• The fighting that began Wednesday in Mumbai is continuing today. Nearly 200 people have been confirmed dead so far, with almost 300 others injured. Militants are still fighting and holding (and killing) hostages in the Taj Mahal hotel and in a Jewish community center. [NY Times, Huffington Post, NY Times]
• Barack Obama has issued a statement condemning the attacks. [Washington Post]
• The Iraqi Parliament has passed the Status of Forces Agreement, which could have us out by 2010, but will have us out no later than 2012. [Washington Independent]
• In other news, former First Lady Barbara Bush has been moved out of the ICU following surgery to repair a perforated stomach ulcer. [CNN]

• The Vatican says that cell phones and the Internet are killing our souls. Fuck, seriously, is there anything fun you're allowed to do as a Catholic anymore? (Click through for a bonus picture of Pope Benedict in a funny, non-Pope hat.) [Telegraph]
• Iowa's Supreme Court will hear an equal protection challenge to its gay marriage ban, which may or may not invalidate the marriage of the 2 people who managed to get married in the 9 business hours the ban was struck down before the court issued a stay. [LA Times]
• The police have charged someone in the murder of Arkansas reporter Anne Pressley, who was beaten to death in her home last month. Despite the extreme level of violence that police initially said indicated it could be someone that knew and hated her, it turns out it was a random attack by a violent psycho named Curtis Lavelle Vance. [MSNBC]
• Mitchell Wade, the former defense contractor who bribed the shit out of former Congressman Duke Cunningham, apparently bribed other people and is singing like a canary. He's implicated at least 5 other thus-far-unnamed Congressmen and various other government officials. [Washington Post]
• The Congressional probe of all of Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel's (D-New York) shady business dealings will be done before the new Congress is sworn in, according to Nancy Pelosi. This means, in all likelihood, that he'll get a slap on the wrist and continue on as Chairman, which is how it always worked when the Republicans ran Congress that Pelosi promised to change when she came to power. [Washington Post]
• Now that Democrats have voted to keep Joe Lieberman in his position of power atop the Senator Homeland Security Committee, someone bothered to notice that he gave a bunch of money to Republican Senatorial candidates, too. [Washington Post]
• Jill Biden might keep teaching at a D.C.-area community college as Second Lady, which would make her the first Second Lady to carry on with a paying job after moving into the Vice Presidential Mansion. Also, she's probably cooler than you even thought she was. [Politico]
• And although Hillary Clinton hasn't officially been offered or officially accepted a gig as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, let alone resigned her Senate seat, New York State Attorney General (and enormous asshole) Andrew Cuomo has already begun a whisper campaign to make himself the front runner in the race to be appointed to the seat. Earlier this year, Andrew Cuomo referred to Barack Obama with a racial slur, which his staff rushed to cover up and intimidate bloggers and reporters from covering, swearing that the racially-loaded term "shucking and jiving" was no such thing. Hopefully, someone reminds Governor David Patterson of this every time he gets a damn phone call encouraging him to appoint Andrew Cuomo to anything. [NY Times, Pam's House Blend]

• Democrats have officially told the American auto industry to give them a plan for how they are going to us the $25 billion they want from the U.S. government or they're never going to get it. So the auto makers are getting back on their multimillion dollar corporate jets and will spend the next few weeks huddling with their expensive lobbyists to figure out how to not look like assholes the next time. [Huffington Post]
• Penny Pritzker is definitely not in the running to be Secretary of Commerce, probably because she couldn't have her cake and regulate it, too. [Washington Post]
• Anita Dunn will also not be joining the Administration, but it's far less clear as to why, except for the part where she plans to go back to political consulting. [Washington Post]
• And Obama's people are a little steamed at the Clinton team for leaking like a sieve, since they were apparently not paying attention for the entirety of the Clinton Administration and Hillary Clinton's campaign. [NY Daily News]

• Obama's state director in Iowa, Jackie Norris, is going to be Michelle Obama's Chief of Staff. [Washington Post]
• And Henry Waxman successfully stole Michigan Congressman John Dingell's gavel today and will be the new Chairman of the House Energy And Commerce Committee. The automakers cried in their single malt scotches in their limos on the way to the airports to take their private jets back to their luxurious mansions. [CNN]
• John Zogby, who was perfectly happy to take Nate Silver baiter John Ziegler's money for a crap poll showing Obama's voters were supposedly ill-informed, won't take any more of Ziegler's money to prove whether McCain voters were or were not. Amazing that, after yesterday, Ziegler found someone to look like more of a dipshit than him. [Politico]
• The prosecutor in Texas who got Cheney indicted this week didn't show up for court today. Maybe he went duck hunting? [UPI]
• Rahm Emanuel says that Obama is, like, totally happy to listen to the Republicans' ideas of how to solve the financial crisis and his head didn't even explode in pent-up rage. Hot. [Politico]

MEGAN: So I have abandoned Williamsburg in favor of Queens, but only because it's easier to get coffee and the subway here. Am I missing anything in D.C. other than a federal holiday I don't believe I've gotten off since high school?

SPENCER: It's really cold.

MEGAN: Like, unusually for November cold? Or just cold-cold?

SPENCER: And Howard Dean is leaving the Democratic National Committee. I hate talking about the weather. I know I brought it up.

MEGAN: It did seem unusual for you. Maybe Howard just misses a real autumn and a snowy winter and wants to go back to Vermont? I know, I crack myself up, too, sometimes.

SPENCER: This is a man who will simply never get his due. Fought at every single step of the way for the Democratic nomination, fought at every single step of the way for the DNC chairmanship, all to say that the time is ripe for a progressive infrastructure in all 50 states, and most importantly at the state legislature levels to build the future of the Democratic Party, and vindicated in every particular. But will he ever be treated as the visionary he is? No, because he's too friendly to dirty fucking hippies like Markos Moulitsas and Duncan Black and Jane Hamsher. Oh, and let's not forget how he was ridiculed for the sin of being right about the Iraq war.

MEGAN: I mean, credit where credit is due, Obama's 50 state strategy really is just Howard Dean's from 2006. And even then Dean was considered a profligate over-spender because what the hell Democratic candidate was ever going to win in Indiana or North Carolina?

SPENCER: But I want to see some inter-party acknowledgment that Dean was right and certain magazines I used to work for were overwhelmingly wrong. These kinds of decisions speak to the heart of what people in progressive circles believe is possible, and good work needs to be rewarded and bad work needs to be... well, if not punished exactly then recognized as myopic.

MEGAN: Wait, you want people in Washington to admit they were wrong about stuff? Man, you are Mr. Rainbows and Sunshine and Unicorns. I mean, fuck, the word today is that if Reid held a secret caucus vote to strip Lieberman of his chairmanship, Lieberman would win. I mean, then there's really never going to be a penalty for being wrong ever again. On the other hand, I guess if there's never a penalty for being or doing wrong, I wouldn't have to apologize for stuff anymore.

