Helprin says the White House crashers have given "a gift to the language in the form of a richly functional verb-to Salahi." He defines the new verb thus:

To Salahi: v. U.S. [after 21st century reality-show aspirants Michaele and Tareq Salahi] 1. intrans. to gain entrance to an event or gathering to which one is not invited. "They Salahied into the Bar-Mitzvah even though they didn't know the Goldblatt boy, and ate most of the chopped-liver sculpture of Elvis." Shakespeare, Sonnet MMIX. 2. in a general sense to appear where one is not welcome. "Michael Moore Salahied into George and Laura Bush's second honeymoon to lecture the former president about justice for the undocumented immigrants held at Guantanamo." Chomsky, Profiles in Courage. 3. to forge, fake or pretend, especially in hope of achieving a contemptible or pathetic objective that is simultaneously a comment upon the corruption and distastefulness of a particular individual and society itself. trans. "To elevate his chances of becoming a Chippendales dancer, Arnold Toynbee Salahied a letter of recommendation from Rosa Luxemburg. Al Franken, An Intellectual History of the United States.

Helprin also mentions a few other famous names that have become generally used words, like Ponzi of Ponzi scheme fame. Unfortunately, he forgot Santorum — a "sexual neologism" which, Dan Savage would be glad to know, now appears before Rick Santorum's official homepage in the Google results for the name. In the spirit of both Salahi and Santorum, we'd like to propose a few of our own new verbs, based on some of this year's luminaries.

To Heene: to exploit one's children for fame and/or financial gain, esp. to do so in a ham-handed or ridiculous fashion. See also To Suleman.

To NeNe: to strangle someone at Bow Wow's mom's boutique.

To Palin: to seek a job on the basis of being unqualified for said job. "Palining" has yet to gain popularity among firefighters, nuclear power plant employees, or brain surgeons.

To Bachmann: to allege that a seemingly harmless act, like giving money to a homeless person, will result in forced abortions for millions of American teenagers.

To Snooki: to launch a dispute via craniofacial injury. See also Tycho Brahe, War of Jenkins' Ear.

To Kardashian: to marry a celebrity after a very short courtship, possibly for the benefit of a larger empire. See also Marie Antoinette.

To Beck: to believe the government is spying on citizens through any or all of the above: car navigation systems, toasters, the Internet, leafy green vegetables, the census, that little eye on the back of the dollar bill, cats. See also To Schrute.

Of course, the above list cries out for a word that refers to the very act of turning a celebrity name into a verb. Perhaps "to Helprin?"

To Salahi Or Not To Salahi . . . [Wall Street Journal]

• The Emmy Awards are tonight, and host Neil Patrick Harris apparently has a few tricks up his sleeve, including a visit from Dr. Horrible and John Hodgman announcing questionable factoids as the winners go up to collect their prizes. [EW]

