Lopez's ostensible purpose for snagging an interview with Noonan is her new book, Political Grace, which Lopez uses as a jumping off point for attacking Noonan for not being sufficiently pro-Sarah Palin. But before she gets there, Noonan gets to discuss her inspiration for the book:

In my book I tell the story of a dramatic terror alert at the U.S. Capitol during the events surrounding the funeral of Ronald Reagan. I was in a ceremonial room in the Senate, part of a delegation asked to receive back the president’s body from California, where he had died, for the lying in state. A plane had entered Capitol air space, was headed toward the Capitol, was presumed to be weaponized. All were told, literally, to run for their lives — “Incoming aircraft, one minute out!” Quite a scene. As I walked I saw a great lady ... be carried down the Capitol steps in her wheelchair, as all around her fled. She held her cane in her hand, like the brave little prow of a ship. And as I turned and saw her a thought came with the force of an intuition, though it was not that, just a thought: Before this is over we’ll all be helping each other down the stairs. ... We must become more serious in the way we practice our politics, more equal to the moment. We need to take the long view; in the age of chatter we need forbearance, maturity, and grace.

What Peggy Noonan doesn't mention about this moment was that the Capitol was evacuated because Republican Governor and former Congressman from Kentucky Ernie Fletcher directed his state's plane to buzz the Capitol (in violation of Washington's air space) to get himself a better view. Fletcher was later forced to pardon his entire Administration to save them from ethics charges, was himself indicted, struck a deal with prosecutors and lost reelection in 2006.

Anyway, K-Lo asks why Sarah Palin isn't politically graceful enough for Noonan, and then asks her if she doesn't feel guilty for getting Barack Obama elected by not being partisan enough. Noonan then schools her about the merits of intellectual honesty — and how it is that one gets a Wall Street Journal column in the first place:

My first thought is that any columnist who thought he was playing a major or minor role in people’s political decisions would be mildly delusional. Columnists tend not to have that power, nor deserve it. But my second is of course I try to think about the implications, if any, of what I write. But where I come down is this: I am a columnist, and my job is to try, within the limits of my abilities, to tell my readers what I think is happening, and what it means. I have to say what I believe to be true or I don’t deserve to write for the Wall Street Journal.

K-Lo isn't willing to let it go, though, asking Noonan how she could abandon John McCain and conservatives everywhere with her intellectual honesty noise, and Noonan swats her like a gnat, again.

In a larger sense, Kathryn, allow me to say here that I have been dismayed to see something new happen, in the past few years, in conservatism. ... When I was first struggling through as a young conservative, when Bill Buckley was heading NR and Ronald Reagan and then Bush I were in the White House, conservatism was marked — truly, distinguished as a political movement — in part by an air of profound latitude in terms of what could be said. We had brawls. ... Now there is, in the conservative movement, a greater air of fearfulness, of repression. And this is all so very un-conservative. "Which side are you on?", "You better not buck the team," "Declare your loyalties, comrade." Literally: comrade. This is not the way of conservatism, this is the way, the manner and tone, of the old leftism. I don’t think it’s defensible morally, and I know it’s indefensible practically. Movements must grow, must include, expand, gather in; politics is a game of addition.

Basically, Noonan is saying that K-Lo and her compatriots' attitude of "Our guy is our guy because he is our guy regardless of anything else" is harmful not only to the conservative movement, but to the Republican party as a whole because the vast majority of the country think that their attitude is ugly and exclusionary and, one might say, fascistic, in that it seeks to stifle all dissent in the name of consolidating power.

K-Lo still wants her to explain why McCain isn't more like Reagan than Obama, which Noonan dismisses as a load of shit, asks her to define conservatism and then, most tellingly, says that "I tend to think there will be a serious revisiting of our founding principles." Naturally, as far as K-Lo is concerned, those founding principles are exclusively conservative ones, but in the midst of all her other idiotic biases, that's probably the least stupid. Noonan takes her — and, by extension, some of the ugliest elements of the modern conservative movement to task:

I happen to think careerism has become an unseen force in much of the fighting. Conservatism didn’t used to be a career, it was a sailing against the wind, a pushing back against the age that is pushing you, and it was often lonely, individual, painful. It has been for me.

By the end of this, I was almost to the point that I was digging Peggy Noonan as much as Moe used to, but then she said that the basis of all conservative and right-thinking philosophy was a belief in God, and she lost me again. Nonetheless, it was fun to watch her rip to shreds this idea that the conservative movement needs to be uniform in its beliefs and its support for the Republican candidate — and by "fun," I mean, I enjoyed watching someone who can actually think for a living try to talk to someone who can't.

Grace Will Lead Me Home? [National Review]

Related: Governor Pardons All But Himself In Personnel Investigation [WAVE 3]

MOE: Whoa! I just got an invite to a roundtable with Sarah Palin in Philly tomorrow.

MEGAN: Wait, really? They couldn't find your voter registration during the primaries but they can find you now? Or were you invited as a journalist?

MOE: I was invited as a friend of this hilarious Philadelphia Junior League type thing whose ringleader I knew in college. He was one of those unnerving smart Republican types who is only ever friends with liberals, never tries to win you over to his ideology because to do so would be to undermine his "I am a Republican because there is no truer way for a misanthrope to be" stance on things, the evolution of whose politics you have considered and haven't the faintest notion as to what went wrong… Just turned on CNBC. David Faber looks rather worn out. He is so damn cute when he is looking rather worn out. I want to take everyone on Wall Street back to bed already. Like, even if there's a HUGE RALLY today who cares?

MEGAN: Actually, I sort of agree with that theory of Republicanism as being borne out of misanthropy. And by the time I figured out what station CNBC is, I got the lady in the green talking faster than an auctioneer.

MOE: I know but if the only people you can stand are liberal, WHAT THE FUCK? Everyone on CNBC talksreallyfast. Except Joe Kernen. Oh my god it is Friday and I haven't checked Noonan.

MEGAN: Do misanthropes ever really get along with other misanthropes? Also, for me, the problem with Republicans is that so many of them are caught up in the ideology of Republicanism that they're blind to their own misanthropy, so it gets annoying. I was talking about this with my bartender last night, he was going off about the whole drill, baby, drill thing and how we have 3% of the world's oil supply and use 25% of the current supply and even if we got the rest of our oil out of the ground it would give us like 3 days worth but how Republicans don't give a damn about the facts because the slogan is good. And I was like, um, you just got really attractive, and not because I'm on my second beer. Also, hell to the yes on David Faber, I'm happy to take him and his tired eyes back to bed.

MOE: Right, being a Republican involves all sorts of blind spots. Also, I am really glad you looked up David Faber. He looks weirdly younger when he is all sleepylike. But in this market I am seriously an open invitation, I'll diversify, I'm a brisk thirteen minute walk from the street anyone out there is welcome to come back. Mark Haines even, what the hell. Anyone except Larry Kudlow but duh.

MEGAN: But, on the other hand, I don't really like hanging out with ideological Democrats. Liberals, sure, but Democrats are annoying, like Howard Dean craps rainbows and Nancy Pelosi pisses sunshine, I can't get on board with that any more than I can get on board with not voting in favor of SCHIP funding because you think that taxing tobacco is a nanny state thing and eventually when taxes convince people to stop smoking you might have to pay for the health insurance of small, poor children and OH MY GOD THE MARKET WILL SOLVE THAT ANYWAY as though they all missed the sections of economics involving "market failures" and "social goods."

MOE: Oh god yeah I never understood partisan Democrats.

MEGAN: So maybe that's why he hangs out only with liberals? Because to be a Republican in Philly, one must've drunk the Kool-Aid, I think.

MOE: God Erin Burnett is so much the hotness.

MEGAN: I know, I have to say, I think she's way prettier than Maria Bartiromo, but I also think Rachel Maddow is the hotness is a way that Megyn Kelly can't compete with. So perhaps I'm strange. Ok, so, I'm sure you haven't been paying that much attention to politics, what with the complete collapse of the financial world as we know it and the Bush Administration's announcement that our government has decided free-market capitalism is too dangerous right now in the same way that civil rights are and has begun taking an ownership stake in all the banks, but the one legitimate scandal about Sarah Palin the mainstream media cares about, Troopergate, is about to have its big reveal today. But it's not a big deal, because she's already cleared herself of any wrong doing!

MOE: These people on CNBC, the way I see it, could not have been working anything short of 14 hour days for the past six weeks. And today is the first day you can really tell on Burnett's face. My ex just IMed me to say he'd lost more than a year's rent but that BUD (Anheuser Busch or however you spell that) has hardly fallen at all.

MEGAN: Well, it's fallen by about 20%, but that's nothing in this climate.