SPENCER: I know, here we strip ourselves of Very Serious Personhood by conceding that we make mistakes from time to time. These people need to purge themselves of their inner Bush Administration.

MEGAN: Why, if you admit you were wrong once, you might be admitting that you could be wrong in the future!!

SPENCER: Here's another thing about Joe Lieberman, speaking of. According to TPM's Justin Elliot, Lieberman granted an interview to a McCarthyite in which he smeared American Muslim communities as seedbeds of terrorism — I mean, even the reactionary New Republic knows that's not true. And this guy is the head of a homeland security committee.

MEGAN: What the motherfuck? Jim Webb, I don't call you because I know you carry a gun and I don't want you to pull a Dick Cheney on me (although I'm not a lawyer), but I'm calling you. You got elected on being a tough guy, so be a tough guy. A little metaphorical birdshot to the face won't kill Lieberman, and no one will mind if you aim lower. Anyway, speaking of testicular fortitude, Obama yesterday apparently asked Bush to get off his ass and do something about preventing a GM bankruptcy and Bush reportedly said he would "think" about it as part of a stimulus plan... but only if Dems pass the Colombia FTA as part of said stimulus. You know, one of the things Obama explicitly campaigned against. And so rather than rolling over and capitulating to the least popular outgoing President in modern history — and I actually support the Colombia FTA, don't get me wrong — I think Reid, Pelosi and Obama should just let him veto an economic stimulus package. You know, call his fucking bluff for once.

SPENCER: Josh reported that Obama was like don't give me that shit about your agenda in his meeting with Bush yesterday. I can see Bush being petulant about this sort of thing. Why do you support a free trade deal with Colombia?

MEGAN: Well, for one, I generally support lower tariffs on imports because higher tariffs aren't effective industry savers (it just staves off the inevitable) and because it lowers my prices as a consumer. Rather than trying to save individual industries by an overarching, government-run, slow-moving industrial policy managed by a bunch of wonks and bureaucrats in D.C. with little real-world experience in running or financing businesses, I would rather see our government focus on education, re-training, economic growth writ large and stop trying to pick winners and losers. I also get annoyed at the Democratic rhetoric about how there aren't enforceable labor and environmental standards in the main text of the agreement because it's intellectually disingenuous — the "main text" is literally a list of tariffs and how we have agreed to lower them and everything else including agreements on service and market opening, labor and environment and quote-unquote side agreements that are, indeed, enforceable. Colombia's actually a relatively decent agreement and it's not an economic threat to our economy. But I also understand that Obama just ran on a platform that opposes it.

SPENCER: Aren't the politics of such a thing toxic? Obama needs to pass a stimulus bill first-things-first to stop the fuck-uppage of the economy. Forcing a free-trade fight at the outset seems like a poor idea. Not that you're arguing otherwise. But this is all I can contribute to the conversation.

MEGAN: That is, in fact, my argument. Obama shouldn't let Bush force his hand (my personal feelings on the bill aside) on the FTA to get the stimulus, but it's the sort of thing Pelosi and Reid have been caving on for the last two years. And the unions will scream to the heavens even if he does get an auto industry preservation plan out of it. He should tell both Bush and Chuck Norris to fuck off already.

SPENCER: Wow:

They had come for my wallet./ They wanted my pay/ To give to the others,/ Who had not worked a day!

So now we know that what's behind Chuck Norris' beard isn't in fact another fist but a douchenozzle. It must feel so impotent, to know that individually you can kick anyone's ass, but 65 million Americans kicked yours a week ago.

MEGAN: Technically, I think the Republicans alone kicked his ass back when they didn't vote for Huckabee, so the bitterness has had some time to build.

SPENCER: Oh one last thing: for all you veterans out there, thank you, and may you be blessed with free health care, generous education benefits and friendly golden retrievers forevermore on behalf of a grateful nation.

• Obama's announced his transition team co-chairs — the folks that will help pave the way for his Administration, not a shadow Cabinet — and it includes John Podesta, Pete Rouse (Obama's Senate Chief of Staff) and Valerie Garrett. The advisory board to the co-chairs includes former EPA head Carol Browner; former Commerce Secretary William Daley; former transportation secretary Federico Peña; Obama national security adviser Susan Rice; and Governor Janet Napolitano. Don't expect to see those names on a future list of official appointments, though. [Washington Post]
• Obama's first official appointment will, however, be Congressman Rahm Emanuel. [NY Times]
• Four Senate races remain undecided: Alaska and Oregon are too close to call; Minnesota is likely to have an automatic recount; and Georgia's results require a runoff. [CNN]
• But, the anti-abortion "personhood" amendment in Colorado and the abortion ban in South Dakota went down by wide margins. [Denver Post, Argus Leader]

• By the way, when the state of Missouri elected Denise Juneau to be their superintendent of public instruction, they made her the first Native American woman in the state (and probably the first in the nation) to hold statewide office. Are there any other barriers we can bulldoze this week, please? [Missoulian]
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a press conference to state the obvious, which is that, since the economy sucks, Democrats are going to have to set and stick to priorities. Too bad she's spent the last two years proving she knows how to roll over. [Politico]
• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev went out of his way to prove Senator Joe Biden right, threatening to escalate a nuclear standoff with the U.S. in Eastern Europe if Obama moves forward with Bush's missile defense shield there. Cuban Missile Crisis anyone? Bueller? [Washington Post]
• They might be Bushies at heart — and partially responsible for the catastrophe that is the Iraq War and the potential new nuclear standoff for Russia — but electing our first African-American President choked up Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, too. [CNN, Huffington Post]
• More than 70 percent of unmarried women voted for Obama yesterday, but half of the married ones went for McCain. Can married women please fill the rest of us in on what changes with a ring? [US News & World Report]
• More than 130 million Americans turned out to vote yesterday, or about 64% of eligible voters, making it the biggest election ever and the higher voter turnout in a long damn time. [Politico]
• The ACLU, along with the Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, have filed a brief with the California Supreme Court arguing that it should rule Proposition 8 invalid if it officially passes. They argue that, since Prop 8 invalidates another section of California's constitution, it requires greater legislative scrutiny than the average ballot initiative. Good luck! [ACLU]

• That compromise bailout plan intended to save the economy? Yeah, it failed. [Washington Post]
• The Dow proceeded to drop 778 points, the largest one-day loss in nearly 2 decades. Many people just kissed their asses and life savings goodbye. [Washington Post]
• Republicans blame Nancy Pelosi for giving an offensive speech before the vote, which included partisan remarks like recognizing that Bush inherited surpluses and now the economy sucks. [Politico, Swampland]
• Barney Frank responded to those criticisms thusly: "Because somebody hurt their feelings, they decide to punish the country." Fucking crybabies. [Huffington Post]

• McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin blamed Democrats for preventing his boss from saving this great nation. Even my mom rolled her eyes at that shit. [Talking Points Memo]
• Others think that if McCain was so willing to take credit for the bailout yesterday, he should grow a pair and take credit for the failure today. My mom wiped tears from her eyes when she was done laughing at that one. [Marc Ambinder]
• Sarah Palin is looking forward to winning the debate because Joe Biden rooted for his home state football team, thus continuing her streak of WTF comments. [NY Times]
• The new Sarah Palin interview clips that will be on today and tomorrow on CBS are from Palin's second, brand-new interview with Katie Couric. Apparently, the fun can continue. [LA Times]

The IHT writer interviews a bunch of Catholics in Scranton to highlight the back-and-forth about abortion and voting that happens among the Catholic faithful — if not their leaders — while showing at least some of them swinging toward McCain (and one being racist). Although the Church regards the practice of abortion as a sin, excommunication isn't exactly standard practice for the women of Catholic faith who have had them, since you can cross your legs and — as a friend of my mother's did in high school — wear a hat in the pew and never tell the priest about your abortion. For politicians, on the other hand, it's another story. In the last few years, players in the Church hierarchy have begun vociferously pushing the idea that not only are women who get abortions and the doctors who perform them going to hell, but that the politicians who support the right of non-Catholic women to believe that abortion is not wrong — and Catholic women who believe that the Pope is wrong — are also going to hell.

Joe Biden, for instance, was warned by a local bishop not to try to go to church in or around Scranton, Pennsylvania (his hometown) as he will be denied Communion. Conservative Catholic groups have called for all pro-choice Catholic politicians to be treated similarly in an effort to pressure them to choose their religious faith over their constitutional responsibilities. (Even Catholic writer and professor Douglas Kmiec was denied Communion (i.e., excommunicated) for having the audacity to support Barack Obama because he and Obama believe that Obama's pro-woman, pro-sex ed policies can actually reduce the incidence of abortion by reducing the economic hardships faced by pregnant women...and the number of pregnancies altogether. Shocking, I know.)

Amusingly, as I like to keep repeating, former McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina recently claimed that it is the Democrats who are trying to hold women hostage to the party on the issue of abortion. Well, I'll be damned if too many Democrats go around using their actual pulpits to actually damn people to actual hell (assuming there is a hell to which one can be damned, but Catholics believe there is). Actually, I guess I'll be damned anyway.

In addition to Biden, many politicians — Nancy Pelosi, Tim Kaine, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, for instance — are practicing Catholics. As such, they are asked to believe that abortion as wrong. And as politicians sworn to uphold the Constitution of this country, they are asked to commit to this leetle thing we like to call the separation of church and state (and to represent the views of their constituents). When your religious values conflict with your responsibilities as a politician, that's a difficult thing to handle. Most do so in the same way that my mother does: they believe that abortion is wrong, but don't believe their religious views should be forced on people who don't share those beliefs. That's called being "pro-choice."

Abortion Issue Again Dividing Catholic Votes [International Herald Tribune]
Denied Communion For Backing Obama [Andrew Sullivan]
Abortion's Foes — On Both Sides Of The Aisle [Wall Street Journal]

• John McCain told a crowd that the "people who decide these things" told him there would be 2-3 Supreme Court vacancies soon. Of course, those are lifetime appointments, so it's either that McCain's in contact with Death or he's forgotten one of the fundamentals of the third branch of our democracy. [HuffPo]
• Speaking of idiocy, Attorney General Michael Mukasey decided today that no one will be punished for the illegal hiring practices in the Department of Justice under Alberto Gonzales. You know, because no one cares, except for those people denied jobs for not being Republican-y enough. And maybe the people fired. And those people transferred for not complying. And Democrats. Well, hardly anyone, anyway! [International Herald Tribune]
• In a blast from the past, corrupt bribe-taking Republican Congressman Bob Ney is getting out of the slammer soon! Democrats have already started a collection to send him to Minneapolis for Labor Day, since he helped them so much in the 2006 elections. [HuffPo]

• Cindy Sheehan, who has vowed to never disappear from the media spotlight ever again, has qualified to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in November as an Independent. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer would be rubbing his hands with anticipation, but even he's sick of Cindy Sheehan. [HuffPo]
• Suicide bomber recruiters have apparently tired of using women as suicide bombers and started dressing men up like women to do it. Just kidding! Real women will return to bombing next week. [LA Times]
• New York City's abortion rate is up to 72 abortions for every 100 live births, which is almost 3 times the national average. Advocates blame it on a lack of access to affordable birth control and a reduction in birth control usage. Anti-abortion advocates have already started calling New York City Gemorrah, since they already used up Sodom on San Francisco. [Crane's]
• Mark Penn thinks Obama needs to play up McCain's "record" on women's issues. This is the type of advice you get when Mark Penn isn't getting paid millions of dollars to play divide-and-conquer with your staff. [Politico]

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

MOE: oh here you are...

MEGAN: As always, right here, just multitasking and reading crap on the internet

MOE: I just remembered it was my afternoon off which is really fucking good because I am totally out of ADD drugs again and um, I had to get really wasted last night.

MEGAN: Yeah, I'm taking the afternoon off as well, but mostly so that I can drive back to D.C.

MEGAN: So, want to see the shittiest ads of the Presidential race so far?

MOE: Oh Jesus. Oh fucking Jesus. Okay, let's play a game: what's more depressing?You knew we were holding Saudis, Yemenis and Pakistanis without evidence in Gitmo, but did you know about the Chinese???

MOE: There are 16 Uighurs there, picked up mostly in Afghanistan after they got sick of the Chinese oppressing them.

MEGAN: Aw, dude, we have 16 Uighurs? Great. How much you want to bet that the Chinese got their intel on the Uighur terrorist threat against the Olympics that they used to justify further oppression from us?

MEGAN: Oh, wait, that was easy. Here's an article about it from the Voice of America, which is America's radio station abroad.

MOE: Yeah aren't we not allowed to listen to VOA in America because it's propaganda? And yes the Chinese assistance in the war on terror is very invaluable to our struggle against Muslim extremism which is the worst problem a country has ever faced in the history of modern statehood!

MEGAN: "They" will destabilize our government if we let "them," so we must protect the most important parts from destabilization, and the Bill of Rights is only, like, the 3rd most important document, definitely.

MEGAN: It doesn't say anything about the pursuit of happiness or executive privilege.

MOE: I love this headline: Judges Cite Need for Reliable Evidence To Hold Detainees …

MOE: it's like something you'd read in the daily newspaper of some fledgling democracy!

MOE: here

MEGAN: Judges Ask Administration To Stick To Principles On Which Country Founded, Not Dismantle Democracy In The Name Of Security

MEGAN: Well, if we want to stick to depressing news, how about a Biblical justification for attacking Michelle Obama (and, basically, every Jezebel) for defying God himself by not being subservient and thereby attacking Barack for not being godly enough to appropriately control his wife?