• The stars are already collecting swag, picking up platinum baubles, video games, luxury trips and designer handbags at various Emmy gifting suites. [NYTimes]
• Seth MacFarlane hopes to make history tonight by having Family Guy pick up the Best Comedy Series award. [NYTimes]
• Tom O'Neil of the theenvelope.com, an awards show website, says that he's afraid the Emmys will be filled with repeat winners: "I think we will definitely see repeats of the best drama and comedy winners of last year, and we risk seeing repeats of all of the top winners for the first time in Emmy history. There's going to be a lot of outcry if that happens and unjustifiably so, because if these shows deserve to win, they should. But people want fresh new things." Among those potential repeat champs? 30 Rock and Mad Men. [Reuters]
• Hugh Laurie says the limp he puts on in order to play House is taking a toll on his body: "The show might last to series seven, eight or nine but I don't know if I will, because I'm starting to lose my knees a little bit. It's a lot of hip work. There's things going badly wrong. I need to do yoga." [DailyExpress]
• Katherine Heigl's husband, Josh Kelley shared his excitement about his new baby daughter, Naleigh, with a crowd at one of his concerts on Friday: "We adopted a baby from Korea, me and my girl, and she's awesome, dude! This girl is the bomb!" [People]
• Singer Lucinda Williams married her manager Tom Overby during a concert on Friday night. [USWeekly]
• "I am not a parasite, I am not a gold-digger. I've always just told wanted her for her love, not her money."-Blake Fielder-Civil on his ex-wife, Amy Winehouse [NewsoftheWorld]
• According to a source, Avril Lavigne and husband Deryck Whibley split because the couple "married too young and she finally realized that. Avril realized she needs her own life and needs to explore things without him." [People]
• Michael Jackson reportedly hated Pepsi, the soda he endorsed for many years. [ShowbizSpy]
• Michael Caine says he's no longer interested in leading roles: ""It's very tiring. As an actor you say, ‘I want a bigger part', but when you get to my age you look through the script to see how many days off you've got." [DailyExpress]
• Kanye West's ex-fiance, Alexis Phifer and his current girlfriend, Amber Rose showed up wearing similar outfits to US Weekly's "Most Stylish New Yorker" party and "kept throwing each other dirty looks all night." [PageSix]
• "I'm blessed. I have a beautiful mother and beautiful father so I guess you could say I'm blessed with good genes. It's important to have a certain look in the industry but I honestly tend to wake up and comb my hair with my hands."- Chace Crawford [ShowbizSpy]
• Monty Python stars John Cleese and Michael Palin are reportedly thinking about working together again. [DailyExpress]
• Being well-rounded is beautiful. You can't base beauty on one [characteristic], although having humility would be on the top of my list. And being kind. Kindness is so underrated! If I start to wallow in self-pity, I take someone to lunch or make someone laugh. Kindness is like no drug ever."- Kristen Bell [JustJared]
• Taylor Momsen apparently has a clause in her record contract that allows her to sing for free on the set of Gossip Girl and on the set of "Runaways Project," though Momsen has not yet been added to the cast of the upcoming Runaways film. [TMZ]
• Sissy Spacek will be joining the cast of HBO's Big Love as "a powerful Washington, D.C. lobbyist." [ONTD]
• "My Russian acting coach told me I was a disgrace to the Moscow Theatre. So I was determined to prove him wrong and do good work. I've never had my eye on a prize. I really wanted to enjoy the passage of time. Before Friends and the success of that I have a graveyard of sitcoms that, thank god, you don't know about. I was happy to get a job every year, whether it went on or not."-Jennifer Aniston [ShowbizSpy]

• Hillary Clinton has not agreed to be Obama's Secretary of State even if she is officially offered it. [Politico]
• She has, however, been asked to head Ted Kennedy's health reform task force next year. [The Hill]
• Mr. Jowls will remain the Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. Jane Hamsher and others say, in so many words, fuck that guy. [Politico, Firedoglake, Politico]
• Chuck Norris might be able to defeat ninjas, cowboys and anyone who talks back, but what he's really, really scared of is boys who like to kiss other boys (we assume that, like most raging homophobes, he furiously masturbates to girl-on-girl porn). Chuck Norris, I have watched gay bear porn and survived with nary a scratch. I double dog dare you. [Queerty]

• In the mean time, Eric Holder appears poised to become this country's first African-American attorney general. Some people have their panties all in a bunch that he might or might not have had something to do with the 11th hour pardon of Marc Rich in the Clinton Administration. [Newsweek]
• Beau Biden, on the other hand, will not accept an appointment to his father's Senate seat and will likely deploy to Iraq as planned. [Washington Post]
• Less gracious is outgoing Representative Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colorado) who has yet to officially concede the race she lost in a landslide to Democrat Betsy Markey or thank her staff, but what would you expect from the woman who staked her legislative career on trying to pass a Constitutional amendment to forever prohibit same sex marriage? [Politico]
• Speaking of controversial pardons, apparently Ted Stevens wants one. [Politico]
• Republicans are trying to decide whether to try and trample people's rights in order to regain some semblance of political relevance, or whether they'd like to try doing stuff for the Real Americans they so desperately swear they represent. [Huffington Post]
• Chuck Hagel pretty much said that Rush Limbaugh can go fuck himself during a speech. I say that all the time, Chuck! Want to grab a drink and make fun of him sometime? [CNN]
• Diane Sawyer conducted her interview with Ashley Alexandra Dupre, originally famous for fucking former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer for money, who, if this picture is any guide, will heretofore be known for sneaking into Sarah Palin's tanning beds one too many times and stealing Jane Fonda's steez from 9 to 5. It's unclear whether she actually says anything to make the interview worth watching, but since she's probably not going to dish about whether Spitzer really tried to fuck her up the ass without a condom while wearing his socks and singing show tunes, I'm guessing not. Fine, I never really heard rumors of show tunes. [Huffington Post]

