary Clinton from serving as Secretary of State because she served in Congress. Clinton is the only former elected official in the Cabinet facing such a lawsuit. [Huffington Post]

• President Obama has voiced his own animatronic robot in Disney's Hall of Presidents; he also gave Disney his real measurements. People are calling the thing, naturally, "Robobama," even though "Robama" is a clearly superior nickname. [NY Times]
• The lifelike animated corpse of the GOP, otherwise known as "Dick Cheney," gave a dick speech about how waterboarding isn't torture and the country is less safe now that we stopped torturing people we think are terrorists into confession. [Washington Post]
• Obama disagrees, thinks Dick Cheney is a dick and that a Supermax prison can probably manage to keep a terrorist from escaping and getting to Iraq to attack our soldiers. [Huffington Post]
• Bush says he likes cleaning up dog shit better than being President. [MSNBC]
• John Kerry doesn't mind Nancy Pelosi accusing the CIA of misleading her, since they did it to him. [Huffington Post]
• The House isn't going to create a bipartisan panel to give Republicans more time on TV to attack Pelosi investigate whether or not the CIA lied to her. [MSNBC]
• Republican Congressman Paul Broun wants to make 2010 the Year of the Bible because 2010 is an election year and he needs to get re-elected despite doing stupid stuff like spending time trying to make 2010 the Year of the Bible. [Politico]
• The RNC thinks that having slavery enshrined in the Constitution was a-okay. Man, they're all really pissed at Michael Steele! [Media Matters]

• The Federal Elections Commission dismissed a complaint about the use of campaign money to pay for Governor Sarah Palin's clothes, so she's in the clear on that one. Now about donating them... [Anchorage Daily News]

• Unrelated: Palin issued a statement calling RNC Chairman Michael Steele "bold and courageous". Then, everyone wondered if she's noticed how much Republicans hate him. [Politico]
• Barney Frank has no problem engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent, which is why he went on Lou Dobbs with Michelle Bachmann. [TPM DC]
• Newt Gingrich thinks that being dishonest should disqualify one from being Speaker of the House. Related: I am laughing. [Time]
• The Chinese Uighurs, who Americans imprisoned in Guantanamo at the behest of the Chinese government, want to know why Newt Gingrich is such a dickhead. [Huffington Post]
• Apparently, they've never heard of William Smith, who's now Chief Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee and fervently believes that LGBT Americans are child rapists. [Legal Times]
• Donald Rumsfeld's spokesman is denying that the former Defense Secretary liked his briefings with a side of Bible quotes. [The Atlantic]
• Someone stole a hard drive of Clinton-era information, so keep an eye out on eBay. [Politico]
• Obama is pressuring Democrats to not challenge New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the primary next year. [The Hill]
• The Iranians swear they have a nuke that can reach Israel. [Huffington Post]
• Congressional Democrats have decided we're definitely not closing Guantanamo. [NY Times]
• Congressional Republicans would like the ability to deny our access to reproductive health care back, since Obama is all trying to find common ground, such as. [The Hill]
• But Ted Kennedy's brain cancer is in remission! [Politico]

• Obama's Press Secretary Robert Gibbs thinks people have more important things to worry about than whether Wanda Sykes would prefer Rush Limbaugh dead. Unfortunately, the Republicans don't, since they've got nothing to do. [Politico]

• I mean, it's getting so bad Alan Keyes got himself arrested just to make headlines again! [Pandagon]
• And Florida governor and 100% completely heterosexual Charlie Crist is going to run for Senator. [NY Times]
• And Michael Steele is telling people Obama would nominate Perez Hilton to the Supreme Court because he's "empathetic," which is one word I've never actually associated with Perez Hilton. [Huffington Post]
• A former McCain blogger is pissing on his former colleague for working for the environment, since working to stop companies from destroying the earth has been deemed insufficiently Republican. [TalkingPointsMemo]
• Texas Congressman Pete Sessions says that Obama is deliberately putting more Americans out of work for political reasons. [Huffington Post]
• And Dick Cheney is literally just sitting around waiting for Joe Biden to call him like a teenage girl with a crush. [Time]
• Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is defending the existence of the United Nations, which would seem like a no-brainer, but this is America and she represents no-brainers, too. (Insert inappropriate Terry Schiavo joke here, if you like.) [ThinkProgress]
• And even Joe Liberman has gotten sick of Dick Cheney's bullshit, and when even Lieberman thinks you're being foolishly, destructively hawkish, it might be time to re-assess. [Politico]

• Ben Affleck's Congressman character in State of Play was based on his friendship with New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, except for the part about boning a young staffer. Weiner's dating Clintonite Huma Abedin. [NY Times]