MOE: Erin Burnett just asked Mark Haines: "if you've already lost so much, why get out now? I mean from a trading mentality, fine, but long term…" and he just looked at her like "um commercial break!" Wow Peggy:

People speak of the Bradley effect—more people tell pollsters they will vote for a black candidate than vote for the black candidate. But I have been wondering about the possibility of what may someday be called the Obama effect: You know your neighbors think he's sketchy—unknown, a mystery, "Hussein"—so you don't say you're voting for him, but you are.

MEGAN: Ha, well, Peggy need wonder now more! There's actually evidence of that.

“If you call people on the phone today and ask who they will vote for, some will give responses influenced by what may be understood, locally, as the more desirable response. It is easy to suppose that these people are lying to pollsters. I don’t believe that. What I think is they may be undecided and experiencing social pressure which could increase their likelihood of naming the white candidate if their region or state has a history of white dominance. They also might give the name of the Republican if the state is strongly Republican.

MOE: Jesus Christ. Honestly? That is totally fascinating. What that says about the country, what that says about how this is THE end of the Reagan era, is remarkable.

MEGAN: Especially because it's not just your neighbors being wary about Obama, it's about them feeling completely comfortable voicing a level of hatred for him that scares the crap out of normal people. I mean, holy shit, this blog entry:

If Barack Obama wins...Do we need to worry about conservative whites rioting?

MOE: We just broke 8,000. 7,948. God this is amazing.

MEGAN: Yeah, I looked my stock up pre-9:30 and it was already down and I was like, well, fuck. Why does it have to keep half its value? I'm sure 25% of its initial value is fine.

Oh, and by the way, the whole campaign spin about how McCain and Palin aren't hearing when people shout shit out and whatever, someone points out that McCain's hearing used to be really fucking good and he used to call his supporters out on being assholes.

MOE: And all I can say is that, number one, the anger conveyed by that McCain rally is that going to strike readers as overdone, as exaggerated by a contemptuous liberal writer eager for a "take." Not that anyone is listening, but it is not. I know exactly how tired of contempt and weary of exaggeration the media is right now and that story does sadden me. Meanwhile, Peggy is right, Obama has to bring it in that TV address. I was so relieved to hear he was doing it, because as she says, it's striking how small and unworthy of the moment both our candidates seem right now. And to think that just six months ago I was thinking "Wow, an Obama McCain race would be so inspiring, to think after all these years of shitty boring uninspiring uninteresting safe partisan poll-tested politicians to have such interesting men before us…okay and now what. That debate Tuesday was quite possibly the two most fucking deeply boring hours of my life. It's like that trope about how "to turn a good person bad, that takes religion" … there's an equivalent saying about politics I suppose, that was obvious before I was momentarily heartened by the fact that Obama and McCain seemed so not that. Wow, that Slate story, "bloodthirsty."

MEGAN: I don't know, I feel like, were the debates ever exciting? I don't remember them being stirring or getting an appreciation for the candidates' differences on issues during them, it was always more of a way to see how they interact and react to scrutiny and shit. So on that level, it was only boring because Obama won't be an asshole but he also can't afford to embody stereotypes about black men, I think.

MOE: No I don't believe that. There are so many things either one of them could have done to make it unboring. Don't you watch these things with echoes of inspiring addresses you imagine TR or Churchill might have made to the public ringing in your ears? Didn't you hear all that bullshit about Sarah Palin "cutting out the moderate middlemen and addressing the American public right to their faces" and think why can't Obama just do that already? Because he's exhausted, but also, to an extent, it is hard not to conclude, because he is a little bit of a pussy, and that is disappointing.

Both campaigns, in the closing stretch, seem not fully worthy of the moment. We are in crisis—a once-in-a-century event, as we now say. And what we got from the candidates, in this week's presidential debate, was a bunch of gummy meanderings—smooth, rounded sentences so full of focus-grouped inanities that six minutes in viewers entered a kind of trance in which we almost immediately gave up on trying to wrest meaning from what was being said and instead focused on mere impressions. The look of things. The men on the plane, the pseudo-tough political operatives who surround both candidates, sometimes grouse, in private, that it's all symbols now, all mood, all about the visual.

But they have some real responsibility here. They send their candidates out to speak such thin gruel, such spat-out porridge, that we are struck dumb, and left daydreaming about the fact that Mr. Obama's suits are always slate gray and never seem to wrinkle, and Mr. McCain tonight seems like a rabbity forest creature darting amid the hedgerows.

God, when she is right she is SO RIGHT.

MEGAN: No, I mostly watch these things and think of "I met John F. Kennedy, sir, and you are no John F. Kennedy" and the exchange about Cheney's gay daughter and, most laughably, the part in 2000 where George Bush swore up and down that his administration would never, ever go nation building to try to bring democracy to people that don't even want it. None of which was inspiring at all, but it was impressive in the way it stuck in my head as a good attack.

MOE: What about that hilarious moment with Cheney Lieberman where Cheney promised Lieberman he would show him how to go make millions in the private sector? I mean, Cheney Lieberman was great on so many levels, much more than not least of which was that Lieberman was McCain's first choice as a running mate.

MEGAN: What about that was inspirational? What about that was any more than a playground attack with no meaning or substance behind it? Name me a debate that inspired you. These aren't speeched, they're deliberately 90 second easily-digestible soundbites. Also, I'm calling bullshit on Peggy here, actually, because what's she's doing is defending her career as a Reagan staffer, as though he debates inspired America. Pish posh, I say. The rules were the same, the answers were the same and the level of boredom was the same.

MOE: So Alan Greenspan's legacy has pretty much gone the way of Larry Craig's. No that is not true. We're just young. Have you been watching those Reagan documentaries? Dumbass WAS inspiring. It is inspiring how inspiring he managed to be!

MEGAN: Not in the debates. My parents made me watch 'em. He could be inspiring, but not in that format. Also, Greenspan did always manage to get out when the getting was good.

MOE: Inspiring and scary. And I just don't buy it! I just DON'T! No one answers the questions, you might as well go off on tangents like Sarah Palin because no one can keep track. I am the first to blame the confines of the structure or the market or the Way Things Are for the Way People Fuck Up, but Obama should be doing better. He should, but I imagine he is too tired. The thing that is true is that the Democrats, as we were discussing from the beginning, do not understand the moral authority they could seize here, maybe because they didn't go into this for reasons of morality, because, you know, who really does. But Obama did. It's one of the things the GOP jumped on. "Michelle acts like it is such a SACRIFICE that he went into the government to SERVE HIS GREAT COUNTRY" when meanwhile they won't trust anyone with the Treasury they can't give a hundred million or so tax break to.

MEGAN: I don't know what moral authority they can seize here, nor how he could have done it at the debates. I was arguing about this with a friend. Like, great, you want him to be the Great Jesus and savior of our political system and now our economy — but he can't do shit if he's not elected. That's politics. He's not going to get elected by calling McCain a racist piece of shit on stage because to do so is to call too many Americans that. Look at how many people got offended during the primaries when they were being racist. It's not an effective strategy. And who are you going to inspire in 90 seconds with a soundbite? Nobody, except maybe to anger, which is what Palin is doing right now.

MOE: No here is the thing, he cannot do shit when he's elected if he doesn't make the case to the public while 60 million of them are watching.

MEGAN: What case? The case for what? He's supposed to be making a case for why he should be elected in 90 seconds or less. Not a case for America or a case for how to fix the financial system. You can't fix it in 90 seconds, you can't answer it in 90 seconds and if you could, you'd be wrong. The problem with Obama is, the problem why his race speech failed, the problem with why his primary tactics almost fell short is that he doesn't inspire with soundbites. He doesn't give answers in soundbites. He doesn't explain in soundbites. And Americans don't listen in anything but.

MOE: Ugh, whatever. We will not agree on this I'm afraid. But YES I want him to be Jesus. I want him to fucking TAKE BACK JESUS from those horrid sanctimonious rape victim charging fucks already! Don't let the public forget Larry Craig and Ted Haggard and that guy in Oregon with the abortion and Jake Abramoff and George Fucking Bush. And the race speech "failed" according to whom? What the fuck??? It "failed"????

MEGAN: Did he get a bounce? Did he win every primary after that? Blow Hillary out of the water? Change the game? No, he didn't.

MOE: That's precisely the sort of statement I refuse to abide, I straight-up reject. A BOUNCE??? WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT BOUNCES, HELLO, CAPITALISM IS COLLAPSING.

MEGAN: What's the point of the race speech otherwise?

MOE: I can't do this anymore dude.

MEGAN: What's the point of politics if not to win?

MOE: What is the point, of making a serious heartfelt speech if not for a "bounce."

MEGAN: What's the point of making it if McCain ends up President at the end of it?

MOE: The difference, my dear, is that "bounces" mean nothing. And victory means a lot more than winning one election. We all know this. What, praytell did Bill Clinton get done with all his poll-tested plurality of the vote? Guess what? All that "unprecedented economic growth and prosperity" nonsense doesn't hold up anymore!