• Officials are confirming that Hillary Clinton met with Barack Obama in Chicago to talk about a potential Cabinet slot. Two "senior Democratic officials" confirmed to the Huffington Post that Clinton was offered Secretary of State and asked for time to consider it, but she didn't admit to anything at a press conference in Albany. [NY Times, Huffington Post]
• Barack Obama and John McCain are going to meet this weekend to talk about how they might be able to work together on something once Obama is President. It was arranged by Senator Lindsay Graham, McCain's Number One Fanboy. [Washington Post]
• Vermont Senator Pat Leahy became the one who broke the seal, announcing today that he's not going to support Connecticut Senator Joe "Turncoat" Lieberman's efforts to hold onto his committee chairmanship in the Democratic-controlled Senate since Lieberman isn't a Democrat, campaigned against the incoming Democratic President and endorsed a Republican. Glad someone has more of a spine than Harry Reid. [Washington Post]
• Speaking of backbones, thousands of people are expecting to protest the passage of Proposition 8 tomorrow, in California and around the country. [Huffington Post]

• Other things coming to Washington include: Barack Obama's favorite pizza in Chicago, which is not Chicago-style but is, I guarantee, better than all but about 5 pizza outlets in the D.C. Metro area. [Huffington Post]
• FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair (a contender for the Treasury Secretary slot in an Obama Administration, if the rumors are true) unveiled her $25 million plan to stop 1.5 million foreclosures next year by offering incentives to financial institutions to reduce homeowners' monthly payments. Current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson reportedly hates the idea, preferring to spend the money buying stock in banks and encouraging addition lending, let alone that he doesn't want to have to cede 3.5 percent of his Congressional spending authority to a girl to, like, help struggling Real Americans instead of banks. [Washington Post]
• California Congressman Dan Lungen is planning on challenging Ohio Congressman John Boehner for House Minority Leader. I wonder if he knows the perma-tan isn't one of the perks? [CNN]
• Former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele wants to take over the Republican National Committee. He faces a mass of other people that didn't have prime time speaking roles at the Republican National Convention. [Politico]
• McCain campaign manager Rick Davis took responsibility for not paying how much attention "a gal from New York" they hired to shop for Sarah Palin spent on her wardrobe since they didn't give her a budget or look at the bills. That only took until after your guy lost, dickwad. Nice timing. [CNN]
• Outgoing corrupt Republican Congressman Rick Renzi of Arizona (who will be replaced by Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick) will face racketeering and other new charges when he eventually goes to trial on being a corrupt bastard. [Huffington Post]
• Renzi's colleague-in-corruption Alaska Senator Ted Stevens has fallen behind in his bid to win re-election to the Senate seat he'd be forced from once he had to report to the clink. [LA Times]
• Joe The Motherfucking Plumber has a motherfucking book deal. I, on the other hand, do not. I can ask stupid questions! I swear! Call me, publishers? [Huffington Post]