• Obviously, there were no Jezebel readers in attendance at the Time 100 Most Influential Dinner the other night, because Nate Silver was spotted all by himself. [Women's Wear Daily]
• If Arlen Specter had been there, he and Nate could have bonded, because Specter doesn't have too many friends himself these days. [NY Times]
• California Congressman Henry Waxman is learning to be careful what he wishes for: despite ousting Michigan Congressman and car company water-carrier John Dingell from atop the Energy Committee, he's still not going to get the really liberal climate change bill he screwed over Dingell to push through. [Politico]
• American politicans are, by the way, really sorry about killing all those Afghan people. [MSNBC]
• Defense Secretary Robert Gates promises we won't be sending any troops into Pakistan, except for the ones we'll never acknowledge were there. (Related: A bunch of veterans who served in Cambodia and Laos were heard laughing ruefully.) [Time]
• The LGBT community is pressing Obama to do something on LGBT issues other than just pay lip service to them. [NY Times]
• Nancy Pelosi isn't ready to take on a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act to allow same sex couples who legally marry to get federal recognition. [Politico]
• Republicans are all about "states rights" and "let the people decide" until, that is, the people decide that same sex couples ought to get married. [Plum Line]
• The new head Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, said that he could vote for a LGB (but, one assumes, not T) Supreme Court nominee, but South Dakota Senator John Thune would prefer to be allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, except in the case of Larry Craig. [Huffington Post]
• Virginia Congressman, racist, bribe-taker and wife-beater Jim Moran wants to ban Viagra from the pre-10 pm airwaves so as not to be reminded of yet another one of his flaws. [CNN]

• This week's New York Times Magazine cover story on Obama's first hundred days doesn't look exceptionally celebratory. It looks more like, "This is what 100 days as President will do to you." [NY Times]

• Washington continues to buzz about Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter's party-switch, which even the White House didn't learn about until yesterday morning despite Joe Biden's efforts to get him to do it. [Washington Post]
• But in 2001, Specter blasted then-Senator Jim Jeffords for his party-switching; he even tried to make it illegal. [LA Times]
• Michael Steele's pissed off about the Specter switch because he was going to back Specter in the primary...which is probably partly what Specter was worried about. [Politico]
• Rush Limbuagh wants John and Meghan McCain to switch parties now, too. [Huffington Post]
• Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine thinks assholes like Limbaugh are part of why the party is losing voters in droves and Senators in dribs and drabs. [NY Times]
• Specter's desertion means that Norm Coleman shall never surrender his fight to have the courts declare him the winner of the Minnesota Senate Race. [Politico]
• Speaking of Minnesota, Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann thinks that the outbreak of swine flu is either a Democratic conspiracy, the result of God hating Democratic Presidents or poor management by Democrats. [ThinkProgress]
• Less insanity regarding American health: The Senate finally approved the nomination of Kathleen Sebelius to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, despite Republican opposition to the fact that a pro-choice President picked a pro-choice nominee for the gig. [Reuters]
• Keith Olbermann, like much of America, would really, really like to see Sean Hannity waterboarded. [USA Today]
• However, no one wants to see former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich take Moonlight Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof's offer of an apprenticeship. [PR Newswire]
• And, apparently, Pat Buchanan likened a Nazi war criminal to Jesus; in Pat's world, killing 29,000 of his fellow Jews is What Jesus Would Do. [Huffington Post]

Apparently, back when Beyoncé met Barack and Michelle Obama (and he proved that he can do the "Single Ladies" dance), before Michelle called Barack out on his dance moves, Michelle told Beyoncé that she's happy her daughters look up to her — who, truth be told, does seem pretty fucking normal by comparison to some other train wrecks tweens idolize. Beyoncé, it sounds like, is still freaking out that Michelle said that. She isn't, however, freaking out as much as Mike Rawls, who is a huge Washington Wizards fan and apparently spent much of Friday night's game between the Wizards and the Chicago Bulls trash talking with the President of the United States. And you thought he was cute before.

Oh, you want to hear about actual politics? No, I know you don't, so I should probably mention that this morning, Michael Steele called the Rush Limbaugh brouhaha a "sideshow distraction" and the Democrats cooked the whole thing up months ago when they realized that Rush Limbaugh has worse popularity numbers than Dubya (or Jeremiah Wright) and that Limbaugh was likely to stumble right into their trap. Which he did, followed by the entire Republican establishment! And while we're talking sideshow train wrecks, the National Enquirier is reporting that John Edwards has told Elizabeth that he really did knock up his mistress, Rielle Hunter, which is a truth I pretty much figured out last summer when I put together a time line of events related to Rielle.