MEGAN: I disagree. If Obama doesn't win, if the people yelling "Kill him!" and "Terrorist!" and "Socialist!" and "Off with his head!" win, then nothing will change and that speech will mean less in a year than it did 6 months ago, and nothing a year after that. To the victors go the spoils, and the spoils are the ability to make change, and history.

• Sarah Palin is, like, so annoyed that Katie Couric, like, insisted on asking questions and talking about what she wanted to talk about instead of just letting Sarah bash Obama. Because that's how an "interview" works. To be fair, though, Palin had been on Fox News with Hannity first. [Huffington Post]
• She was also really sad when she read the papers this morning and found out that the campaign was pulling out of Michigan. They didn't tell her in advance that they were pulling out or that they don't care what she thinks about the Big Boy campaign stuff. [Politico]
• The United Steelworkers think he might be forced out of Pennsylvania, too. [Huffington Post]
• In the mean time, though, they've got an ad featuring a quote from a Famous Person. It turns out that person is Peggy Noonan, but it does make her look completely in the tank for McCain, not that anyone cares about anyone being in the tank for anyone other than Obama. [Washington Post]

• Now that California has seen how easy it is to get money from the government, they'd like $7 billion, please. [CNN]
• Now that the government owns Fannie Mae, you can stop foreclosure by simply shooting yourself. Easy! [CNN]
• President Bush already signed the bailout bill because actual fundamentals, like unemployment, of the economy continue to suck. [Washington Post, NY Times]
• Oh, and if you thought it laughable that Sarah Palin can claim to have foreign policy experience by virtue of the fact that she can "see" Russia from your backyard, McCain advisor Richard Fontaine claimed John McCain got some fucking that Brazilian model way back in the day. Angela Merkel promptly vowed to never take her eyes off him is he gets elected. That Bush back massage was bad enough.[The Miami Herald]

• Sacha Baron Cohen's fashionisto alter ego, the fey Austrian Bruno, stormed the catwalk in layers of schmatte during Agatha Ruiz de la Prada's runway show, setting off a security panic. Ultimately they had to call the police; all this will obvs end up in the upcoming Bruno movie. [Perez Hilton]
• Responding to the extreme shortage of celeb fashion lines, Rihanna confirms that she's launching one: “I can’t say when it will be released, but it’s definitely going to happen.” [WWD]
• Naomi Campbell loses her shit at D&G. [WWD]
• Model Lily Cole gives us conservation advice in the intro to eco tome Green is the New Black: “I would encourage sewing together your own stuff, and keeping that stuff even as it falls apart (a good look, I really believe). I would also encourage a change in attitude… what’s a good sweater without a hole?... Please remember, or at least consider, that holes are beautiful, too!” [Nylon]

• The words "complete creative control" should give Adidas pause; they've given it to Jeremy Scott for his new line. [WWD]
• Responding to the needs of a rapidly aging population, Japanese adult diaper designers hold a "fashion show." [CBS]
• Tommy Hilfiger and Peggy Noonan apparently didn't really hit it off. [BlackBook]
• Apparently, in addition to being hideous and ludicrous, the Comme des Garcons for for H&M line is really expensive. [Fashionista]
• With usually dependable Russian and Asian buyers in abeyance, Milan's designers are in a panic. [FT]
• Well, some of them. "In the current climate, at the end of a long week, there's something reassuring about designers who are unashamedly getting on with business as usual. Credit crunch? What credit crunch?" [ElleUK]
• At least Cavalli takes the pulse of the times: "In possibly the most inexplicable collection so far, transparent pastel Wedgwood print chiffon milkmaid dresses were followed by Marie Antoinette peony-posied minis complete with thigh-grazing bustle, which were followed by black Studio 54 jersey slithers, which were followed by neon yellow and chartreuse graphic balloon dresses, which were followed by see-through long white lace governess dresses with little black bows at the neck and pigeon-tail lace tiers at the back, which were followed by marabou-trimmed gold scripted chiffon pyjamas." [FT]
• With peeps cutting back on dry-cleaning, wash and wear fashion is big business. [Reuters]
• In a triumph of frugality, people drop a bundle at Hermes sample sale. [NY Times]
• Balenciaga's casting male models, which means either menswear or drag, and can we just say we're over drag? Can these designers at least pretend they're designing for women's bodies?! [Fashionista]
• Re-usable shopping bags aren't really all that green. Wah-wah. [WSJ]
• Typically generous British journalism: "The encouraging truth is that Twiggy does not look nearly as young in the flesh as she does in most of the photographs in her new book about how to look fabulous over 40. She has, I am heartened to observe when we meet in a London hotel, a slight tummy, jowly bits and a light craquelure of wrinkles." [Telegraph]
• The much-reviled lifestyle guru Gwyneth Paltrow's new Tod's commercial: "The full length commercial, which was modeled after "La Dolce Vita" and featured Gwynnie being chased by papparazzi, losing her bag and having it returned to her by a charming reporter...There were lots of close-ups of the bag, of course. Loving, glorious close-ups." [Washington Post]
• Rebellious Belgian designers want to be business iconoclasts, too. [WSJ]
• The unrest at Pucci as loud as its patterns! [NY Mag]
• Manolo Blahnik turns on the heel! "It's much more difficult to be beautiful and walk femininely in flats...Bardot in France did it and Audrey Hepburn in America. They looked fantastic and walked like tigers, beautiful and graceful, but you can walk like a beach bum in them - then they don't look so good." [VogueUK]
• Why don't we get awesome free stuff with American fashion mags? [Fashionista]
• Michael Kors opens first Euro boutique. [Fashion Week Daily]

MEGAN: Hey, it's finally Friday! I get to sleep in tomorrow!

JASON Hey. Me too! So remember how everyone said, "OMGZ. You have to stop attacking Sarah Palin! It only makes her stronger?"

MEGAN: Actually, I think I said, please stop attacking her because it makes us look bad. And, specifically, please stop attacking her for gendered reasons.

JASON Well, certain criticisms, especially gendered criticisms, do make us look bad. Substantive ones, however, work.

MEGAN: Also helpful: getting a Republican Senator to say that saying she has foreign policy experience is an insult to the intelligence of the American people.

JASON Yeppers! Hagel's just the latest conservative to do so, following David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer (what Teutonic supervillain hasn't dreamed of calling himself DER KRAUTHAMMER), and, of course, the off-camera Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan. Those guys make Palin-contrarianism okay for others, though you watch - Brooks will change his mind as soon as the wind changes direction: you need to be humming "Personal Jesus" in order to have more depeche mode than Brooks. And, of course, Tina Fey has made it okay to make fun of Palin. Even Palin can do it, with the sound down!

MEGAN: Speaking of Peggy...

Hoover was not good for the Republican brand.

And the Democrats are mean for trying to turn Bush into Hoover because GWB has been soooo good for the Republican brand. Just as Tom Davis.

JASON She seems awash in contradiction:

Both the Democrats and the Republicans spent the week treating the catastrophe as a political opportunity. This was unserious. A serious approach might have addressed large questions such as: Was this crisis not, at bottom, a failure of stewardship?

Instead, from Barack Obama: It's the Republicans' fault, and John McCain means more of the same. From McCain: We're reformers and we'll clean up the mess, unlike Mr. I Can't Think of Anything to Do but Raise Taxes.

It seems to me that Obama, in this case, is...I dunno — pointing out the BAD STEWARDSHIP.

MEGAN: Uhh, but then she sorta goes here:

A fearless prediction: My beautiful election enters its dark phase.

Lots of signs of the new darkness. Mr. Obama's army is swarming, blocking lines when Obama critics show up for radio interviews. A study out Thursday said the Obama campaign has become more negative than the McCain campaign.

At least she didn't call it a "black" phase.

Oh, and here's the best rationale she can come up with of how "constrained" McCain will be if he wins (so go ahead and vote for him, you know ya wanna):

A New York liberal leaning toward Mr. McCain told me this week he has no fear that Mr. McCain may be a more militant figure than Mr. Obama. We already have two wars, "we're out of army." Even if Mr. McCain wanted a war, he said, he couldn't start one.

Ah, the old "scarce resources" argument. Sure, we could never, like, institute a draft. Start a new Cold War by being super-hawkish on Russia. We would never start a third war when we've already got troops in 2, totally not. So, Vote McCain! Since he can't start a third war his first day in office.

JASON Oy. Noonan. Let's all make the election "beautiful" again. Maybe she hasn't noticed the creepy "Drill, Baby, Drill" chants?

MEGAN: Maybe she has, and they made certain parts of her tingly?

JASON The problem we have is not that we can't start new wars. It's that we can't finish them.