• Just to prove to American voters that they are really unfeeling, the Republican National Committee released word today that the California Republican Party is filing an FEC complaint against Barack Obama for his visit to his dying grandmother, who passed away today. Is anyone home over there? [Washington Post]
• If you weren't already aware, Barack Obama doesn't want to see your underwear. Panty-flinging should remain metaphorical. [Politico]
• Sarah Palin is definitely not releasing her medical records. I want to be angry about this, but I wouldn't want reporters pawing around my gynecological exams either. [CNN]
• Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, having lived the last 8 years with his head firmly up his ass, thinks that the U.S. will "lose a lot of stature throughout the world" if we elect Obama. [Politico]

• Speaking of embarrassing America, the KKK is recruiting again in Ohio because of Obama. [The New Republic]
• In other embarrassing news, robocalls have gone out to voters in Toledo to try to convince them they can avoid long polling place lines by voting by phone. I'm sure they're totally not Republican-funded. [Rolling Stone]
• Calls telling Democrats to vote on Wednesday have been made to voters in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, too. [Huffington Post]
• And Republican Senator Roger Wicker is so worried that he'll be voted out of office he's handing out sample ballots telling Mississippi voters he's a Democrat. [Huffington Post]
• Republican groups have started hitting Obama on his support for reproductive rights again through commercials, which will totally change the race for McCain. [Time]
• As will neocon Fred Kagan's idiotic weekend editorial that voters need to stop paying attention to the American economy, Wall Street and Main Street and start voting on what's happening on Baghdad's Haifa Street. Spencer Ackerman's got video of what Kagan knows about pretty much any street, which is to say "nothing." [Attackerman]

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SPENCER: So it turns out Sarah Palin read CH yesterday, because a few hours later she sent me an email.

The left-wing activist group, ACORN, is now under investigation for voter registration fraud in a number of battleground states. ACORN's political action committee has endorsed Barack Obama and Senator Obama himself has said, "I have been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career." The Obama Campaign even paid more than $800,000 to an ACORN affiliate for "get out the vote activity." And now we find out that ACORN is suspected of voter registration fraud.
But, the Obama-Biden Democrats would rather sweep these facts under the rug and use their mainstream media allies to bury this story. But we can't let that happen. We can't allow leftist groups like ACORN to steal this election.

(I took out all the personal stuff.)

MEGAN: Well, sure, I mean, Todd doesn't need to know the rest of it.

SPENCER: She might have missed our point, but it looks like today will be a Part II to yesterday: return of the race-based GOP. ACORN, of course, is a civil-rights group that, among other things, registers minority voters. In other words THOSE PEOPLE.

MEGAN: Oh, Spencer, now, let's be fair, I'm sure they register white people who won't vote Republican, too. Nah, fuck that, we can be honest. The Republicans are mostly scared of the African-American ones.

SPENCER: As this Washington Post piece makes clear, the charges against ACORN are bullshit, marginal, and part of a campaign to make white people afraid of Obama. Look at, for instance, this aspect of a McCain ad:

The McCain campaign also has sought to link ACORN to the financial crisis. One of the campaign's online ads says the Chicago chapter of the group was engaged in "bullying banks" to issue "risky" mortgages — "the same type of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today," the ad's narrator says.

MEGAN: Well, I think this Guardian piece goes even further, accusing Republican officials of staging a fake raid, which they did.

SPENCER: Message: don't let those n****** steal the election like they stole the economy..

MEGAN: Oooh, ooh, back to Ann Coulter's meme that black people brought this economic crisis down on White America. I can't believe Republicans are actually using that.

SPENCER: A fake raid? Explain. That is pure Nixonland right there. Next they'll bus in Arabs to their rallies to chant about getting out of Iraq.

MEGAN: Wait, it gets better, the Guardian points out that it's vintage GWB!

As luck would have it, the Democrats have a man who, as an attorney years ago, actually had the temerity to join the US department of justice in representing Acorn in a successful lawsuit, forcing the state of Illinois to follow the law by allowing citizens to register to vote at the department of motor vehicles. What a scoundrel.

That, of course, was before the department of justice, under George Bush's corrupt command, would itself become politicised by the very Republicans so desperate to keep low-income voters from voting, that they were willing to fire their own US attorneys for failing to bring phoney charges of voter fraud in key swing states like Nevada and Missouri.