Fine, real talk. Iran has pretty much told us to fuck off again because we're not willing to disavow the established nation of Israel; moderate and conservative Democrats aren't actually keen on the idea of spending even more money and raising rich people's taxes, and the same Republicans who thought it was a great idea to eliminate the minority party's ability to filibuster judicial nominees a couple years ago now plan to... filibuster the new President's judicial nominees. Also, Obama has finally started "consultations" on eliminating the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, Norm Coleman wants to get a new election and Obama has declared March Women's History Month.

As for Brad Pitt, the movie star is going to be meeting with Nancy Pelosi today, which is way more interesting and honorable than Pelosi's bow to the demands of the NRA yesterday.

The truth is that there aren't enough super-committed Democrats or Republicans in this country — particularly if you con some of the assholes who never vote to the polls — to win an election for a Presidential candidate. A larger truth is that not all of Rush Limbaugh's listeners agree with him, despite the dittoheads he puts on the air. Liberals are masochists, what can I say? The thing is, Michael Steele was right (and that may be the only time I ever say that): Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. He doesn't get ratings because he's smart, or because he gives nuanced and thoughtful policy analysis to Americans hungry for real information and analysis about the issues that affect their lives. He provides commentary — and not particularly insightful commentary at that — packaged in a way that far too many Americans can understand without having to think too hard, because we don't like to think that much about things bigger than ourselves. David Frum is right about Rush Limbaugh, too, but somewhat wrong in that he doesn't think many Americans are like Rush:

A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as "losers." With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence

Well, with the private plane and women who will fuck him despite his cigars, multiple marriages, drug problems and general assholeness, he might be more aspirational to some Americans.

The thing is, by feeding his ego, by presenting himself as the intellectual (I actually laughed typing that) basis of the Republican Party, the guy with more of a base among the faithful than Michael Steele, Rush is doing for Rush what Rush always does for Rush: making money. By apologizing to Rush for stating the truth — that he's an entertainer who does what he does for audience, ego and money — Michael Steele marginalized himself in the process of rebuilding. Rush listeners probably wonder what a black guy is doing heading up the RNC anyway, because they have no sense of strategy, no sense of 2010 or 2012, no cares for anything other than rhetoric that makes them feel good about what they already believe and somehow think they can convince the other 280 million Americans to believe (and vote for), too.

The great thing is that the Obama Administration knows full well that Limbaugh might have 20 million listeners, but he doesn't have 20 million voters and he sure as shit doesn't appeal to the moderates and independents who help turn states like Virginia blue. And Rush may be anti-intellectual, but he knows it, too. He knows he polls for shit among liberals and centrists. So, if he cared about Republicans winning elections or taking back the White House or anything about the party he professes to be ideologically tied to, he probably wouldn't be willing to risk their comeback for his own ego and bank account — not that he couldn't stroke the former and fill the latter even if the Republicans were doing better. So Rush Limbaugh, who isn't stupid, isn't just a mad Republican: He's a closet Obamaniac. He's gay for Obama. He likes him. He wants socialized medicine, he wants the nationalization of our financial system, he wants everything that Obama wants if for no other reason than he has cynically calculated that all those things will make him a richer, more popular entertainer. May he feud with political Republicans for four more years.

Thing is, having read all the other interviews Rachel Maddow has done recently so as not to repeat too much, I realized that everyone had pretty much already asked her just about everything anyone probably ever wanted to know about her and then some. Mostly "some".
Like:

Fictional character she identifies with: Wally Cleaver. Cause he is a dork.

And:

Asked if her television career is the culmination of a plotted path, Maddow laughs. "You mean when I started working on AIDS in prisons, was this where I thought it would end up? Yeah. This is pretty much it. Phase forty-seven of my master plan."

Also:

LESLEY: Did you go out with boys in high school?
RACHEL: Yes.
LESLEY: Spin the bottle, and all that kind of stuff?
RACHEL: Oh, yeah. My prom pictures are hilarious.

And let's not forget this:

"If I'm wearing a gray suit, people aren't going to talk about what I'm wearing," Maddow explains, "therefore, I will wear a gray suit every time I go on television. That was sort of the plan."

And finally:

Mother Jones: You're TV's "It Girl." How does it feel?
Rachel Maddow: It doesn't feel like that.

It was going to be hard to find a question that someone else hadn't already asked her, and I am completely opposed to being unoriginal.

Last week, settled into a booth at a midtown Manhattan bar that serves classic cocktails with rummy deliciousness in my hand, I had a flash of inspiration. And so began our interview.

Megan: So, who makes your lip gloss?
Rachel: I don't know! It's provided to me by the very nice people who work in the MSNBC make-up room. The only thing I know is that one of them that they seem to use every other day makes my lips hurt. That's apparently on purpose? It has some sort of irritant...

Megan: It's a plumper!
Rachel: A plumper? That sounds like some sort of fetish.