MEGAN: We start new ones to distract from the fact that we haven't finished the old ones. Oh, hey, speaking of unfinished wars.

JASON HA. Yeah. See. That's how you go to war without an army. People forget about the Contras. And the, uhm...mujahadeen.

By the way, according to an email I just received (so take it with a grain of salt, because my inbox gets filled with apocrypha, spam, and letters authored by Matt Stoller), Ari Fleischer on the Today show this morning said that the financial crisis was basically the public's fault. [He did. I heard him. -Ed.] Y'all borrowed all this money!

MEGAN: Yeah, it's no longer "America, Fuck Yeah!" it's now "America, Fuck You!"
Fuck you for believing George Bush when he asked you to spend our way out of the first recession to keep the terrorists from winning.

Fuck you for buying houses you couldn't afford as everyone in and out of government told you prices would go up forever and ever.

Fuck you for taking on credit card debt to finance groceries and big screen TVs and everything else you thought you needed when what you really needed was to buy some fucking Big Boy Bootstraps and make enough money to not bother John McCain.

JASON Ahh, but you have to admire Fleischer. He's a pure shithead and he knows it. He's utter, sucking venality and he embraces it!

MEGAN: Ari Fleischer can go Fuck Himself.

JASON Ari Fleischer has already been there and back.

MEGAN: Ari Fleischer must be an extremely flexible person. Please note that I did not call him a "man."

JASON Noted!

MEGAN: Moving on from Ari Fleischer's amazing ability to toss his own salad (he does like it spicy and a little earthy), the polls show us white women are realizing that maybe, just maybe, McCain doesn't have our best interests at heart even if he does have one of us on the ticket, and are swinging back to Obama.

JASON Right. This is, I think, a by-product of the fact that Palin's appeal is waning, and more women are learning about McCain's stand on issues that matter to them. Months ago, researchers found wide variance in whether women were simply aware of McCain's opinion, and posited that once they knew, they'd shy away. What's going on with the white men, though? And, I'm asking!

MEGAN: Daddy issues?

JASON Because it seems to me, the Palin pick ought to hurt McCain there, too.

MEGAN: Do men vote for candidates they sort of want to sleep with?

JASON I mean, if Palin was a bona fide Margaret Thatcher type, you'd think that'd play better.

MEGAN: See, I don't know, I feel like the Palin-lovers are the same guys that were running around screaming "cankles" 6 months ago, you know?

JASON And texting you!

MEGAN: Oh, God, you know that asshole is voting for McCain. In fact, I do know because I got a Facebook news feed that told me so!

JASON And doing the other 19 things to ensure NO SEXING.

MEGAN: He was also numbers 1 and 11.

JASON You are totally right. Yikes. It was Tucker Bounds, wasn't it?

MEGAN: Tucker Bounds would've probably been an improvement. I believe Ana Marie and I determined he's just a dirty little sub that likes to be humiliated. I think, the dudes who are all into Palin now, it's some combination of chickenhawkishness that appeals to them about McCain, some sort of boastful "I could survive Viet Cong torture too, motherfucahhhh!" and some combination of that, to that kind of lame, text-messaging, small-dicked asshole Sarah Palin is indeed the kind of woman they'd like to think they could attract and even date. The difficulty with that is that Sarah Palin wouldn't put up with their shit, either. You see Todd yesterday? The whole time in Iowa on stage, there was this hot blonde totally checking him out and he didn't even notice. That's because Sarah doesn't fuck around and he knows it. We can at least give her credit for that.

JASON Word.

MEGAN: Okay, also, with all these "give money to Planned Parenthood in Palin's name" things floating around, I would like to now encourage an actual dirty trick that could hurt the "Palin" campaign.

JASON Because it mostly is the Palin campaign, now. Though Ana Marie said that in Wisconsin last night, people didn't walk out when McCain spoke.

MEGAN: Bob Barr, who is on the ballot in 44 states and suing to get on 5 more probably needs money. And, obviously, the biggest donors to Nader in 2000 were Republicans. Barr has the potential to spoil at least Georgia, if not places like Ohio and Florida. If you've got extra cash and you want to fuck with the Republicans in more than a symbolic way, swallow, swallow, swallow that bile and give to Bob Barr. But only if you are maxed out to Obama.

JASON Yeah, exactly. I agree. I mean, if i were an Obama supporter who'd maxed out my donations, I would totes give to Barr. All those people who are making cool YouTube ads for Obama? Take a minute and do one up for Barr, too.

MEGAN: That's how a real dirty trick works. Well, that and this way, which is a great example of how Republicans are trying to disenfranchise voters in swing states besides Michigan.

JASON Right. You get all sorts of things like this. I remember a few elections ago, up in Baltimore? People woke up on election day to postcards that said stuff like you couldn't vote if you were late with the rent and shit. If the Dems are smart, they have people going door-to-door, laying this mythology bare right now.

MEGAN: Also, if you are challenged at your polling place, fight the fuck back. Think of it as pissing on Tucker Bounds. Everyone wins!

MOE: OH FOR CHRISSAKES PEGGY

This is the authentic sound of the American mama, of every mother you know at school who joins the board, reads the books, heads the committee, and gets the show on the road.

Don't you mean bans the books??? Can I go back to bed now?

MEGAN: Didn't you read? We the elitist media are sorry for daring to ask questions and will stick to just parroting whatever it is that Sarah Palin has written for her! No more questions! No more questions! Anyway, technically, I am in bed because it was so nice and warm and I didn't really want to get out of it anyway. My back hurts from the crappy chairs at the Xcel Center.

MOE: I need to puke.

Her averageness accentuated her specialness. Her commonality highlighted her uniqueness.

Right, because the middle class has done so much evaporating in the past 18 years and she hasn't changed her hair since the Reagan administration! Because in any other state, Sarah Palin's "First Dude" would be a Ford salesman. UGHHHHH KILL BABY KILL ME NOW Also, who fucking called her Baberaham LIncoln? Isn't that something from like Wayne's World? That used to be Blakeley's commenter name if I recall.

MEGAN: No, now, let's be fair. Sarah Palin had some righteous 80s hair in the 80s, hair the likes of which I found it personally impossible to ever achieve. The little bouffant-twist thingie is not 80s, it's totally something out of the 50s. Yes, I believe that is from Wayne's World: "If she was a President, she's be Baberaham Lincoln." I'm sure some important information no longer resides in my brain so that tidbbit could remains. Also, frankly, the Palinphilia was the least offensive portion of the night. Watching the 9/11 film that made Rudy's refrain seem tasteful really drowns out all the Palin shit.

MOE:

Campbell Brown of CNN did nothing wrong for instance in pressing a campaign spokesman on Palin's foreign policy credentials. She was unjustly criticized for following an appropriate and necessary line of inquiry. But endless front page stories connected to Mrs. Palin's 17-year-old daughter? Cable news shows that had people insinuating Palin, whom America had not yet even met, was a bad mother, and that used her daughter's circumstances to examine Republican views on abstinence education? That was ugly.

MEGAN: Campbell Brown was completely justified, but that didn't stop the campaign from pulling all MSNBC interviews after that.

MOE: You know what about the media is ugly? That you can get away with, all on the same day, writing a column slamming the media "bubbleheads" for tonedeafly ignoring a candidate's powerful "narrative" on the basis of the rampant falsehood that it's a "nation of Wasillas," then admit in the studio in a gaffe heard round the internet that you think it was dumb for the Republicans to choose a running mate on the basis of this "bullshit about narrative," then watch said candidate give a speech that's inanity is trumped only by its meanness that is for some Bubbleheaded reason considered widely successful

MEGAN: By the way, one of the Republicans I know has the Gchat status "Palin-McCain!".

MOE: And then write a column praising the candidate's fucking narrative (including how she kept that Down syndrome baby!) while attacking the media scrutiny of the veracity of the FUCKING NARRATIVE.

MEGAN: It was successful because it was mean and because it didn't address hard issues. Republicans don't want to talk about issues, they want their Weltanschauung reinforced without the use of foreign words. Also, I looked this up earlier this week but don't have the statistical chart handy, if I recall correctly, older women are more likely to bring a Downs baby to term than younger women. And they probs ought to stop referring to it as her "choice." If they don't want to be pro-choice, they should say stuff like "It was my moral obligation to bring Trig to term. There was no 'choice.'"

MOE: You know what Peggy? I thought it didn't get much more galling to watch fucking Sarah Palin slam Barack Obama's memoir writing when she has achieved so very little herself and her running mate has in fact written more memoirs than Obama, I thought it was audacious to watch fucking Sarah Palin get up and lie yet again about how she singlehandedly shut down construction of the Bridge To Nowhere, but this column, all things considered = actually more audacious!

MEGAN: Also, if Steve Schmidt uses that line, my fees are totally as reasonable as Mark Penn's.

