• In news that will resonate with parents everywhere, Sasha and Malia Obama are apparently shirking their doggie duties at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Says mom: "I'm still up at 5:15 a.m. taking my dog out." [People]

• Speaking of dog fights, despite the protestations of his colleagues, Supreme Court Justice David Souter - who was instrumental in preventing the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 1992 - is planning to retire at the end of the Court's current term, this June. Prepare for more wingnuttery, i.e. a highly entertaining confirmation battle. [NY Times]
• Three (female) names being bandied about as Souter's replacement: Sonia Sotomayor, Diane P. Wood, Elena Kagan. Oh, and these formidable ladies: Kathleen M. Sullivan, Kim McLane Wardlaw, Jennifer M. Granholm, Leah Ward Sears. [Washington Post]
• More details on the female contenders, here: [The Nation]
• Notre Dame will not be awarding its top honor during commencement this year: its intended recipient, law professor and anti-choicer Mary Ann Glendon, turned it down in protest over the decision to have President Obama speak to the university's graduates. [Time]
• Other Catholics are not so up in arms: according to a poll, only 25% oppose the university's decision to invite the President to speak. [US News]
• In less surprising survey results, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reports that churchgoers are more likely to support torturing terror suspects. There's a blasphemous joke about the Crucifixion to be made here, but I'm not the one to make it. [CNN]
• The truth about the United States' torture program continues to seep out: Two of its architects, psychologists and former military men Bruce Jensen and Jim Mitchell, boasted about being paid $1,000 a day to oversee the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" techniques. [ABC News]
• Guess who's still not talking about the CIA's interrogation memos? [LA Times]
• No surprise here: "Now, the recent release of Justice Department memos authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques has given [Abu Ghraib guard Charles] Graner and other soldiers new reason to argue that they were made scapegoats for policies approved at high levels." [Washington Post]
• Get me a truth commission! Does Peggy Noonan's latest torturous WSJ column compare the country's chief executive to the unnamed romantic interest in a famous Roberta Flack/Fugees song? [WSJ]
• Michael "Heckuva Job" Brownie is criticizing the Obama Administration's response to the threat of swine flu, alleging that the threat level has been raised because the White House wants more "attention" and "legitimacy". A suggestion for Mr. Brown: Stop while you're ahead. Oh, and the WHO raises the threat level, not the White House. [US News]
• How long before Daily Show editors or some enterprising videographer makes a response to this absolutely insane "rebranding" video cooked up by the GOP? [Politico]

Programming note: Megan is ailing today, hence the different byline - and completely boring, straightforward take - on the items in the News at 10 post. My apologies.

Today, I asked everyone who was up and about and able to join me (and one another) for one great last insane discussion of the news. Those friends of mine crazy enough to do so included Moe Tkacik, Huffington Post's Jason Linkins, The Washington Independent's Spencer Ackerman, Campus Progress's Kay Steiger, and Gawker's incomparable Alex Pareene.

Before I go into it, though, I am going to use this space to say something about the people with whom I've had the privilege to write this feature this past year. Every one of them (except Moe who, like me, actually got paid to do this for a while) generously gave of their time, intelligence, humor and early, early mornings to do this with me and was appreciated a great deal. So, to David Ferguson, Steve Ralls, Jill Filipovic, Latoya Peterson, Rebecca Traister, Jim Newell and Asma Hasan, who couldn't be here for this last one: Thank you.

JASON: Hello to everyone in the room.

KAY: Morning all! I think the only comfort to being "back at work" January 2 is that it's Friday.

JASON: Ha suckaz. I am not back to work till Tuesday. When this is over, I'm going back to the warm body in my bed.

MEGAN: My only comfort is that I am back to doing this from my own couch. It would have been from my own bed, which is where I did it for at least a month last year, but I forgot to bring my computer into the bedroom last night.

MOE: Happy NY folks! I have a personal slogan that completely undermines my projections for the economy and the health of cultural pluralism etc. "IT'S FINE IN '09." And thus far I've had no internet connection problems so…

MEGAN: Someone is being optimistic! Sort of like Sarah Palin, who is totes convinced that Levi is going to get his GED and Bristol will head back to school next week to finish high school.

MOE: And I'm SO going back to bed for which I remembered to swipe an old blanket from my parents' house, holy shit it's cold. Were any of you guys in DC over the 75-degree break?