Megan: Plumping, it's supposed to make your lips look biggers.
Rachel: Who's into plumping? Well, it's pain, which I don't like. They never warn me, and I can't identify it by sight because I don't watch what the products are as they approach my face. So, I don't enjoy the plumping. But that probably narrows it down as to what brand it is, right? Are there a lot of plumping glosses out there?

Megan: There are a lot of things that will make your lips really large.
Rachel: As make-up? It's a whole class of make-up, not just one brand? Well, then I can't help you. But there is one guy there who has mascara that has a motor in it!

Megan: Like, a vibrating magic mascara wand?
Rachel: You said it.

Megan: I do tend to say things like that. But, um, I've now officially run out of personal questions that no one else has asked you, so it's about to be the most awkward segue ever.
Rachel: It's okay.

Megan: Well, so, to get back to the plumping thing, I'm reminded of the word surge, and Obama has just announced a new Surge in Afghanistan, since the last surge was, like, so much fun.
Rachel: [laughs]

Megan: So, like, the new Surge will be like twice the fun even though it's only half the people and doesn't involve anyone that attended the first Surge going to the second Surge. It's sort of all new people going to the new Surge and all the old Surge people kind of staying there.
Rachel: And it's not a Surge because they'll never leave. It's more like a swelling. A plumping! Rather that a surge. Because a surge would imply some sort of temporary rise and fall whereas I think an escalation would be a better word for what it is they want to do.

Megan: Well, they probably don't want to call it that.
Rachel: Right? Awkward. About the troop levels in Afghanistan, we're in year 8 already. So they're all like, we're going to need a 3 or 4 year commitment. No, no, no, what's you're saying is that we're actually going to need an 11 or 12 year commitment. What are years 11 and 12 going to work out better than, I don't know, years 3 and 4? 7 and 8? 1 and 2? Pick any. We've been there a long time.

Megan: Yeah, George Bush probably should have gone back and looked in Vladimir Putin's soul again and asked him, because the Russians probably know a little bit about that.
Rachel: General Gromov, who was the last Russian general who supervised their withdrawal and was the last person over the line when they left in 1989, said, "Yeah, what we learned is that you can't solve political problems though military means." Duh.

Megan: Wait, so the Russians in 1989 were the Republicans in 1998?
Rachel: Well, not anymore, because we're not leaving.

Megan: Well, so we'll gain Russian-levels of insight into foreign affairs in about 2015.
Rachel: Yes. Well, no, let's see, what year is it now? 2009. So in 2029, we'll be giving the Chinese this advice.

Megan: Sounds like a good plan! Speaking of China, Hillary Clinton went there having hit up Japan, Indonesia and South Korea. That's the same part of the world, right? They're all short and stuff.
Rachel: There is a geographic commonality in the broadest sense.

Megan: Sort of like Canada and Chile.
Rachel: Yeah, exactly, "The Americas." In the same way that Sarah Palin and Alberto Fujimori are representative of the Americas, also South Korea and China are.

Megan: So which leader will go to jail, then, like Fujimori?
Rachel: Which one will send dramatic faxes to his homeland from exile? Hard to say. But I think the amazing thing about Hillary Clinton in Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and China is that she timed it to Kim Jong Il's birthday. Kim Jong Il's birthday is a big deal. There has to be a lot of synchronized swimming, there has to be of course dancing, there has to be a costumed procession...

Megan: Sort of like prom?
Rachel: More crappy even then prom, the dancing on the occasion of the Dear Leader's birth. There was, apparently, a mysterious halo that appeared around the moon on the occasion of his birthday this year. Very unearthly.

Megan: Is that how he gets his golf skills? I mean, he only golfed the one time, but 18 holes-in-one, you really can't top it.
Rachel: It's a world record! It's almost as impressive as Pat Robertson holding the international leg press record. Pat Robertson said he could leg press 2,000 pounds, which meant that he would have won the Olympics. It's the same kind of thing. I don't know if they have a Regent University, I don't know if they have something that is as much a representation of the spiritual worthiness of that leader, but...

Megan: I'm pretty sure there's some goosestepping in both places. I can see it.
Rachel: Was it Regent University where Mitt Romney gave the speech about how France limited its marriages to seven years? Or was that Liberty University? I get them confused.

Megan: I think it was Liberty [Ed: Rachel was right, it was Regent]. Liberty's the one that advertises on Washington's subway.
Rachel: Wow. I love that. I love that you can just make a university! I love that! It's accredited.

Megan: I'd bet I could accredit myself.
Rachel: At Hampshire College every year they spray paint quotation marks around the word "College" on the sign out in front of the school.

Megan: I know someone who got kicked out of Hampshire College for doing too many drugs.
Rachel: You know someone who's dead!

Megan: No, in fact, we had drinks about a year and a half ago!
Rachel: "Drinks" you said?

[We order another round of drinks.]