MOE: Ughhh anyway this is probably a first for liberalkind but I am actually going to calm myself down by thinking about what I saw on the O'Reilly Factor last night.

MEGAN: Ummmm, that is kind of completely a first. Watching the boring lead-in speeches, I wished my Internet connection was good enough to have watched a live feed or something.

MOE: Did you watch? It was funny. Bill O'Reilly was a kind of hilarious combination of bullying and deferential. He is so doglike somehow. At the end he told everyone that he'd looked Obama in the eye and said, "This guy is not a wimp. He is tough, that Obama." Obama might have pointed out when O'Reilly kept begging him to promise him he was prepared for war with Iran that Al Qaeda actually funds much of the Iranian resistance, but as it was he just sort of shook that dirt off his shoulder as one does. Then O'Reilly made some hilarious proclamation about how Carrie Underwood was a patriot and Lily Allen and Elton John were pinheads. All around a good night. And then I went out. Did you see McCain? I have no idea what happened between then and now and will probably need coffee to figure that out.

MEGAN: Dude, the reason I didn't see O'Reilly is that I was sitting in rapt boredom at my computer at the Xcel Center waiting, waiting, waiting for John McCain. He came, he saw, he got less applause that Sarah Palin and twice as many disruptive Code Pink protestors.

MOE: Are you afraid of Palin? I cannot get inside the head of someone who doesn't find her vapid, vacuous, one those nice ladies around town that seems harmless enough until you have reason to glimpse inside her soul one day while watching her skin a moose or summarily dissolve a PTA or perjure herself in an attempt to get a state trooper fired. In that sense I think Peggy's right, there was something "I know this lady" about this lady, but what America also knows about that sort of lady is that if that lady is in a position of power chances are she is a total phony.

MEGAN: I don't know that I'm scared of Palin. I think she plays well with a certain demographic. I am scared that the media has decided that she's almost untouchable on the issues and that McCain is using her to argue that they needn't talk to the media anymore and that her written-by-committee speeches delivered to the American People will suffice because the media is eeeevil coming and going . And I'm more scared that too many Americans will buy the Evil Media theme and stop actually trying to learn anything about her.

MOE: Oh wow huh.

MEGAN: Yeah, that's what I was saying earlier. It was seriously amazing offensive. It was like "If you hate 9/11, love us!" as though Democrats are pro-9/11.
Oh, hey, look, my criticism of Sarah Palin was premature! She took a question! Phew. Never mind.

MOE: Ugh as a semi member of the media I can say I feel like letterbombing everyone who has attacked the media in the media over the past few days. The only outlet I believe "overstepped" in any way was Us Weekly and not from a factual perspective but from a "Uhhhhh this is not going to help you at the newsstand" perspective. But I get it now, I get it all; the media is going bananas because somehow this Sarah Palin thing has re-bestowed upon Republicans their ability to tell bald faced lies and repeat them and repeat them and repeat them some more with impunity! (And who knows if there's actual impunity, the point is that Republicans know that the assumption of impunity is more than enough to get them through the next few wars!) Read this little missive by McCain admirer and frustrated media member Jake Tapper . The GOP has everyone riled up. It's totally nuts.

MEGAN: Well, but, Chelsea was, like, an elitist awkward nerdy girl. And you and I were both elitist awkward nerdy girls, and EANGs are always fair game for people to make fun of. It's like a rule in life. John McCain probably started doing it when he was "popular" in high school and, like many asshole jocks, just never stopped. You can't blame him for thinking that making fun of a EANG was still cool, it's like an enduring part of Americana. Now if Sarah and Todd Palin had an unfortunately awkward child... But, instead, they have the brunette version of the Gore girls.

MOE: And what I mean is, because the Republicans no longer feel chastened, because they have this cute little governor mom who bakes cupcakes unironically — does she so much as know about ironic cupcakes? — telling them it's ALL OKAY. Go ahead kids, keep on lying about the Bridge to Nowhere and that eBay plane and my phony record of cutting down pork. Go ahead and use that footage of the terrorists attacking New York to send the message that only Republicans care about the big festering bacchanalian urban centers where no one ever actually votes Republican.

MEGAN: Look, after 10 days of eating on the road, if bitch wants to give me an homemade cupcake, I'm not going to pretend like I wouldn't enjoy every last second of eating it. But I still would be offended by the 9/11 film.

MOE: Oh man and catch Ta-Nehisi Coates with the updates. I feel his pain. And related: half?? why just half??

MEGAN: Maybe for the same reason that even poor Republicans don't like raising taxes on the rich ones? Because they expect to be rich — or VP — some day? Or because after 8 years of GWB, our expectations of what it takes not to send the country spiraling into Armageddon is somewhat... reduced?

MOE: That's just it. The soft bigotry of low expectations etc. etc. Anyway I guess "only" 42% think she's fit to lead. Like only 40% of people thought Saddam Hussein bankrolled September 11 etc. etc. Okay I just went in and tried to make some coffee hoping it will put me in a better mood.

MEGAN: I would be in a better mood if I was back to sleep.

MOE: Doubtful; while I was grinding the beans it occurred to me that O'Reilly and Westmoreland and Mitt Romney are as stubborn and bullying and useless in the face of reason or even advanced rhetoric as CERTAIN DUDES I HAVE DATED. If only America could text message breakup with the GOP.

MEGAN: I'm sure there's something more prescient to say about this article about Stevie Wonder and Obama, but the geek in me totally wants to see his phone in action! It's got software that allows his camera phone to convert text to audio and now I am completely covetous and I don't even have an iPhone.
9:25 AM
MEGAN: Also, I now totally have My Cherie Amour in my head and I know it isn't going away.
MOE: That's cool, but you know what would be even cooler is if you could choose to have your messages relayed to you in the voice of Dimitri the stud.
9:30 AM
MEGAN: This will make you understand the depths of my nerdiness, but my uncle's GPS speaks in the voice of Jean-Luc Picard. For real. And I'm jealous. Also, if you read that article about Stevie Wonder, how bad do you want to hear his rendition of Lil Wayne's "Lollipop"? Because I want that AP reporter's tape for real.

MOE: Ugh speaking of technology my computer is the wackness right now and I fucking don't know what the matter with Firefox is. I really fucking hate it though. It like, uses 19 times as much RAM as Safari, but Safari is really finicky and volatile and will crash if I touch it the wrong way. It's like they both have browser personality disorder. Anyhowwwww. Why don't the Clintons just fucking pay her campaign debt and be done with this??? Nice of Obama to make a goodwill gesture and all, but seriously, couldn't that $2300 pay someone's subprime mortgage payment? I don't understand.
MEGAN: Dude, Firefox and I had issues earlier this week, so I totally feel you but I can't get down with Safari either. I wonder if it had to do with bugs in their new roll-out somehow?
MEGAN: Anyway, I mean, Clinton technically can't give her campaign the money.
MEGAN: Under FEC regs, that's why the $12 million or so was technically a loan, which the campaign can (and seemingly might) default on but they have to make a good faith effort to even pay that back to avoid complications. It's a weird and fucked up system.
MOE: Even after the Supreme Court ruling this week favoring millionaires financing their campaigns with their millions? Because I didn't read much about that ruling but what I did read led me to believe that sort of shit was okay.
MEGAN: Either way, the Clintonistas that are still peeved about Obama getting the nod were all like, if you really wanted your donors to contribute to Clinton's campaign to pay down the debt then you yourself would max out to her and for $2,300, he bought himself a lot of support and a lot less annoying whining and it would be worth it to me, too. Hell, if these people would promise to STFU and vote Obama, I would give her money.
MEGAN: Yeah, the millionaire's amendment ruling isn't that millionaires can spend the money, it's that by spending it their opponents' donors aren't allowed to exceed spending limits.
MEGAN: On the other hand, strangely, I think you're also right that self-financed campaigns don't totally run afoul of election law but the Clintons are on record that they violate the spirit of campaign finance reform.
MOE: Yo David Addington — "Cheney's Cheney", a man with the "grace of Gollum" — was called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday and man I forgot all about that guy. Here's the New Yorker profile in which Colin Powell is reputed to have said, when someone in his office expressed dismay over the warrantless wiretapping crap when it came out : "It's Addington, He doesn't care about the Constitution."
MOE: Key graf of that story:

Most Americans, even those who follow politics closely, have probably never heard of Addington. But current and former Administration officials say that he has played a central role in shaping the Administration’s legal strategy for the war on terror. Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share—namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it. Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside. A former high-ranking Administration lawyer who worked extensively on national-security issues said that the Administration’s legal positions were, to a remarkable degree, “all Addington.” Another lawyer, Richard L. Shiffrin, who until 2003 was the Pentagon’s deputy general counsel for intelligence, said that Addington was “an unopposable force.”