MOE: Dude apropos of absolutely nothing while I try to slog through the Gail Sheehy piece on Hillaryland and the Sy Hersh piece on Iran under the influence of absolutely no drugs check.out. this outfit. It looks like something Huma Abedin might recommend!

MEGAN: Dude, don't slog, I can break that shit down for you.

MEGAN: 1: Hillary and Bill hired a bunch of people who didn't get along, thinking that was a great campaign strategy. Like her Senate office and, frankly, the Bush Administration, it was a insular group of people used to defending the hordes.

MEGAN: 2. Mark Penn sucks and blames everyone else for his failing.

MEGAN: 3. Everyone hates Mark Penn, who used to privately call Bill Clinton when he couldn't convince Hillary or the other staff to do what he wanted because he's a tattle-taling bitch.

MOE: Also there was this

He sounded giddy, recalls Congressman Altmire. "'We’re going to win Ohio for sure, and Texas looks good, and we’re coming to Pennsylvania 'he said. ‘Keep your powder dry. Don’t endorse anybody—just wait it out.’?"The flattered first-term congressman said he was concerned that Senator Clinton might not play well on the top of the ticket. "President Bush won my district twice … "

Clinton interrupted him. "How well did I do in your district?"

"You won it twice."

"Well, there you go," Clinton said, gloating."

There was silence for a while, and Clinton assumed he had won his case."

"With all due respect," Altmire finally said, "you’re not on the ballot this year."

MOE: NEITHER IS ROSS PEROT!

MEGAN: 4. Ickes is pissed that Mark Penn made $20 million dollars, sucked, ran roughshod over him and still went out of his way to take politically untouchable clients (i.e., the Colombian government).

MEGAN: 5. The chunky Chicos necklaces and jewel-toned pantsuits were all the fault of Huma Abedin who is herself impeccably dressed, so she's now the world's biggest underminer.

MEGAN: 6. Hillary's make-up artist matched her eyeshadow to her suit jackets.

MEGAN: 7. Mark Penn railed against Hillary every showing emotion because he is at his core a sexist pig who doesn't believe women can be women and still President EVEN THOUGH that's the times when she connected best with voters.

MEGAN: 8. Both Clinton's undertook a concerted effort to pressure Obama into taking her as VP to the horror of most other Democrats who found it unseemly

MEGAN: 9. Patti Solis Doyle was ousted because they were out of money, not that they were out of money, per se, they were just out of primary money because donors can give $2300 to the primaries and $2300 to the general election campaign.

MEGAN: 10. Reporters were all drunk on the plane between Iowa and New Hampshire.

MEGAN: 11. Mark Penn sucks some more and is insufferably arrogant.

MEGAN: The end!

MOE: Okay so far on this. 1. Bush wants "regime change" and he's paid $400 million to fund it so far but that doesn't get you so far.

MOE: 2. There's some group called the Baluchis who are going to help us out because, you know, they're SUNNI.

MEGAN: !. Not in a country with oil it doesn't. In Cuba maybe.

MOE: 3. Some Democrats have gone along with this TREASON

MEGAN: 2. Not that McCain knows the difference between that and Shi'ites

MEGAN: 3. Um, they totally did, like they always do. Bush gives good belly rubs!

MOE: 4. The Joint Chiefs are not fans of this plan.

MOE: 5. Admiral William Fallon: I want to have his babies.

MEGAN: 4. The Joint Chiefs don't want their military legacies to be tons more soldiers dying in a pointless war.

MEGAN: 5. I'll leave that one to you. I wouldn't want to quit drinking for 9 months.

MOE: You don't have to completely quit, and definitely not for the whole nine months! Also you don't keep it down very well in the first few months of pregnancy anyway.

MEGAN: Yeah, I've heard that, though it reportedly depends on the woman. Also, with my personal history of (probably but not definitely developmental) birth defects, I probably would have to be way stricter than average.

MOE: But also I was not actually saying that literally just in response to:

Too many people believe you have to be either for or against the Iranians,” he told me. “Let’s get serious. Eighty million people live there, and everyone’s an individual. The idea that they’re only one way or another is nonsense.”

When it came to the Iraq war, Fallon said, “Did I bitch about some of the things that were being proposed? You bet. Some of them were very stupid.”

MEGAN: Yeah, that is pretty fucking sexy. I'd hit it.

MOE: 6. There are some laws, about how Congress needs to hear about it if the CIA declares war on The Iran, because Congress is where the CIA would get money to do such a thing, but the Bush Administration maybe doesn't know about those laws, because they are still operating from the rule book that they were using when United Fruit chipped in most of the $$ for regime changes andsuch, only instead of United Fruit they are maybe finding another source for the money. (Bernanke?)

MOE:

"The agency says we’re not going to get in the position of helping to kill people without a Finding," the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the legal threat confronting some agency operatives for their involvement in the rendition and alleged torture of suspects in the war on terror. "This drove t"the over-all authorization includes killing, but it’s not as though that’s what they’re setting out to do. It’s about gathering information, enlisting support."

And how are you going to enlist support if you don't kill a few evildoers here and there???

MEGAN: More likely Chevron.

MEGAN: And, obviously, if you didn't mean to kill them, it's, like, totally ok. Casualties of an undeclared war, man.

MOE: 7. There is some group called the Gang of Eight that includes Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and John Rockefeller and it occurred to me that I forgot the members of the Gang of Four besides Jiang Qing. You always remember the girl involved in something like that. BTW God bless YouTube!

MEGAN: I mean, the problem with getting a declaration of war is that no President has really ever bothered. They get an authorization to do whatever the fuck they want to do and then use it, bypassing Congress's constitutional powers in that regard.

MEGAN: His hip thrusting is kind of freaking me out, man.

MOE: Ew yeah I know…if cheap wine is doing that to him…btw Admiral Fallon's nickname is "Fox". Silver fox!

MOE:

"Fox said that there’s a lot of strange stuff going on in Special Ops, and I told him he had to figure out what they were really doing," Fallon’s colleague said. "The Special Ops guys eventually figured out they needed Fox, and so they began to talk to him. Fox would have won his fight with Special Ops but for Cheney."

The Pentagon consultant said, "Fallon went down because, in his own way, he was trying to prevent a war with Iran, and you have to admire him for that."

MEGAN: He really just does get foxier the more you read.

MOE: 8. Were we speaking of cheap wine? Because there was an explosion someplace in The Iran called "Shiraz."

MEGAN: Which the Australians pronounce Shur-azz instead of Shur-ahz

MOE: 9. Oh yeah, remember Mossadegh? Weird how you can't spell that name without "Mossad." Anyway he's briefly mentioned, not by name but I always wondered what happened to him and turns out he stayed under house arrest until 1967. He was TIME's Man of the Year in 1951. Dude old Timestyle was soooo trippy.