Megan: So back to Hillary Clinton and the catfight she's about the get in with Tim Geithner over China, since I'm sick of catfights only being girl-on-girl. Have you heard about this?
Rachel: The Eyebrows of Doom! His hair is perfect, but his eyebrows are like Eliot Abrams style. His eyebrows are Richard Perle quality.

Megan: Are they Jim Gilmore quality?
Rachel: No, no, no, they're bigger! They're better! They're not reach out and grab you eyebrows, they're Eyebrows of Doom! They're like lifted eyebrows. The whole like crazy arch, death ray eyebrows. Geithner should not be messed with.

Megan: Well, so, the catfight. In the Bush Administration, Henry Paulson since he was like BFF with Wu Yi, and Sue Schwab ended up at USTR but had no power and Condi Rice was all over Middle East policy at State, Paulson got the Strategic Economic Dialogue with China which became sort of the place where most China policy ended up.
Rachel: Right, because his relationship preceded his Treasury Secretary-ness because of his time at Goldman Sachs. Ugh.

Megan: Right, so, Hillary Clinton is all up in China's business on economic policy, taking bits of what turf on China policy got passed to Geithner, going to Asia, taking advantage of Geither pissing off the Chinese during his confirmation hearing and Geithner's need to fix the economy.
Rachel: Hillary Clinton is ready to take up a lot of room! The amount of room there is to be taken up is finite. And somebody is going to take it up. It's exciting to imagine the changes that might happen in our own government and in the world, the range of options that we have as an economy and a military and a government operating in the world, if our State Department matters. And she's grabbing power and installing loyalists, she's completely filling up the policy space and taking over the State Department. It's great!

Megan: And Gates is getting out of her way, too.
Rachel: Exactly, and she can say, well, the Secretary of Defense agrees with me. We haven't been here in a long time. It's exactly the thing I want us as a country to be trying, I don't know exactly how it's going to work out. But the thing that's going to happen is that, when agencies do stuff, they get good at that thing. And when they don't do stuff, they don't know how to do that thing anymore. And so the State Department hasn't taken up this room in a long time, so it's a big calling out of the diplomatic corps. Like, are you capable of taking this stuff on? Are you capable of taking over the primary mission in Afghanistan? Not like support, but are you going to be the front line of what America is trying to accomplish there? Can you? Do we know how? Can we manage our own security? And all this stuff. And it's asking a lot of an agency that has suffered in not silence in exactly, but in quietness for a really long time. And now they're front and center, and they need to step up and build capacity really quickly. Great! It's exactly what I want. But I actually have a question for you, going back to Afghanistan. Who is against it? The war, I mean, not the escalation.

Megan: Besides Barbara Lee? And Sean Penn, I guess.
Rachel: Yeah, who's arguing that we should get them all home?

Megan: Nobody. But who knows that we lost more soldier in Afghanistan in January than we lost in Iraq? What are we there for? What are we fighting for? Are we fighting the Pakistan-Afghanistan border war? Are we trying to stabilize the Pakistan government? Keep the Taliban from coming back? In a very realist sense — and not that I'm a realist in terms of foreign policy — but what was our major foreign policy problem with the Taliban other than that they gave Osama bin Laden safe haven when he decided to blow our shit up?
Rachel: I mean, that was a problem, but Sudan also gave him a safe haven.

Megan: But those were black people.
Rachel: So we didn't invade them?

Megan: Yeah, why would we want to get involved in a morass there that already proved unsolvable when we can prove the Russians were just not doing it right. Like, Africa is such a mess!
Rachel: That's okay, AFRICOM has got it under control, man.

Megan: The whole continent!
Rachel: Yeah, it's AfricCOM. It's not SenegalCOM. It's not Cote d'COM. It's AfriCOM

Megan: It's not CongoCom. Or ZimbabweCOM.
Rachel: That whole country!

Megan: Isn't that how we deal with it?
Rachel: It's easier than learning the boundaries. I don't think we're very far away from the American religious right picking some new obscure opposition movement in Africa to privilege as some sort of religiously-inspired freedom fighter sort of thing.

Megan: You mean, when they're done with Israel?
Rachel: No, like, the new Janjaweed. We're due for that. For American evangelicals to decide on a new mascot.

Megan: Are they allowed to have black people as a mascot?
Rachel: You know, that will be really fascinating to find out.

Megan: I mean, other than Michael Steele.
Rachel: Yeah, he's going to make over the RNC. It's gonna be all hip hop over in the RNC now.