MOE: And today's:

David Addington was there under subpoena. And he wasn't happy about it.
Could the president ever be justified in breaking the law? "I'm not going to answer a legal opinion on every imaginable set of facts any human being could think of," Addington growled. Did he consult Congress when interpreting torture laws? "That's irrelevant," he barked. Would it be legal to torture a detainee's child? "I'm not here to render legal advice to your committee," he snarled. "You do have attorneys of your own."

MEGAN: That Milbank piece was pretty epic, but the end of it my hatred for Addington was actually visceral. I really could not believe he got away with that shit.
MEGAN: I mean, Spencer also did really great piece on it where he basically points out that Addington fails to remember shit that other people testified to last week, including an entire trip to Gitmo. How can you forget going to Gitmo?
MEGAN:

Last week, the Senate disclosed that Addington was among a handful of senior administration lawyers who visited the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in the summer of 2002, when the administration began expanding the list of permissible interrogation methods beyond those authorized by the Geneva Conventions-compliant Army Field Manual on Interrogations, then known as FM 34-52. Yet Addington said he did not recall meeting with then-chief Guantanamo attorney Col. Diane Beaver — who last week recalled meeting with Addington — and said he had more extensive involvement with the CIA's interrogation program than with the Pentagon's.

As though being all up in the CIA torture program is totes better.

MOE: Oh dude Liz Glover's sister is quoted in that story calling Addington "efficient, discreet, loyal, sublimely brilliant and, as anyone who works with him knows, someone who, in a knife fight, you want covering your back."
MOE: Republican "legal activist" Bruce Fein, a Reagan deputy AG, was not so magnanimous! He's

staked out powers that are a universe beyond any other Administration. This President has made claims that are really quite alarming. He’s said that there are no restraints on his ability, as he sees it, to collect intelligence, to open mail, to commit torture, and to use electronic surveillance. If you used the President’s reasoning, you could shut down Congress for leaking too much. His war powers allow him to declare anyone an illegal combatant. All the world’s a battlefield—according to this view, he could kill someone in Lafayette Park if he wants! It’s got the sense of Louis XIV: ‘I am the State.’

MEGAN: I don't think I'd want Addington anywhere near my back with a knife, thanks.
MEGAN: Also, I love how even Republicans are arguing that's the case and Addie (let's call him Addie) is all like, whatevs, I ain't gonna tell ya, get your own lawyer.
MOE: it's funny because if you go on …there's a lot of Fein doing as Reagan and Bush The Firsties are wont and criticizing the Bush team for its basic malevolent Forest Gumpness, lack of intellectual rigor etc.

Bruce Fein said that the Bush legal team was strikingly unsophisticated. “There is no one of legal stature, certainly no one like Bork, or Scalia, or Elliot Richardson, or Archibald Cox,” he said. “It’s frightening. No one knows the Constitution—certainly not Cheney.”

Which brings me to yesterday's gun ban ruling. Did you read it? The portion excerpted by Colbert King turned my stomach. Megan McCardle thinks us feminists should be stoked though. I'm coming down to DC this weekend. Maybe we should try to find a gun show this weekend and celebrate?? Is there a waiting period in Virginia?
MEGAN: I did read parts of it, but, I mean, it was all pretty well telegraphed in oral arguments that they were going to find in favor of an individual right.

MEGAN: On Megan, though, seriously, what the fuck?
MEGAN: I feel like she's betrayed our common bond in a rejection of the silent, patriarchal "h" in our shared name. Feminists should all own guns to thwart attacks?
MEGAN: Like, feminism is all about not being raped? Like no person has ever had a gun turned on them? C
MEGAN: Apparently, it's also a gay issue.
MOE: I actually got more pissed when she said she really didn't believe that the way our market is set up rewards superficial short-term results and financial engineering over innovation and long-term strength. But yeah, I don't know; I might feel differently if I lived in the Congo but I don't see gun ownership this way at all and somehow I don't think the Founding Fathers did either especially not Thomas Jefferson.
MEGAN: I don't buy Megan's economic theories a lot, I have to admit.
MEGAN: Yeah, in 2000, I got a push-pollster who called and was all asking legit questions until she got to "Did you know Al Gore thinks that the 2nd Amendment refers to a collective right and not an individual right to own guns and would appoint justices who agree with his interpretation?" And I said "No, I totally didn't, but thanks for telling me! Now I totally know that I'm going to vote for him!" She hung up in my ear.
MEGAN: I mean, personally, I love that the strict-constructionalist school of Constitutional interpretation are all about strictly parsing the words of the amendments... except for this one where Scalia's all like, well, obviously the Framers meant for everyone to have guns because people hunted even though that's not in the text anywhere.
MOE: Noonan is snoozin today but she did wake me up with this little snippet of McCainanity:

"[He] volunteered that Brooke Buchanan, his spokeswoman who was seated nearby and rolling her eyes, 'has a lot of her money hidden in the Cayman Islands' and that she earned it by 'dealing drugs.' Previously, Mr. McCain had identified Ms. Buchanan as 'Pat Buchanan's illegitimate daughter,' 'bipolar,' 'a drunk,' 'someone with a lot of boyfriends,' and 'just out of Betty Ford.'"

To which, all I have to say is, that crack he made about how he just stopped beating his wife — did you post on this yesterday? — because I was going to, until I read it, and I was like, "Oh Jesus Christ go to the beach already guys, there is nothing to see here."

MEGAN: I did post on it, actually. I mean, like, is it the worst thing he's ever said? No. Is it part of a larger pattern of behavior and a lack of personal insight into the sexism he was inculcated with and how not to see the world that way anymore? Yes.
MOE: Ugh, the guy is OLD. Who fucking cares? I am totally fucking with Nancy Pelosi on this stuff mostly, even though I don't think being a woman has as many advantages as it does shitty parts. I don't want to be bothered with shit like this. In other news: I also don't want to be bothered with that Imus thing which should have never blown up. Totally OT: has Garry Kasparov always been a contributing editor of the Wall Street Journal? Since when did their edit page become so friendly to enemies of the plutocracy anyway?
MOE:

The elite circle of oligarchs surrounding Mr. Putin have much greater power and riches than did Yeltsin's entourage. They dominate the media, and thus very little is known about how they amassed their fortunes. In 2000, there were no Russians on the Forbes magazine list of the world's billionaires. By 2005 there were 36.
Today there are 87, more than Germany and Japan combined, in a country where 13% of our citizens live under the national poverty line of $150 a month. This massive concentration of wealth is mirrored in the Russian stock market. In 2007, the top 10 listed companies accounted for 68.5% of the primary Russian bourse. Gazprom alone represented over 27%.

MEGAN: I don't think he's been writing for them all the time or anything, but I think there should be an official Jezebel decree that everyone who can should see the documentary on Anna Politkovskaya that he mentions.

MOE: This is interesting:

There are no similarities between American soldiers in Iraq and Americans at home. Which means you cannot prevent yourself from loving them — and hating them too. I can’t understand how Americans are so nice over there, and many of their soldiers are bullies and aggressive… But there is another thing which surprised me more than that. Poor people in America are more interested than the rich ones to know about the conditions of life in Iraq. They asked me how we are living there, how we are dealing with our security problems and what we are thinking about the future.

That's an Iraqi Times reporter on his trip to Washington for a State Department conference.
MEGAN: Well, but I mean, most rich people aren't really concerned with the conditions on the ground here, why would they give a shit about them there? It's cute that he thinks that they would, though.

All of which is a long-winded attempt at seeming even more long-winded at getting to the point that I think the thing about Peggy Noonan is that it's kind of cool that she's silly, and theatrical, and doesn't take herself that seriously, because it means she doesn't take too many other things too seriously, like opinions — hers or Ted Kennedy's:

All parties, all movements, need men and women who will come forward every decade or so to name tendencies within that are abusive or destructive, to throw off the low and grubby.

Or the the latest whatevergate:

Two things are true in the modern media environment, and they collide with each other and may tend to cancel each other out. One is that a scandal makes its way around the world and into the bloodstream right away and with full force, through the Internet and cable. The other is that a lot of scandals have made their way around the world and into the bloodstream in the past 10 years. Immediacy and broad knowledge collide with sheer glut. Everyone has heard so much about so many. At some point, don't voters start to see all of public life as one big polluted river? And if they do, don't they stop saying things like "That's a busted tire floating by" and "That's an old shoe"? If they're familiar with the principle, as Thoreau said, don't they become less attentive to its numerous applications?

Or her beloved religion:

There is a sense in Iowa now that faith has been heightened as a determining factor in how to vote, that such things as executive ability, professional history, temperament, character, political philosophy and professed stands are secondary, tertiary. But they are not, and cannot be. They are central. Things seem to be getting out of kilter, with the emphasis shifting too far.