SPENCER: (Nixon used to ensure that unruly hippies would be at his rallies in order to stoke the silent-majority sense of besiegement and make himself look heroic. It's all in this book you should read.)

MEGAN: Well, we could try a little truth, too:

Acorn verifies the legitimacy of every registration its canvassers collect. If they can't authenticate the registration, or it's incomplete or questionable in other ways, they flag that form as problematic ("fraudulent", "incomplete", et cetera). They then hand in all registration forms, even the problematic ones, to elections officials, as they are required to do by law.. In almost every case where you've heard about fraud by Acorn, it's because Acorn itself notified officials about the fraud that's been perpetrated on them by rogue canvassers.

Emphasis mine, obviously.

SPENCER: My God, this is a story tailor-made for ex-boss JMM. And, sure enough, Josh has cheat-sheet on the bullshitness of the ACORN smears. Yes, exactly. ACORN points out the errors that come with voter registration. Going after ACORN is a method of disenfranchisement. Perhaps — perhaps — that's why so many on the right have a problem with John Lewis:

Because of his civil-rights record, Mr. Lewis gets a pass from the media and his fellow politicians even when he makes incendiary comments. But with remarks like those on Saturday, he deserves to be seen less as a racial healer and more like any other politician who uses race as a sword.

MEGAN: Also, I love how Jonah Goldberg is accusing the wrong John of selling off his reputation. Ahem.

SPENCER: That's the Wall Street Journal, shitting on the reputation of the one man who has done more for the actual freedom, prosperity and access to justice than any other living American.

MEGAN: Right, obviously, John Lewis was totally the first one to notice anything racial going on. Well, except for me, but I am obviously out to incite racial tensions by commenting on what's obvious to most non-white people and white people who have noticed that (gasp) racism still exists in this country.

SPENCER: We should push back on the idea that what Lewis said was somehow more "incendiary" than Palin saying Obama is "palling around with terrorists." Somehow it remains a greater sin to observe the racism of white people than for white people to engage in such racism. Which is where the ACORN stuff is all going: toward a narrative where YOUR election, YOUR economy, YOUR country was taken from you by by by by by those people!

MEGAN: Right, because accusing someone of treason is much less incendiary than suggesting that a climate of violent words can lead to one of violent action. But it's okay, because John McCain will whip him in the debate. Yup. He's gonna whip that boyuh.

SPENCER: A key aspect of that campaign is equivalence, and so McCain tells Dana Bash, absent any evidence or even an attempt at justification, that "I've heard the same things... said about me at Senator Obama's rallies." So this is the long game, the twisted process that passes for a coping mechanism from the American right, heartache and sore over losing an election just because it spent eight years plunging the country into deeper depths of chaos.

MEGAN: And let's put to rest the meme that they are stopping the Ayers based attacks, while they are actually stepping them up To whit, here is the script from the original ad, which is crappy and whatever.

SPENCER: Is this two ads or one?

MEGAN: Amusingly, it was one ad. And here is the new ad which I had to good fortune to hear on the radio this morning, in which they have edited the script.

SPENCER: "Blind Ambition." A projection?

MEGAN: Totally. The new ad, though, doesn't just call him a "terrorist" they call him a "domestic terrorist." They also outright accused Obama of lying AND they call the Annenburg Foundation a "radical" group on which they served together.

SPENCER: right. He lives among usssssss

MEGAN: Do you think they can actually get away with calling him a viper in the grass or some such? Because, really, that was some pretty radical shit trying to help low-income schools in Chicago.

SPENCER: Okay let me say something: I went to summer camp with Bill Ayers' sons. And to Zayd, Malik and Chesa, I'm really really sorry and appalled by the what the right is doing, and your revenge will come in about 20-something days.

MEGAN: Well, and not to go totally off-topic, but there may be plenty of revenge to spread around. The GOP is pulling money from challengers to fund safe incumbents in House races. Including one, Lee Terry, who is running ads tying him to Obama. The GOP is paying for ads in Nebraska that portray Obama positively.