Megan: Maybe he can get Eminem to help.
Rachel: [laughs]

Related: A Pundit in the Country [New York Times]
Rachel Maddow's Life and Career [The Nation]
The Dr. Maddow Show [New York Magazine]
Lesley Stahl Asks Rachel Maddow: What Do You Do at 7 on Sundays? [wowOwow]
Rachel Maddow's Star Power (Extended Interview) [Mother Jones]

Earlier: Rachel Maddow: "I Need To Focus On What I Think, So That I Can Stay Original"

Although Michael Steele — like Dubya before him — would like you to believe that the recession was kicked off by Bill Clinton before he left office 8 years ago, the truth is that the last recession started after Bush took office in 2001 and finished up not long thereafter. In fact, it appears that it might have been helped by Dubya's massive stimulus package, which was bigger than the Obama one that all the Republicans are whining about. Lest you think that said smaller stimulus might help, there are a bunch of economists who say that there's no way it will be big enough to help since the banks are refusing to lend money this time around to mitigate the crisis — and that's not even to talk about the massive unemployment that's dwarfing unemployment figures from earlier recessions. Speaking of the banks that took your tax dollars to jump-start the economy through increased lending and then didn't lend, on Tuesday, they'll find out what's to become of them and their TARP funds under the new Obama regime, other than that their execs might all have to start taking the subway and forgo armed drivers and $9 hot chocolates. Please feel free to pity them; I mean, we wouldn't want the rich to have to sacrifice anything in this economy!

Other people that don't wish to sacrifice? Michael Steele's sister, who reportedly got paid by his 2006 Senate campaign for work she never did, an allegation that Steele is denying. Also, Ann Coulter, who reportedly found that changing her voter registration to New York just too taxing and is now being investigated for — of all ironic things — voter fraud for voting where she doesn't really live.

Anyway, so, the Iraqi shoe-thrower is going to get a trial; German chancellor Angela Merkel wants — but probably won't get — an answer as to why the Pope un-excommunicated that British Holocaust-denying priest; and Joe Biden was hoping for more foreign policy success on his first foreign visit but didn't really get it ("and that's why you don't send a man to do a woman's job," said someone over in Foggy Bottom under her breath). But, the word is out that Howard Dean's possible competition for that empty Cabinet slot over at Health and Human Services might be Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. That's probably another contest that Dean should prepare to lose. The skiing is lovely in Vermont this time of year, though!

MOE: This story is almost too wonderful.

MOE: Gene Weingarten reads blogs and listens to talk radio and watches five television sets for 24 hours and it gives him a brief appreciation for Rush Limbaugh.

MEGAN: The WaPo site has been trying to get me to read that story for 2 full days but I have been resisting its lure because I don't want to know my future.

MOE: Okay, I'll send you some excerpts. First

". . . the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." — Umberto Eco.

MEGAN: I read The Name of the Rose in high school. I was mad, upon seeing the movie, that there was not more of Christian Slater's bare ass. I think this would not be an opinion I would hold today were the movie to be made today, with today's Christian Slater.

MOE: And speaking of ...the down there zone, remember when Jane Fonda said "cunt" on TV?

Fortunately, the gaffe is all over the Web in streaming video, and, yes indeed, here she is, Hanoi Jane herself, the bete noire of right wing radio, flagrantly uttering the unutterable. Clearly, Rush and Bill are courageously willing to address this shocking and distasteful subject even at the risk of driving their audiences into multi-orgasmic rapture.
Limbaugh joyfully eviscerates Fonda and moves quickly on to other things, but O'Reilly is in high dudgeon and is all over this reprehensible event. He's morally outraged, and seems to want to wring all he can get out of it, as though it were, say, a luffa sponge.
As someone in the broadcasting business, he says, he doesn't want to become "the scold police," but he wonders just the same if someone ought to call the FCC and demand punishment.

(Later at night, on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor," he will devote an entire segment to the issue, practically sputtering in exasperation when he can't persuade his guest, lawyer Anita Kay, to agree with him that heads must roll. Kay will point out, reasonably, that Fonda wasn't using the word in a hostile manner; she was simply stating the actual title of one of the monologues from the play "The Vagina Monologues," which is, ironically, about how the word should be destigmatized.) B-b-but "this is the most vile word in the lexicon of obscenity!" O'Reilly protests. Laughing, Kay basically tells him to calm down and grow up, that the average 12-year-old girl has heard this word, and it's no big deal. It's my favorite moment of the day. (Anita Kay, the cure for the common scold.) The peril of listening to Limbaugh and O'Reilly at the same time is that you tend to compare them, and these are dangerous waters for an unapologetic, unreconstructed New Deal liberal like me. The comparison makes you actually like Rush. He's funny; O'Reilly is not. Limbaugh teases and baits his political adversaries; O'Reilly sneers and snarls at them. Limbaugh is mock-heroic; O'Reilly is self-righteous. So, when Limbaugh speculates that the Democrats in the House committee went after Roger Clemens because liberals hate cherished American institutions such as churches, the Boy Scouts and baseball, you know he's sorta kidding. When O'Reilly says liberals who oppose torture of prisoners just don't care how many people will die in a terrorist attack, you know he's as serious as an aneurysm.