Or the moved by something you're pretty sure she's sincere, and when she bothers to disdain something there's a certain amount of silly emotional credibility to it:

They came from comfort and stability, visited poverty as part of a college program, fashionably disliked their country, and cultivated a bitterness that was wholly unearned. They went on to become investment bankers and politicians and enjoy wealth, power or both.

And you start to think, shit, what is it about this Nicorette addled Pope adoring nonlapsed Catholic half-delusional Conservative that makes me think we'd actually get along?

And um I think it boils down to her being a woman.

I know: barf.

How Peggy Noonan Won The Democratic Primary [WWD]

MOE: I guess we have to talk about campaign finance today. But first I'd like to draw the readers' attention to this handy guide to why you can't really blame the war for the crap economy, despite what Stiglitz says, and even Stiglitz says the war has only added like $5 or $10 to the price of oil, but basically the point is that every globalization has its discontents and our objectivist malcontents didn't pay attention to that when they were setting policy so now we have more discontents over here while some folks in India and China are starting to enjoy better lives/deeper carbon footprints. ANYHOW
MEGAN: Prosperity brings global warming hooray! But only the rich can afford to reduce their carbon footprints. And I always find it difficult to believe that people really think that the war brings the bad economy when war generally makes the economy better. It was one of the reasons Hitler and WWII were initially so popular in Germany — taking shit over improved the economy almost immediately. War spending did its part for ending the Great Depression, etc.

MOE: Well yeah but as Stiglitz pointed out in 2003 Iraq was hardly "total war" and the economic benefits were thus hardly going to be evenly spread around. And as this report points out tax cuts, airline bailouts and No Child Left Behind played their early part in deficit spending. Oh man there are really cute dogs on my Fox News right now. Oh how sweet and all their owners have swaddled them in American flags and "freedom"-themed accessories!
MEGAN: Do they have freedom-themed leashes?

MEGAN: Yeah, I mean, while Bush was cutting taxes he was also presiding over the largest expansion in government history. I was at a speech by Andy Card in 2005, I think, and he went through all these verbal gymnastics to deny that the Administration had expanded the government which made the ambassador from an unnamed country next to whom I was seated marvel at his stones. It basically required that he exempt from consideration the Defense Department or DHS, which are (naturally) where all the increases have been, so it was absurdist in its brilliance. Sort of like if you don't want to be quoted, just curse every other word.
MOE: Hey, speaking of the defense budget is Israel trying to save us some money by just bombing Iran for us? Because that's awfully generous, considering all those fears we are about to elect that Muslim Marxist guy to lead the country and who knows what that means for the Jews…
MEGAN: Well, I mean, we are a leetle busy right now, I think we thought we'd be done enough in Iraq (the same way we're, like, totally Mission Accomplished in Afghanistan) that we could've started bombing Iran on our own.

MEGAN: Anyway, so, campaign finance?
MOE: Oh right, that's not my issue. And I must admit, I was occupied with this crazy Botox bandit story…and also vaguely transfixed by some story they're running on Fox now about some woman who lit up on an airplane, and in her mugshot she just looks kind of drunk or high so it kind of makes sense that she would do that, especially with fares so high these days you'd think you could do whatever you damn well please — ha! On my Virgin flight they wouldn't even let me use the blanket during takeoff, which was insane — and anyway, oh yes, Obama. We should talk about this. I guess it's disappointing but not surprising? I dunno

MEGAN: Well, but they all opted out of public financing for the primary and there were rumors McCain was going to for the general. Plus, I mean, it restricts him to $85 million which is maybe one of the reasons that, you know, Democrats don't go to states they "can't" win and ditto with Republicans and so everyone fights for Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida and concedes the others to one another.

MOE: I will say that even if it is blatantly hypocritical it also appeals to that side that worries about his ability to play dirty/be pragmatic/blahblah. Which seemed to be a big concern of Clintonites.
MEGAN: Oh, sure. I mean, I think the real issue is that 99% of Americans probably don't know anything about the public financing system so they whole OH MY GOD WHAT HAS HE DONE thing is probably right over their heads.
MEGAN: Which is why it's smart, release the video, let the talking heads pontificate for 24 hours just before the weekend, then release a new ad and start airing it in red states and let them think about that.

MEGAN: But, also, I think he makes an interesting point. Public financing comes from the $3 check-off on your tax return, so it's like small donations from small people funneled through the government. He's got 1.5 million donors, half of which are small-amount donors. He's practically creating his own public financing system, it's just one in which there are no limits on what he can spend after the convention.
MEGAN: Which is an interesting thing, actually. The party that has the Presidency gets the last convention, which means that the party without it gets a week or more where they are hamstrung by the public financing limits and hte incumbent party is not. In 2004, it was a full two weeks because the Dems went before the Olympics, then the Olympics and then the Republicans went and Bush became subject to the spending limits.
MOE: Hey check this out we're using one percent less gas than last year! And this is unrelated but here's a pleasant photo of a highway in Beijing, where starting July 20 they will also be using less gas, for obvious reasons. Okay, now I'm headed to Peggy and Brooks. Krauthammer and Krugman both wrote today about McCain's offshore drilling blah blah, one of them is for it and one of them is against it I'll let you guess who!

MEGAN: Gosh, so hard! Also, by the way, the DC metro system had 2 top-10 ridership days this week alone, and they're blaming it on gas prices.
MOE: David Brooks likens Obama to Mr. Rogers playing Ari on Entourage. (Would that be good for the Jews?) Anyway, he proceeds to do exactly the thing I was talking about where Obama actually gets praised for "selling out" in a move that should disappoint his starry-eyed media fans but actually makes them cream their pants because they are ashamed of their idealism and also, masochists:

MOE:

This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.

MEGAN: I think it's funny that Clinton supporters either think he's the worst of the Chicago political machine or a naive waif and never anything in between.
MOE: Although uh Noonan isn't feeling the sentimentality shame so much today:

In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn't. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn't, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better.

MEGAN: Yeah, she was on Scarborough this morning and they all got maudlin about Tim Russert.
MOE:

That's what we talk about in eulogies, because that's what's important. We don't say, "The thing about Joe was he was rich."

MEGAN: Also, her site is down.

MEGAN: Off-topic, our friend Calderone has the story of the wacky Hardball ad about Michelle's supposed make over and an even funnier fake one for Cindy McCain.
MEGAN: I also think the whole thing is funny, like Michelle needs a fashion makeover? The figures aren't dancing ladies in the Obama ad as much as fake runway models
MOE: I hate sentences like that. How many eulogies have any sort of basis in the reality of someone's life? I went to a very rich guy's funeral once. All the eulogies were like "great guy worked hard loved the outdoors cared about his family" and meanwhile half the family is sitting there seething over what a cold unemotional terror he'd been. But yeah, I dunno. Anyway I failed to mention that the Bush Administration's spying on Americans thing may, like the shitty economy and the shady no-bid multibillion dollar overbudget defense contracts and chaos/anarchy/fear in Iraq, get to outlive the Administration.

MEGAN: I also love that the Dems rolled over on retroactive immunity for telecoms as part of it, giving just enough judicial oversight to make it look like there will be some if we aren't paying attention, but little enough that it will make any difference to the telecoms.