SPENCER: Yes, look at the diminishing returns of Nixonland. JMart at Politico also had another telling story along those lines:

With party strategists fearing a bloodbath at the polls, GOP officials are shifting to triage mode, determining who can be saved and where to best spend their money.
The Republican National Committee, growing nervous over the prospect of Democrats’ winning a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, is considering tapping into a $5 million line of credit this week to aid an increasing number of vulnerable incumbents, top Republicans say.

MEGAN: Also, let us not forget, the RSCC is forced to rely on this line of credit before their own former Treasurer swindled them out of several million dollars they have yet to recover. Oh, and the anti-regulation Club For Growth that most famously tried to unseat Arlen Specter in the 2004 primary is now a successful talking point against the right-wing candidates they backed — so much so that the moderate Republican they unseated in Maryland is campaigning for the Democrat against them. They're not just eating their young anymore, they're straight up devouring each other.

SPENCER: Dear Rick Perlstein, the country needs you to interpret this. Megan, you and I considered yesterday whether the GOP bottom-floor will hit when white people start voting for the party in significant numbers. But Yglesias had yesterday(ish) that white people still lean McCain, so we're clearly not there yet if so. But what about when the GOP can't get its most-promising recruits elected? Not the bottom floor, certainly, but closer to the foundation than the antenna.

MEGAN: Um, was that maybe Ezra who said it?

SPENCER: Ahhhh no this is Ezra riffing off Yglz.

MEGAN: Ah, okay. As I said yesterday, the Republican Party has been wholly conflicted since they built the unholy coalition of the religious right and the fiscal conservatives. They built a tower on a conflicted ideological foundation, and now it's crumbling with the shifts.

SPENCER: But that's been a durable coalition for many many years. I want the fracturing. We know the fault lines, but when is the earthquake? And how many more metaphors can we scramble up?

MEGAN: I think we can scramble many more metaphors! But this is no Leaning Tower of Pisa, this is, in my opinion, the slow decline and they know it. The religious right wants to spend money — tons of money — on social programs and foreign wars (how many neocons do you know that can rightly claim the mantle of fiscal conservatism)? And the fiscal conservatives are supposed to want lower taxes to get less government. Bush, and the Republican Presidents before him, were able to successfully split the difference by lowering taxes and increasing spending. How can John McCain do that in this climate? How can Congressional Republicans? And independent voters are starting to finally recognize that, I think. Hell, I think fucking Republican voters aren't escaping that.

SPENCER: Sure sure sure it's just that these tensions have been widely predicted to lead to the Fall Of The House Of Reagan — cf "The Conservative Crackup," The American Prospect, Fall 1990 — since before we were in junior high. I'm just saying I'll believe it when I see it happen, and I've lost all predictive capability for when it'll occur. There's something to the idea that the GOP's electoral success is predicated on the idea that it picked really strong currents in the American body politic to serve as the basis for its admittedly-idiosyncratic coalition, but the mortar here — the mayonnaise in the egg salad, since we're scrambling metaphors — is RACE. And it seems most likely to crack when the mortar loses its adhesive qualities, and I want to believe extremely badly that that will occur in a month, but my life is predicated on the sturdy principal that hopelessness is a better bet than hope, but fuck it, right?

MEGAN: Well, geneticists have been saying for years that there is more variation within so-called races than between them. It looks like the same might be true with politics this year, at least for one race.

ANA MARIE: I don't think I'm going to see "W." It looks like it's TRYING to be funny. And Oliver Stone movies are the most amusing when the humor is completely unintentional.

MEGAN: I believe it is trying to be funny.

ANA MARIE: Chris and I watch "JFK" pretty much every time it's on basic cable. Now THAT is a funny movie. I mean, Joe Pesci in a leotard and fucking Kevin Bacon? Pretending to do amyl nitrate? You don't make that funnier just by saying they're playing Republican political leaders. Because then it's just a documentary.