MOE:

For all its power, the West in 1951 failed to cope with a weeping, fainting leader of a helpless country; the West had not yet developed the moral muscle to define its own goals and responsibilities in the Middle East. Until the West did develop that moral muscle, it had no chance with the millions represented by Mossadegh.

Hahahah they sure found some growth hormones for that whole "moral muscle" problem!

MEGAN: But, like steroids, it kind of rots your brain and shrinks your testes and makes you pissed off and gives you unsightly acne. Or whatever the foreign policy equivalent of those things are.

MOE: 9. We are overestimating the amount of ethnic tension we can stir up in Iran because the Baluchis really hate the government but actually, the "Baluchis" according to Robert Baer, is just a more Italian family restaurant chain sounding name for Al Qaeda, and they are bad dudes who cut people's heads off and shit, no lie, KLS is a Baluchi, and so is Ramzi Yousef.

MEGAN: Oh, but, like usual, we'll just pay them now and depose them later!

MOE: 10. Then there is some Tufts professor who tells us about a violent Al Qaeda funded resistance movement called the Iranian People's Resistance Movement and wouldn't it just figure with a name like that they are supposedly connected to the "drug culture."

MEGAN: Wait, so there are two al Qaeda's in Iran? Nice.

MOE: 11. Probably more, but then there are some Kurdish groups too, and they all get shitloads of money from the CIA for doing absolutely nothing, and I think I just decided what to do with my life or at least the next year of it. "My Year In The Iranian Resistance." How about it Megan? We'd totes get famous. Angie and I were going to try to get a defense contract a la Efraim Diveroli but her boyfriend said it was probably too late for that. Her boyfriend who works, in the Pentagon, for a defense contractor. I wonder how much money the most highly remunerated person in the Pentagon makes. Anyway. Also I forgot to mention it but

MEGAN: Dude, I'm all up for going on the government cheese, especially if it's someplace cool like Iran and we could get a book deal out of it!

MOE: 12. Al Qaeda has money too and they're sending it to Algeria, maybe because it's the home of Zacarias Moussaoui and he was a hoot.

MEGAN: Well, if you're not talking defense contractors, the most highly remunerated person at the Pentagon is the SecDef.

MEGAN: Well, I guess that means al Qaeda doesn't like Sarko. If they're spending money their they must be recruiting there, and if they're recruiting there, I'm thinking Paris. They haven't had an attack yet, but we have, the UK has and Spain has.

MOE: No I am talking defense contractors. Also Pastor Pfleger I forgot to mention his appearance on GMA but he appeared on GMA.

MEGAN: Oh, well, then it's got to be, like, the CEO of Boeing or something. That's my guess.

MOE: Yeah but the CEO of Boeing ... not Mullally.. shit, I dunno, anyway, it's not important, his OFFICE is not in the Pentagon. See what I'm saying?

MEGAN: Ah, ok, I see what you're saying. I'll be the grunts who have to work in offices there still don't make more than the SecDef. I can't find his pay, but the highest guy below him makes $200,000, so I'm guessing it's about that or a little more.

• Some anonymous collector just bought this Monet for $80.4 million from the kids of some famous collectors from Columbus, Indiana. No really, I thought it was a mistake too, but there really is a Columbus, Indiana, and before they died the couple who amassed this insane art collection were like the hipster royal family there. [NYT]
• A Druze border policeman killed himself in Israel while Sarkozy was watching and the family is asking that his name not be released, but like, I kind of think it's a little late for that. [Haaretz]
• I'm not saying we should adopt all Afghanistan's policies but $100 million just from taxing shit most countries pay hundreds of billions criminalizing sounds pretty tempting…[BBC
• Obama is polling creepily well right now, which makes me nervous, but can you blame the voters when McCain is out there straight-talking about how his offshore drilling ideas are kind of cheap psychological tricks? [MSNBC]

• Okay, if you haven't figured it out yet, Anne Hathaway's boyfriend Rafaello Follieri hired priests, bought robes, fabricated "engineering plans" and bribed low-level Vatican tourism officials — along with some sort of Italian journalist — to make people think he was the chief financial officer of the Vatican, endowed with the unique privilege of selling off Catholic Church properties all over the world, only all of that was a complete load of shit and he knew essentially no one, and the fraud is kind of awe-inspiringly brazen, and thankfully New York decided to digest its juicy bits. [NY Mag]
• You know what, Nancy Pelosi? Amen. [Chicago Sun-Times]
• If all the world's millionaires lived in a single city it would have almost two million more people than New York and no fucking clue where to get its nails done. [Yahoo]
• "I don't go out as much as I used to. Instead of going to a bar I'll stay home and get a six-pack."A story on the dismal consumer sentiment numbers out today hits home to the blogger drinking a $3 22 ounce Sierra Nevada. [WSJ]
• Florida is trying to cut down on carbs. [Wash Post
  
  

Of course, being a woman in a testosterone-heavy institution has its drawbacks: As Dick Armey memorably told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2002, "One of the reasons Nancy's abilities are not appreciated is that she is a beautiful woman." But possessing the proverbial "woman's touch" is also part of Pelosi's political arsenal, helping her twist the arms of some of Congress's grumpiest old bulls without putting them on the defensive. (A certain Ways and Means Committee chairman is said to be highly susceptible to her charms.) Some colleagues have described Pelosi's tough-love leadership style as "maternal." Others think it flows more from her upbringing. "She just knows how to schmooze these guys," says the speaker's communication director Brendan Daly, who posits that having "five older brothers helps." Barney Frank offers a more pointed analysis: "Nancy is a very smart woman who used to be a very smart girl at a time when smart girls were told that if they were too smart they would scare away the boys." Now, he adds, no matter how tough Pelosi has to be, in private she has "a manner" that helps soothe ruffled feathers. One leadership aide recalls a meeting in which a disgruntled committee chairman threatened to oppose a bill; Pelosi rose slowly from her seat and delivered a low-key but sternly disappointed lecture on the need for chairmen to set a unifying example. (The chastened member wound up supporting the bill.) Emily's List president Ellen Malcolm has dubbed Pelosi's expression in such situations "The Grandmother Look."

"This look—in fact, the whole maternal role—is key to Pelosi's political identity. Pelosi may be tough, even feminist, but not in the in-your-face '70s way that Hillary Clinton is often associated with. She has never downplayed her femininity and is known for her Armani suits, Tahitian pearls, and oh-so-girly chocolate habit."
And here she is coordinating scarves with the Dalai Lama.
And speaking of accessories, look how pretty she looks donning the garb of America's enemies! (The Washington Post's Robin Givhan defended her sarTERRORial leanings here.)
This Armani pantsuit also elicited a gushathon from Givhan.