MOE: Hi I IM you today from Brooklyn! I got locked out of my house.
ME: Oh, dude, no way! So, does being in Brooklyn change your perspective on politics? Do you feel more yuppified, or is that just Park Slope?
MOE: Um…primarily it changes the quantity of uppers I can access at this time. There is a coffee shop a few blocks down (I am not in Park Slope) but as for ADD drugs I am fuuuucked. Actually I should go check if there's like some coke somewhere or something. Even though a coke has less than one tenth the caffeine as a Starbucks, as I learned from the week's New York.
ME: Usually about halfway through Crappy Hour (except when I'm as hung over as I was yesterday), I'll get a craving for coffee and yet I am so committed to finishing that I never do anything about it until it's over.
MOE: Oh god Noonan today …can't disagree with her, am sure as hell not going to stir shit up by blockquoting her. Anyway she calls Hillary a bullet dodged.
ME: But at least she uses a nice picture!
MOE: Which is more than we can say for Peggy's publication!
ME: True. Also, I love that her basis for claiming that Hillary is a bullet dodged is that she's "drama."
Way to not play into any stereotypes about women that drive me crazy, Peggy.
MOE: Hahaa they just drive you crazy because you're a woman. So did you pay attention to this Air Force resignation thing? Because I keep forgetting to. What happened? (With apologies to Scott McClellan)
ME: Ha, ok, so, like this is a good but long piece. I'm pretty sure we discussed a while back how we mistakenly shipped some classified nuclear components to Taiwan? When they'd ordered, like, batteries. And then they opened the boxes and were all, dude, these aren't batteries! And we were all like, oh fuuuuuck.
Well, so, then, obviously we investigated. And it turns out that the one dude that got fired was also in the middle of some Thunderbird contracting scandal and, oh, that's right, at the same time, he was in charge when we "mistakenly" sent 2 nukes to Louisiana so the two top guys are both out on their asses and some more people will be in trouble later. But, yeah. Nukulr sekurti, we can haz it?
MOE: Okay, 1. How idiotic is this? I mean, what does a nuclear fuse actually look like? How big is it? How tough is this sort of thing to fuck up?
ME: They look like this, only with more nuclear-ness.
MOE: Oh, and that one dude = Chief of Staff Michael Moseley. God what an idiot.
ME: And it should be tough, but it apparently wasn't. And, yes. I think he is a whole toolbox.
MOE: Well, to be fair, you don't necessarily look at that and think, "wow, a nuke." Although i don't know what I would say it was. I would probably check before sending it to Louisiana. I have more trust for Taiwan.
ME: Especially when they'd ordered batteries.
I've never gone to the store to get batteries for my vibrator and mistakenly ended up with fuses of any variety. Counterfeit batteries that go dead in a day, sure, but never fuses.
MOE: Ooooh, oooooh, some good nuke news. Some international agency based in France just called for the construction of 1400 nuclear power plants over the next few decades. Pretty soon misguided fuses are just going to be part of everyday life. God I need coffee.
ME: 1400?? Where are they going to put 1400? Also, by the way, almost all of France's nuclear power plants are on the German border. Gotta love those prevailing Westerlies.
Oh, damn, Angry Johnny has reportedly definitively rules out running for VP.
MOE: I love how all these VP candidates act like it's their choice, they're the ones with some hard thinking to do. And…speaking of hard thinking, I'm…not sure what this David Brooks column about Abraham Lincoln taking mercury pills to ward off syphilis is trying to say to me.
Ah! We should have voted for Hillary.

All this suggests a maxim for us voters: Don’t only look to see which candidate has the most talent. Look for the one most emotionally gripped by his own failings.

ME: Wait, so, how did Lincoln supposedly get the dreaded syph? I find the whole thing confusing, but at least Brooks got this right:

Candidates get elected by telling people what they want to hear, leading them by using the sugar of their own fantasies.

MOE: Is he writing a book on Lincoln or something? Because, like, Obama and McCain have struggled refreshingly publicly, according to the books anyway, with their failings, what with McCain being like "Yeah I was an asshole to my first wife and I need to read more about the economy" and Obama being all "I was a bad husband and I smoked too much weed." I think we should just vote for the candidate who does, you know, not want to continue spying on us without a warrant or that sort of thing.
ME: Dude, Attackerman just made me watch this video of California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher ((R-Crazytown) talking about how putting women's underwear on Gitmo detainees heads isn't torture. Only he just keeps repeating the word "panties" well past the point of cringe-worthiness and into the realm of us wondering what exactly the Gentleman from California was wearing under his suit that day.
MOE: oooooh he's got an ambigunisex name too.
ME: I'll bet he has ambiguous sex, too. We already know he owns at least one wetsuit.
MOE: Do you love reading about Alaska? Do you sometimes forget it's a state? Can you tell me why a state would propose a $223 million bridge to between a town with a population of eight thousand and a town with a population of fifty when they don't even have a road connecting the state with its cultural and population center. Was Alaska in on the construction of the federal highway system? Was it even a state then? Have you ever been there? I had a boyfriend who grew up there once who had never heard of Three's Company. Aren't we so lucky to live in the era of the omnipresent wifi connection?
ME: Actually, I totally loved Alaska, I had to go on a business trip there a couple of years ago and my now-ex-bf came with and we took our only actual long vacation after it was over. They have a road to Juneau, it's just Juneau doesn't, like, have a road to Canada (i.e., "the rest of North America") but during the winter months I've heard the road between Anchorage and Juneau is pretty treacherous.
Anyway, Don Young is also an ass-grabber. He grabbed the ass of a junior colleague of a close friend during a fly-in while she and the folks she was with were all posing for pictures. He named the new highway bill after his wife (TEA-LU) because he could. And the bridge will apparently also incidentally financially benefit some people in his family and totally score him the 50 votes on that island.
MOE: What's the population of Juneau anyway?
ME: I appreciate that some Republicans, even if it is only the Club for Growth (now headed by former Congressman Pat Toomey of PA), are bothering to stand up to him. It's not standing up to Teddie Stevens, but it's close.
Population: just over 30,000.
MOE: jesus christ.
dude
ME: Hey, that's only slightly less than 4 times the size of the village I grew up in.
MOE: So… what do you make of the whole "takes a village" aphorism?
Oh also those French people say global warming is going to cost us 45 trillion dollars.
Just putting that out there
ME: Took a village to convince me I needed to get the fuck out of upstate NY.
MOE: the "Bridge To Nowhere" thing looks like a few grains of rice in comparison.

MOE: The Douche-oisie?
MEGAN: You gotta thank T-Rex for that one. "I have a new term for all those nebbishy young men in DC/NY with their unsold novels and their delusions of literary lionization. The Douche-oisie."

MOE: Um there are dudes in DC like that? Nevermind, I don't want to know. Don't spoil it for me. I was very content assuming everyone in DC liked to peddle their fictions "nonfiction." Insufferable, in a way I've always been slightly more inclined to suffer. But it's reminding me of the Marxist critique of the Sex & The City movie my sister just sent me…

MEGAN: I am sitting here trying to reconcile the mental picture of a Marxist paying $10 (or sucking up to PR people) to see a movie (let alone actually watching it) that, at a minimum, glorifies conspicuous consumption. Also, I will admit I sorta don't care to see it, even if I have to give up my girl card. I never thought she should end up with Big, I always thought he sorta sucked and I thought the finale was a disappointing cop-out and so I don't care anymore.
8:30 AM
MOE: Yeah, I basically thought Big was the only good thing in a sea of really fucking boring people. Miranda's husband I also liked. Aidan gave me the vapors.Peggy Noonan on McClellan. She defends him, says he should be defended as a contributor to the historical record, finds the triteness of his insights and the obviousness of his argument "all too believable" — not to mention the fact that he has no defenders. "I want to quote his defenders, but he doesn't have any." OH PEGGY. You might have checked this little blog we know… It only quotes you every Friday…

MEGAN: Did we really defend him? I mean, I guess I do believe him because he doesn't say anything that isn't playing into Bush's shitty approval ratings.
MOE: ARGHHHHH SO WHAT.
MEGAN: Also, I give a hells yeah to Steve (Miranda's husband) and Aidan. Yum.
MOE: He's not running for anything!
MEGAN: Bush? Yes, thankfully.
MEGAN: I mean, I hate to find myself agreeing with Peggy here, but it's like, wow, Scott McClellan felt out-of-the-loop and lied to? I'm actually only surprised that he noticed and said something about it.
MOE: McClellan. That's the thing. Dude writes a book. No discernible agenda of self-servingness. About the excesses and evils of the "constant campaign." And everyone's like, "What's the campaign?" and "I don't see how this is going to affect the campaign," and "Why didn't he tell us this when it could have impacted a campaign?"
MOE: In any case he's got a crush on Obama
MEGAN: Oh, well, he didn't say it when it could affect a campaign because he was still working there. Duh. Also, would it have changed anyone's mind in 2004? Doubtful. Kerry lost by a bunch.
MEGAN: I love how it's him and Jenna against the world on that one.
MEGAN: Whoa, wait. Maybe it's not Obama on whom he has a crush?
MOE: Milbank mockery
MEGAN:

He's a bit thinner around the middle, and the sideburns are comically longer

MEGAN: Damn, dude, mocking a man's facial hair?
MOE: Dude do you remember Robbie in My Three Sons? Those were some comical sideburns, especially when it switched to color.
MEGAN: I have seen comical sideburns, sir, and I pronounce McClellan's wispy and a bit sparse, possibly in need of a good shaving, but I wouldn't call them "comical"
MOE: Oh shit some dude is aping your steez but …so much more cringetacularly!

Soup to nuts? Campbell's and Planters are here for the looking. I can't think of a single sector of the American economy that directly or indirectly doesn't have some sort of Washington representation.

MOE: Um I love how Condi Rice is recovering from being so pilloried by McClellan.
MEGAN: That's a week late and a dollar short, dude. Also, Mr. Korologos is a former Bush appointee, and is now a "strategic adviser" which means he does everything up to the point of official lobbying in order to avoid registration. So, um, what a great defender. Someone who uses his former position to almost lobby but stay under the radar.
MEGAN: Ugh, I seriously, seriously cannot see Gene Simmons anymore without flashing back to the demoralizing experience of seeing his sex tape. That was cringetastic and unimpressive. Spits on his finger to be able to finger the fake-titted chick. Small penis. Never removes his shirt. That line from B