MEGAN: Joe Pesci in a leotard is basically the nightmare I hadn't yet had, so I'll report back tomorrow on my utter lack of sleep tonight. In my mind's eye, it's purple and there is a tutu involved. And he pirouettes up to a car and proceeds to beat someone with a tire iron.

ANA MARIE: It's actually gold lame and he's (or Kevin Bacon, I forget) is dressed as Hermes. Seriously: one of America's finest cinematic events.

MEGAN: Ok, I'm just going to pretend it is Kevin Bacon. Now that I'm thinking about Kevin Bacon boogeying in a gold lame unitard.

ANA MARIE: Perhaps dancing in a county where DANCING HAS BEEN OUTLAWED? That's probably as good a segue as we're going to get to talking about McCain, btw.

MEGAN: And suddenly, in the movable diorama that it my imagination, the tiny, gold lame unitard clad Kevin Bacon stopped his dancing, and hangs his head with sadness as the old man stumbles out and starts yelling at him to get off his lawn or he's going to nuke it.

ANA MARIE: I was watching "Morning Joe" earlier and they were joking around with Robert Gibbs about something or other and he brought up the "get off my lawn" trope and I thought: That's just really unfair to people who legitimately care about their lawns. McCain's commitment to lawns is just base-pleasing pander. Besides, McCain lives in a condo.

MEGAN: Well, in one of his residences, yes.

ANA MARIE: Also? I think McCain lost Scarborough a long time ago, but the happy-happy jokey-joke with Gibbs was still kind of amazing. Not as amazing, however, as McCain loosing Peggy Noonan. Did you hear about that?

MEGAN: I saw Peggy speak last weekend, but I was very hung over.

ANA MARIE: Yesterday on "Hardball" she said she "doesn't know" who she's going to vote for.

MEGAN: She doesn't like the faux populism, which she considers empty and stupid and not a strategy as much as a pander.

ANA MARIE: And I think she once accidentally threw her baseball into McCain's lawn. (It's very hard to stay away from that joke)

MEGAN: (I'm okay with that.) So, why is McCain so fucking angry this week? Because he's losing? And will he lose it on stage tonight?

ANA MARIE: I don't think he's any angrier this week than in the past. He's just taking more pleasure in it. And as for "losing it"... I guess that's why he can't look at Obama, maybe? It's funny how the right makes fun of the liberal "grievance industry" but, essentially, what McCain is mad about is being treated unfairly. To which I believe the traditional R rejoinder is "Well, life isn't fair."

MEGAN: Well, he understands life isn't fair. He was tortured! Didn't you know he was tortured?

ANA MARIE: I am familiar with the outlines of that story, yes. I can't decide if McCain is going into this debate tonight with ridiculously high expectations or if he's entering Palin territory: like, as long as he doesn't forget what day it is, he'll be fine. This is assuming he knows what day it is to begin with.

MEGAN: Well, it's his format, right? He's Mr. Town Hall, he's going to kill tonight and between that and the torture experiences with which I am sure he will make more Americans more familiar, he will be made President as is only his due because life isn't fair. By the way, are you as familiar with Obama's supposed terrorist leanings and his radical friends and whatnot as with McCain's experience as a tortured and yet still heroic POW? Because if you're not, Fox News has a show for you. It sadly doesn't feature Jerome Corsi who has been unavoidably detained in Kenya for working without a work visa. I know I should be all like "free press! free press!" but it made me just a teensy bit pleased in a way I don't like to admit.

ANA MARIE: My favorite thing about the Corsi story is the quote from the Kenyan official, who basically admits they arrested him because, you know, he's an asshole. And,

"We still haven't decided what to do with him."

I kind of feel the same way!

MEGAN: If being an asshole is illegal in Kenya, I guess we know where John McCain won't be visiting...

ANA MARIE: Or either of us, for that matter. Were you shocked to learn about that "new poll of 600 female voters found that most view Hillary Clinton as a better mom, role model and leader than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the first woman to be named to a Republican ticket"? Because I sure was! I mean, for Palin to come in second... if it were fair, she'd come in behind "a comfy chair" in all those categories.