Nancy Pelosi, Badass [TNR]

MEGAN: So, do you want to start with the slideshow of hotness that is Obama's personal aide? I mean, the article's nice, blah blah blah, but really, I think its purpose should just be to allow us to ooh and ahh over the dude.
MOE: Dude the hottest dude today is the Marine on the fucking front page of the Times and I fucking CAN'T FIND IT ONLINE.
MEGAN: This guy?
MOE: It should go with this story…do you see a picture there? Mine's not loading. I may have to scan. To support the troops, you know. Did you get through any of the New Yorker piece I sent on Fadl vs. Zawahiri?
MOE: And yeah, that guy! He just defeated the Taliban or something!
MEGAN: By the way, for the amusement of all, by Gchat banner ad is now this: "Dictionary.com Word of the Day - ribald: characterized by, or given to, vulgar humor."

MEGAN: Well, I think in the grand tradition of good friends, it's a great thing that you and I have very different taste in men. You can have your Marine, and I'll take the aide and we can both be happy!
MEGAN: Though I think we can all agree that any ladyboner can most easily be killed with this, which greeted me on the top of the New Yorker's site when I went to look for that article.
MOE: How was your weekend? I'm trying to think of some ribald conversations that transpired but 1. I don't really know what constitutes "ribald" when I just volunteered my fear that I had genital warts and 2. I actually ended up having a weirdly serious drunk conversation with a friend about God, and how he thought the Left was going to reclaim Jesus, and then I read half this piece about the jihad movement's ongoing internal debate over just how violent they really need to be and…uh…got a sunburn. Through a pair of black jeans.
MOE: It's…um…
MOE: Not Timid, that shot.
MEGAN: Yes. Not Timid is a good way of phrasing it.
MEGAN: Um, my weekend? Pretty relaxing, not much happened, you know, just had this little piece published in a minor news outlet.
MOE: So what's the deal? Do you want to read about Roger Stone while I examine the future of jihad?
MEGAN: I mean, want is probably a strong word since the article starts in a swinger club and one is thus forced to consider the thought of that man fucking, but yes, I'll do it as I think I'll garner more of an understanding out of that than the jihadist piece before coffee.
MOE: In the meantime China's not forcing fines or abortions on anyone who decides to get pregnant after losing kids to the earthquake. (To be fair: China stopped forcing abortions three years ago, I think, but it still happens sometimes?) Bill Clinton said a lot of idiotic things about how there's some vast elitist conspiracy to cover up the fact that Hillary is the inevitable next president and McCain asked Obama to visit Iraq with him, which I think is an excellent idea since he's not exactly safe here, as Hillary so saliently pointed out the other day.
MEGAN: Ok, well, now, my gag reflex has woken me up.

Not long ago, Stone went to the Ink Monkey tattoo shop in Venice Beach and had a portrait of Nixon’s face applied to his back, right below the neck. “Women love it,” Stone said.

Ummm, we're all women, right? Because I think we can all give this a resounding thumbs down.
MEGAN: Also, by the way, the fact that Reps Anna Eshoo and George Miller endorsed Obama really just means that Nancy wants to because obviously they only do what they're told. And while that phrase sort of pisses me off, I also sort of wish that Pelosi was that steely and puppeteery because then she might get more shit done.
MOE: Oh Jesus at this point any Democrat who endorses Obama should just not bother me with their headlines. I'm trying to focus on the brotherhood here. Also dude I have to get that pic of that marine who is totally hot
MEGAN: I'll need it, too, to wash the Roger Stone stench out from under my nostrils.
MEGAN: Things like this quote, from a Democratic strategist:

He once said to me, ‘Are you black? Are you Hispanic? Are you gay?’ When I said no, he said, ‘Then why the fuck are you a Democrat? You should be with us.’

This guy should be denied all access to pussy, seriously. Pussy boycott.

MOE: Um, someone in my house whose name will go unmentioned is eating one of your Christmas cookies.
MOE: That's neither here nor there.
MEGAN: The pumpkin ones, or the nutmeg ones?

MOE: Lawrence Wright describing the changes in Cairo since he taught English there in the seventies reminds…me of China without the economic growth:

When I lived in Cairo, the population was about six million. Now it is three times that size. The unbearable congestion reflects the ungoverned quality of life in the city; pedestrians plunge into the anarchic traffic, their faces masked by fright or resignation. The virtual absence of any attempt to impose order—in the form of street lights or crosswalks—is characteristic of a government that has no sense of obligation to its people and seeks only to protect itself.

One day during my visit, I went to Cairo University, whose buildings are practically crumbling from neglect. There are nearly two hundred thousand students, a good many more than there were when Zawahiri and Fadl studied there. Although the campus was quiet, the mood of the students was troubled, if subdued. Their professors had been on strike because of low pay; in Cairo’s poorer neighborhoods, riots had broken out over the cost of bread, and, in a middle-class area, residents had marched against pollution. The government’s response to the desperation had been to round up eight hundred members of the Muslim Brotherhood and throw them in jail.

MEGAN: Is it a bad thing that I snorted at the last sentence? Because if it is, I don't wanna me good.
MOE: I was going to blockquote another paragpraph but that feels lazy so I'm gonna summarize: Egyptians, like a lot of Middle Easterners, were psyched about 9/11 bc they thought it would force Americans to reexamine their support of their corrupt autocratic regimes and help eke out a middle path that embraced neither the status quo nor Islamism. Sadly that did not happen. Turns out we are not so good with "middle paths." Oh and btw Iran has nukes it's a grave and serious and urgent threat!
MEGAN: Oooh, way to bury the good tidbits! So, Charlie Black who is the Big Bad Lobbyist in McCain's camp, until very recently worked for the firm that Stone helped found, which was bought by the firm that Mark Penn helps run.

“So what that means is that Mark Penn is Charlie Black’s boss,” Stone told me. “And they said I was sleazy.”

MEGAN: Ha, the Egyptians thought that having he crap bombed out of us would make us re-examine our support of corrupt and autocratic regimes? I guess their knowledge of history is at least as bad as most Americans'.

MOE: Holy shit. Okay, so the Lawrence Wright story profiles some of the jihadist movement's foremost dissenters, namely a doctor named Sayman Imam Al-Sharif aka Dr. Fadl who met Ayman al-Zawahiri in med school in 1968 — hey! another awesome thing that happened that year, alert the boomer era hagiographers — but became estranged from him in the nineties and went off to practice medicine in Yemen and last May tried to call the whole thing off in a letter to a newspaper.
MEGAN: Oh, so, he's like an idealist? One Op Ed can stop a jihad or something?