MOE: I can only listen to Fox News, on account of my mysterious muting problem. Although I was thinking of switching to CNBC this morning. Here we go. The Dow is possibly up because JP Morgan might be raising its bid for Bear Stearns. Wait, the market is not open yet, that is just what the futures betters are betting. They are talking about something called fractionalization creating a lot of possibilities for arbitrage in these securities. I am not really sure what this means. Do regular CNBC viewers really engage in "arbitrage"? Whatever. Ooooh, someone called Wisdomtree.com is pushing an exchange traded fund that tracks India's economy. Good idea. All right, back to the meme of the day. What is it? A lot of things happened this weekend, including the publication of the Peggy Noonan column that finally pushed me over the edge into the realm of begging Peggy Noonan for an interview.

MEGAN: Also, as of this morning, 4,000 soldiers have officially died in Iraq. Cheney would like us to know that the White House mourns every single death but it is, after all, a "volunteer army."
MEGAN: Because there's nothing nauseating about saying that.
MEGAN: They volunteered to die, so it's not as big a deal apparently. Perhaps to commemorate, we can each take a moment of silence today to think about the 4,000 soldiers and then yell "Cheney, go fuck yourself"

MOE: Aiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee. Puppies! Polar Bears! Peggy! Peggy heard the speech and thought "Go America Go." She just thought it was kind of a downer. The first comment goes:

I think Peggy needs to recycle Reagan101 again, and while she's at it perhaps she can read what a real journalist thought of the speech.....Washinton Post writer Charles Krauthammer's article "The Speech, A Brilliant Fraud".

MEGAN: I mean, that sort of a little bit puts the lie to the "all volunteer" army idea. Because definitely some people join despite having tons of other options because it's the family business or they have heroic ideals or just want the extra money or whatever, but some people do it because they don't have good grades, or money for college or career prospects or even job prospects where they grew up. So, yeah, they volunteered to not be even more grindingly poor, to not try to get on welfare, to do something to achieve that American dream thing everyone's been telling them about their whole lives and instead some number of them end up on food stamps anyway and are eking out on existence trying to stay alive in some country where they don't really want us.

MOE: Also, everything that Peggy Noonan said Obama was overly gloomy about can be summed up in this, Maria Bartiromo's response to Tim Russert's query as to what America's biggest economic challenge is.

Well, our biggest challenge economically right now is the tight credit environment.  From an individual standpoint, it is very tough to get a mortgage, it is very tough to borrow money anymore.  From a business standpoint, the same thing.  I would say one of the key representations of what's happening right now is what happened at Carlyle Capital.  Very simple stuff, Tim.  They had $600 million in assets, they borrowed $22 billion. Doesn't work out.  The math just doesn't work.  And that's exactly what's happening.  People have overextended themselves, businesses as well as consumers, and now we're paying the price

MEGAN: Duh, Moe, the $600 million wasn't the only collateral. It was also secured by the fact that 90% of every person involved was an older white man who went to a small number of the right schools and participated in the dinner clubs or fraternities or whatever deemed appropriate by their set and who belongs to a small number of socially appropriate country clubs or whatever. That's the real
collateral.

MOE: DAMMIT YOU AND YOUR FINE PRINT MEGAN

MEGAN: I am a cunt like that.

MOE: Okay does rehashing that conversation I'm pretty sure we already had but for the constant cache-clearing of the 24-hour pundit cycle that we'll come back to a moment because I'm going to tell you about my mom, and also, ask what you did to commemorate Christ's resurrection, about how McCain wanted to switch parties after 2001 just delay the inevitable awesome conversation about the Nixon-tattoed Republican huckster who tipped off the government to Eliot Spitzer's whore habit (because he went to the same whores, duh) and also, printed up those clever Citizens United Not Timid T-shirts that sunk the Hillary campaign?
8:50 AM
MOE: Cunts are such a theme today!

MEGAN: To commemorate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (no H., thanks), I had brunch that included bagels with lox, champagne and coffee. Then I took a nap. I worked, then I went to dinner with a friend who is having relationship issues, and I came home and worked some more.

MEGAN: And I talked to my parents.

MOE: I got high with a very good friend whose name I am gonna leave off the blog even though he seems to have posted pictures commemorating that on his Facebook profile. It was the first time I have ever 1. bought weed by myself, which I did successfully, along with the first time I have 2. attempted to roll a joint, an endeavor at which I failed miserably.The best part of the evening was buying junk food in anticipation of the muchies. The next morning we walked a mile and a half to Chipotle but it was closed. I got on the wrong subway home and ended up getting out in Williamsburg and walking home over the bridge. I smiled unilaterally at a lot of Hasids and realized it was Easter only when some dudes sitting at the front of the bridge said, "Hey sexy, happy Easter."