MEGAN: Actually, I think the right word my be "flabbergasted." You mean, Americans aren't buying her shtick? I feel like I might have underestimated Americans. I mean, except the ones calling Obama a terrorist at McCain rallies and threatening to kill him at Palin rallies.

ANA MARIE: Yeah, that does not reflect well on the Silent Majority, does it? Or rather, it explains why they are usually asked to stay silent.

MEGAN: Well, and the Palin supporter who told an African-American sound guy to "sit down, boy" at the Palin rally. I thought we had all agreed that it was unacceptable to be an open racist in modern American society? Wasn't there a consensus or a referendum or something?

ANA MARIE: Good thing that black people at Palin rallies are pretty rare!

MEGAN: Hell, I'd make myself scarcer than a condom in the Palin house were I African-American at one of those.

ANA MARIE: And as for that referendum, I believe that's scheduled for the first Tuesday of November.

MEGAN: I'm just going to go waaaaaaaay out on a limb here and suggest that racism will still exist in this country even if Obama gets elected.

ANA MARIE: But it no longer will be the first thing other countries think of when we come up.

MEGAN: That said, where would racists threaten go to avoid an Obama Presidency? Liberals are all, like, going to Canada or France, but it seems like racists hate everyone else.

ANA MARIE: Iceland is apparently in a real financial crisis right now, so a loose coalition of rich racists could probably pick it up cheap. And you don't get countries much whiter.

MEGAN: I don't think that there are enough dirty hooker toes in Iceland for Dick Morris, though.

ANA MARIE: And with that advice, I feel like my dream of ridding the country of racists is one step closer to reality.

MEGAN: We're sorry Iceland! You guys can come here, there might be a lot of space available. And, um, bring the Penis Museum for safekeeping.

ANA MARIE: Aye. Dick Morris. Why is he still appearing in public? Besides being the George Michael of toe-sucking jokes, why do I know ANYTHING MORE ABOUT HIM besides that? Who can I blame?

MEGAN: Have you seen his teeth recently? He's rather obviously still at it.

ANA MARIE: Never has a sexual fetish seemed more poetically appropriate, really. It'd be like finding out that Todd Palin likes to cross-dress. Almost too perfect.

MEGAN: See, I think cross-dressing would be too vanilla for Todd Palin. He's more like mint chocolate chip, you have to throw in a little pegging or something to make it work.

ANA MARIE: Cross dressing and dungeons.

MEGAN: I bet Sarah Palin has been wondering for a while why her nice underwear keeps getting all stretched out.

ANA MARIE: Oh, oh, oh: This is teh awesome. That awful American Carol movie? Apparently it is tanking because of a liberal conspiracy! Not because it sucks ass (or toes).

MEGAN: And not because it sucks? Also, since when to theatre owners have a political agenda that doesn't involve making money?

ANA MARIE: That's what happened with Ishtar, too, right?

MEGAN: Fucking radical commie theatre owners, trying to keep conservative movies down and out. You know they're just doing it to make sure W. does better, which it will and not just because it has, like, recognizable actors and a famous director and shit.

ANA MARIE: Well, theater-owners bias toward experimental liberal films is well-documented. And that why the megaplex down the street has five screens showing Reds.

MEGAN: It's like you think you're going to see the Batman movie and SHAZAM!! you're being indoctrinated again.

ANA MARIE: And the Koyaanisqatsi midnight showing. It's like Rocky Horror Picture Show but with people dressed as mountains.

MEGAN: And throwing glitter for snow. Unlike Rocky, though, it totally ends in a plushie orgy. Because that's what radicalized Commies do. It's why they never really succeeded — too busy fucking to fuck shit up.

ANA MARIE: And then everyone gets quiet for the five minute shot of a plane taking off. (Which is an actual scene in the movie. And, fwiw, I'm sure it does get Todd Palin hard.)

MEGAN: But, really, what doesn't get Todd Palin hard? I'm sure even Joe Pesci in a leotard and tutu holding a tire iron would do it.