9:45 AM
MEGAN: Pen is mightier than the sword?
MOE: Etc. etc. ... well, I guess he is like the William F. Buckley of Jihad, you know? The intellectual center of the movement apparently. And so he had a lot of followers. One was a guy named Karam Zuhdy. The rift sort of began in the nineties and Zawahiri tried to preempt it by holding a mass shooting in Novemeber 1997 in the ruins of Queen Hatshepsut’s temple and 62 people died. ANYWAY, Zudhy and his pals would minister to prisoners and try to get them to first renounce terrorism, then extremism, etc…gradually try and reform them etc. etc.
MOE: Most poignant passage so far:

Many of these Islamists had fantasized that they would be hailed as heroes by their society; instead, they were isolated and rejected. Now Karam Zuhdy and other imprisoned leaders were asking the radicals to accept that they had been deluded from the beginning. It was an overwhelming spiritual defeat. “We began going from prison to prison,” Ahmed recalled. “Those boys would see their leaders giving them the new conception of the revisions.” Ahmed recalls that many of the prisoners were angry. “They would say, ‘You’ve been deceiving us for eighteen years! Why didn’t you say this before?’ ”

Despite such objections, the imprisoned members of the Islamic Group largely accepted the leaders’ new position. Ahmed says that he was initially skeptical of the prisoners’ apparent repentance, which looked like a ploy for better treatment; however, several of the participants in the discussions had already been sentenced to death and were wearing the red clothing that identifies a prisoner as a condemned man. They had nothing to gain. Ahmed says that one of these prisoners told him, “I’m not offering these revisions for Mubarak! I don’t care about this government. What is important is that I killed people—Copts, innocent persons—and before I meet God I should declare my sins.” Then the man burst into tears.

MEGAN: Wait, so, like, there's Reconciliation in Islam, too?
MEGAN: Also, it's sort of heartwarming that they learned that killing people is bad, though!
MOE: Yeah well if they can get the memo maybe even someone like Doug Feith could reject his old…haha no.

MEGAN: Wait! Wait! Maybe the secret is that you have to go to prison? Because I could be down on running that experiment with good ol' Dougie.

MOE: I got till 10:30 incidentally and scanned that picture and I'm pretty sure not even I expected that 30% of the auto sales in California are made with home equity loans…especially since it would appear that California also holds claim to the market with the highest average price-to-rent ratio, a pretty good barometer of how inflated a real estate market is. A place in East Bay, California costs — or cost past tense, anyway — 51 times its annual rent. 42.5 in San Jose. That is, just for the record, insane.
MEGAN: Yeah, my sister lives out there and in Palo Alto these cute little bungalows that are barely bigger than my condo or your apartment are, like, $1 million and people rent them out and I don't see how you'd have the money to pay that kind of rent and not buy the place.

MEGAN: On the other hand, 18% of Americans believe the sun revolves around the Earth.
MEGAN: Oh, hey, btw, weren't you asked what happened to Aung San Suu Kyi last week? The junta's decided to extend her detention by another year despite laws there that you can't be detained without trial for more than 5 years. Apparently, her being free while they're fucking up the country more is a bad thing.

• For some inexplicable reason publishers seem to think Michelle Obama could write a bestseller. Perhaps it was that college thesis? The admirable physique? Just hard up for cash in a challenging credit environment? [Observer]
  
• McCain: the "first real postmodernist candidate for the presidency." ? [NYT]
  
• Why would you assume our passports were made in U.S. America? [Washington Times]
  
• Sigh of relief for society! Jamie Lynn Spears is engaged. [US]
  
• Boycotting the Olympics: actually a pretty powerful condemnation of repression, when you think about it. Oh, well. [Slate]
  
• Some guy made up a story about how Diddy knew about Tupac's assassination plot and the LA Times totally bought it but the source turned out to be a "wildly impulsive, overweight white kid from Florida whose own father once described him in a letter to a federal judge as 'a disturbed young man who needed attention like a drug.'" [TheSmokingGun]

• I am fucking sick of all these polls saying 28% of Hillary supporters would vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee and 19% of Obama supporters feel the same way, especially when the national matchup polls prove they are talking out of their asses. [Gallup
• Wait, let's broaden that statement: I am fucking sick of all of it. And: what he said. [Politico]
• Also, what Nancy said too. I think. [CNN]
• Foreclosure bus tour! [Breitbart]
• Wall Street losses from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market may amount to $460 billion, which is half a trillion dollars. (Wow, Moe, way to put shit into context there.) [Bloomberg]
• Jezebel in the news: our very own commenter RyanB writes about being a tragic mulatto like Barry and how she's — scandale! — still registered to vote in Pennsylvania. If you ask me, the real tragedy is that there are no jobs in Philly.
• The Hills premiere was the highest rated thing on cable all year, which isn't really saying much, although it's saying something, and whatever that is is sufficient to depress me. [US]

[March 21, Dharamasala. Image via AP.]

MEGAN: The Internet hates Crappy Hour!!

MOE: Oh my god! It's a miracle! You're here!

I'm the most hungover I have ever been

MEGAN: Wow, that's saying something. I'm just morning thirsty, but I might have a Target hangover...

MOE: I have a tequila/beer/whiskey hangover
it is amazing I am here
No nevermind
My fingers don't even work. that is normal

MEGAN: Whoa. Tequila and whiskey should never be mixed.

MOE: So...
HINDSIGHT

MEGAN: So, shall we kick it off with illegal passport searches?

MOE: I guess so. Should I scan in the passport from when I was 4 that i use to get into bars?
Yeah, so, Obama, what the fuck. I mean, what was it they expected to find?

MEGAN: He's a Muslimy Muslim from Muslimstan?

MOE: What if he's been to NORTH KOREA and SYRIA and RED CHINA and also YUCCA MOUNTAIN ????

MEGAN: OMG, he's NUCLEAR, people, NUCLEAR! Only without a nuclear family, so that must be like so bad.

MOE: no he totally has a NUCLEAR FAMILY
and they're PROLIFERATING

MEGAN: Nuclear nonproliferation is best, people.

MOE: ok, oh god, so. what the fuck. I'm like still drunk

MEGAN: And I'm actually caffeinated! This is obviously opposites day. Normally I'm the one whose fucking hungover and you've already had coffee.

So, like, what else is opposite?

MOE: I can barely drink coffee. Um, that stingray story is the opposite of boring!
MEGAN: OMG, this is why I don't go near beaches. Creepy.

Well, that and the fact that I'm ghost pale and hate being all hurty on my skin and having the world make fun of my sunburns.
MOE: The Bill Richardson endorsement was the opposite of what I expected.

MEGAN: I know! Rats, sinking ship, et al. Man, what must he have against Hillary? Why must the boys all gang up on her? It's MISOGYNY.
MOE: OH fuck
MEGAN: Oh, Jesus H. Christ. Also, that's the same publication that published that he was in the church on July 22nd when he wasn't.