MEGAN: It was really good weather, wasn't it?

MOE: And my mother said that she always forgets until she visits my sister in Charlottesville how marginalized and disenfranchised black people are. And the throwing his grandma under the bus line went over well with her. She was like "when he said that I was like, oh my god that is like a universal experience, to cringe over how old white people talk about black people." We have a lot of typical white people in my family as you can probably tell.

MEGAN: Wow, your mom is cool. I think I might owe her some wine some time.

MOE: But it made me think, you know, the same thought Gene Weingarten had over the extent to which regular voters are completely oblivious to the meme of the moment and thank god for that.
MOE: Now G-d can you do something about William Kristol? And Pat Buchanan?

MEGAN: Word. The whole Gene Weingarten piece reminded me of the conversation I had with my parents about how I do this in the morning and I was like, well, I get up at 7, read 15+ sites and then start typing and they were like, wow, you're the most well-informed person we know and then I realized I was probably fucked and this is why I'm a political misanthrope.
MEGAN: I think Bill Kristol, who, seriously, if you put that man in some fucking clown make up IS THE JOKER FROM BATMAN will take care of his own demise. But someone get Rachel Maddow a spit shield for when she has to sit next to him on MSNBC.
MEGAN: and by "him" I mean Pat Buchanan

MOE: Apparently Michael Smerconish has been defending the speech. He's a much-beloved Pennsylvania conservative radio talker. Ugh, but before I feel click over on one more thing only to rue that here we are, balls deep in the memes again, let me call out this sentiment from Pat Buchanan's most recent blog utterance.

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

MOE: He actually asked, "Where is the gratitude?

MEGAN: So, why the FUCK is he still a commentator on MSNBC? Oh, right, they're trying to out-Fox Fox or something, because that's why they're 3rd in the ratings.

MOE: I'm not sure. I don't know. I think I have heard sentiments from my grandfather who was a typical white person of the first generation immigrant vein that would echo these sentiments. I think William F. Buckley might have echoed these statements. Enough of these statements might give you the notion that racism is endemic in white America, you know? Because implicit in statements like this, I don't have to point it out to you but I will anyway, was that buying and selling and pricing people as commodities is not a grave injustice if they are black. What is interesting is that Judeo Chrisitian rooted humanism is supposed to be the basis for the notion that a person is a person, uniquely different from other objects and organisms, and yet here he seems to be subverting that notion, rendering it backward according to some logic I can barely fathom, except to echo Obama via William Faulkner.
MOE: Via Peggy Noonan.
MOE: The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past.

MEGAN: Like, it's obviously not the motherfucking past if people like Pat Buchanan think that

MEGAN: Seriously? The means (slavery) are justified by the ends (acceptance of Jesus Christ as their savior, forced or not)? Seriously? This is what people think? What country do I live in? No wonder Michelle Obama isn't proud of it all the time.

MOE: Pat Buchanan went to my brother's high school, a Jesuit boy's school in Northeast DC. That is what is scariest but most fascinating about that statement. It is not coming from the progeny of anyone who actually owned slaves. Who actually knows, at all, what he is talking about. Perhaps he ought to listen to Mike Huckabee.

MEGAN: Perhaps Pat Buchanan, too, ought to just go fuck himself.
MEGAN: The list of people who can go fuck themselves seems to be growing.

MOE: You had a little piece of recent civil rights history you wanted to share with the class, didn't you Megan?

MEGAN: I did, in the vein of people that can go fuck themselves. The New York Times reminded its readers (some of whom heard it for the first time because they were too young at the time) that Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 Presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi with a nod to the unreconstructed racists of the world.

"In 1980, Ronald Reagan, campaigning on a platform that included "states' rights," opened his general election campaign in Philadelphia, Miss. — a decision criticized because it was where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964.

MEGAN: It was in a story on race in campaigns. Also, the incident was actually chronicled by no less than American chintzy painter Norman Rockwell in an enormous and moving painting that you will find in absolutely no book of his work anywhere (because I've tried) but you can see a bad internet print of it here. It's actually really moving in person.

MEGAN: Also, Lt. Governor Michael Steele? Former Senator JC Watts of Oklahoma? Condoleeza Rice? This is what the Republican Party thought was acceptable when you were joining up. Pat Buchanan's remarks? Still acceptable in the Republican party. If Obama has to explain his allegiance to his pastor and friend of 20 years and should have left him by the wayside to "prove" his love of America, I would like some explanations from you about that shit. Thank you. And go fuck yourselves.

MOE: No, go fuck whores!
MOE: Gay whores!
MOE: Kthanxbai.