MOE: Seriously, seriously I want to go back to bed now.
You think they just pulled that out of their asses?
MEGAN: No, sadly, I'm thinking they didn't.
MOE: That's the problem
MEGAN: Also, frankly, I'll admit, I stopped paying attention to the ins and outs of that particular intractable conflict like 7 years ago, aka, when I finished graduate school, so I'm sure there's refutable stuff in there because it's World Net Daily, but I cannot correctly identify it. But, overall, Obama does advocate dialogue, so it's probably more spun in a certain direction than actually completely wrong.

Sadly.
And, I think this is what happens when you run an anti-establishment campaign staffed with anti-establishment-y scholars. Fuck ups. Lots of 'em.
MOE: Oh yeah they say Obama loves Hamas and hates Israel and some aide of him named Malley is an anti-Semite

MEGAN: As a person of Irish descent, may I just stereotype my people and say: it does not surprise me that one of us would be an anti-Semite.
MOE: OH fuck it's Good Friday

I haven't eaten meat yet

Just cheese

MEGAN: My antidote to this day has been to youtube up some soothing music. And, since I don't celebrate it, hoorah! Steak for dinner!

Do you think there will be specials?
MOE: Maybe they will have Obama halal el sadr specials for people like you.

MEGAN: Or else they'll be full up with goddamn fish specials.
MOE: So that guy who just got fired from the McCain campaign for Twittering that video...

yeah I don't know where I was going with that. Just wanted to provide a link.
9:31 AM
Um, me and my roommate just sang the FreeCreditReport commercial in unison.

MEGAN: Twitter is evil! It's like gmail status, only worse. Like, for instance, a certain conservablogger I know who shall not be named but I know you hate has ended up as a gchat contact of mine, and encouraged everyone recently to be offended by us babykiller-bonerkillers promoting babykilling with a wire hanger necklace. And I almost sent it to you, but thought better of it.

OMG, I totally catch myself doing that and then realize that's the beginning of the descent into utter madness.

MOE: Oohhhhhhh I bet I know who you are talking about!

MEGAN: Shhhhhh.
MOE: I should have seen it coming at me like an atom bomb

MEGAN: Oh, fuck, like she reads this anyway? Certainly not that far into this.
I like the pirate one better than the car one, Free Credit Report.com people. Also, please never again let your actor do the white man's overbite and bob his head on camera ever again.

MOE: Yeah, no one is still reading now.

NO one.

MEGAN: Is it sad how we know this?

No, i have to say, ONE LONE COMMENTER (whyknot) apologized to me the other day for all the shitty white men in my life. So he's probably still reading.

MOE: Oh fuck, awesome scarf, Nancy Pelosi. She has the best scarves.
She like consulted the Dalai Lama on the color.
MEGAN: Why the fuck has Hillary Clinton not gone shopping with Nancy Pelosi? I mean, girl, please. You know you always pick out your most stylish friend and go shopping with her.

MOE: SO TRUE.

WTF HILLARY

MEGAN: Also, Hillary needs to embrace her curves and stop trying to hide her ass. YOUR ASS IS NOT A BAD THING>
MOE: Nancy has your best interests in mind.

MEGAN: It's only a bad thing in mom pants and overly long suit jackets.

MOE: Nancy Pelosi would not undermine.

MEGAN: I'll take you shopping!

No, Nancy would not undermine at all. She's be the one who'd be like, ummm, no, let's try these pants on you instead.
Also, Nordstroms or Needless Markup instead of Macys. It's not like Hillary can't afford nice suits.
And tailoring. Look into tailoring. I have a tailor because I am short and have a big butt, I cannot lie. Her name is Kathy and she's awesome and anyone who lives in DC can email me for her contact information.

MOE: Can we get back to Bill Richardson for a second though? Like, it takes you until practically April to realize Obama is a "once in a lifetime leader"? You don't really have the excuse of, like, not knowing he was until he started visiting your state...
Also did you read the thing on Meghan McCain?

MEGAN: Well, um, he was sorta busy growing the beard and probably getting all the strange he forewent on the campaign trail.
I did. Meghan, I'll repeat myself here on Jezebel if you didn't hear me the first time. Do NOT get a tramp stamp with McCain in an Olde English font. Just. Don't.

MOE: Also I want to point out I read this column at the deli this morning and snorted. Barack O'Bama...you have to be so hungover you're worse than drunk to enjoy that. But look, Drudge linked it!
OH, Meghan, get a fuckin BUTTERFLY on the small of your back if you want, I don't care.
MEGAN: No, please, make an effort not to be a girl cliche. For the good of the sisterhood.

Also, can I Hurt, Charles? NO MORE O'BAMA JOKES. They are not funny.
MOE: You voted for Kerry in '04 and are pretty much the best chance America has seen for a pro-life candidate's daughter needing to get an abortion in the White House since...well...I would have said Jenna Bush, but you know that motto of hers. "Be nice to each other and always use condoms." I bet Meghan doesn't always use condoms...speaking of, I like how she complains how she hasn't gotten laid and the only dudes who want to do her are investment bankers. She needs to become an Obama campaign Springtern!
MEGAN: Although, I have to say, I'm all for a First Daughter who runs on a platform of not fucking i-bankers. Run, Meghan, run! Preach!

(Even if you do have the "h" in your name).

• Barack Obama has always been black, but since he was raised by a white mom in Hawaii and Jakarta he did not always have much in the way of a black community, and so when he moved to Chicago he started attending this black church where the pastor says the sort of hyperbolic shit pastors often say, only the media doesn't really cover the hyperbolic shit that gets said at black churches the way they cover the shit that gets said at white churches because black people aren't constantly trying to equate abortion with the Holocaust or replace the Constitution with the Ten Commandments, maybe because they just aren't as bossy as white religious people because they've never been in a position of societal dominance, which is actually something of which they are both aware and not exactly stoked about, and when you are a preacher you kinda play to that. So, like, Obama is going to try and address all of this in a speech tomorrow night. [CNN]
  
• And good luck Barry: your pastor's approval rating roughly on par with Al Qaeda's. [Rasmussen]
  
• But the church people love him! [ABC News]
  
• A leading pimp says Eliot Spitzer must have been a sex addict if he had to pay for any of his sex. [NY Mag]

• Nancy Pelosi hearts Obama anyway. [NY Observer]
• Maybe she has sex dreams about him? [Slate]
• "Roger Magro thought his wife Crystal was 'full of baloney' when she told him she and her co-workers had purchased a Powerball ticket worth more than $276 million...Magro said his wife plans to continue working in the tax office, but he resigned Monday from his job as a sheriff's deputy." [Pittsburgh Channel]
• Was a Republican DOJ conspiracy behind the Spitzer sting? Probably. Does that make the scandal any less fun? Hard to say.
• You know what? I am so happy the market rewarded JP Morgan with a huge stock market gain today for its courageous decision to buy Bear Stearns for $2 a share in an unprecedented transaction practically guaranteed by the government to make them shitloads of money. Yes, that is what the financial sector needed today. All that and the Dow rose twenty points. [WSJ]