MEGAN: Nah, I was in upstate NY, but it totally hit like 47, which is like 70.

KAY: I got back in DC on Monday, and let me tell you — it's way warmer here than in Minnesota.

JASON: DC has been fluctuating between wind chill frigidity and "Let's just skip right to May" for the past two weeks.

MEGAN: In honor of Moe, I think we ought to discuss Peggy Noonan's new columnin which she suggests C-sections are classist, admits to awkward segues, calls Hillary Clinton more glamorous than Caroline Kennedy and wishes for her to be more of a princess. And I'm not even done reading it yet.

JASON: That sounds like a lot of pure Noonantastic WONDERMENT for just one column.

MEGAN: Wait! I just got to the part where she speculates on a run by Jenna Bush for the Senate seat from Texas in 2053. She's sure Jenna couldn't win.

JASON: Her columns are like classist C-sections for my BRAIN.

MOE: I wonder which one of those two is proudest of their moms. And does being a national symbol of American stupidity have any effect on your kids' value of education? Guess we'll see! Also: fuck Caroline Kennedy, and also fuck Israel. And Jenna has my vote.

MEGAN: Well, not that anyone outside of Albany cares, but Asseumbly Speaker Sheldon Silver who spent the 12 years of Pataki's tenure in office more or less rolling over like an obedient puppy — I predict great things for him when he runs for a House seat — is rolling over like an obedient puppy and dropping his opposition to her so that David Paterson isn't mad at him.

SPENCER: [enters the room] Jesus, all of you woke up earlier than I did.

KAY: Fear the wrath of David P, Sheldon Silver. Fear it.

MEGAN: Shelly really needs a good belly rub, David. Go ahead, it's fine, he won't bite, he doesn't even have teeth.

JASON: Noonan: "The thing about America is it is always ahead of the clichés, always one step ahead of an assumed limit." OY. Someone needs to go to her work and knock the dicks out of her mouth.

MOE: This column is so classic Peggy. "I hate glamorous rarefied New York and all its superficial beautiful people! Whatever became of true glamorous beauty? You know, the old "up by my bootstraps and enormous discipline" type of beauty, which is the only type that is authentic! Here's what God has been telling me…"

JASON: HA! YES.

SPENCER: New York is not interesting. Authenticity is not interesting. Lack of authenticity is not interesting. New York arrivistes who write about New York are not interesting. New York natives who complain about New York arrivisites are not interesting.

MEGAN: It's completely awesome:

This is one reason modern political dynasties tend to have a deleterious effect on our politics. When you get new people in the process who think politics is about meaning, they tend to bring the meaning with them. On the other hand, those who've learned that politics is about small and shallow things, and the romance of dynasties, bring that with them. (They also bring old retainers, sycophants, and ingrained money lines, none of which help the common weal.) Those who are just born into it and just want to continue it, bring a certain ambivalence. And signal it. They're always slouching toward victory.

No, Peggy, that's what happens when you bring new staffers on board. New politicians are never really new, just new to whatever office they've advanced themselves into by shallow things like campaigns — except for the rare exception like the new New Orleans Congressman Cao. I just get annoyed that all this subtext is still about Reagan. She's got a bigger hard-on for Reagan than practically anyone else in politics, and more than Condi has for Bush. Peggy should know from politicians bringing sycophants to Washington.

MOE: Yeah well there's the subtext, but this column is not about 1980. It is: Barack Obama —at least he's not a Clinton! Hillary Clinton — at least he's not a Kennedy! I wonder if Michelle Obama had a C-section? The answer to that question could really assist my struggle to decide how I/God feel about her character!

JASON: I am enjoying Dexter Filkins latest article on Afghanistan. The headline is fantastic. "Bribes Corrode Afghans’ Trust in Government." It's a total WOW HOW DID ALL OF THIS STUFF HAPPEN ACCOUNT.

Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.

The system works!

SPENCER: Where have I read that story before?

MOE: I have skimmed the whole first page and there is no mention of erectile dysfunction. The Post wins.

KAY: This line is pretty awesome, though: "pharmaceutical enhancements for aging patriarchs with slumping libidos" Maybe they're slumping toward victory, er, an erection.

MEGAN: I mean, I don't think Viagra gives a man his libido back, as libido is sexual desire, no? It gives him back the ability to have an erection back, which if he didn't have a libido wouldn't be necessary anyway.

MOE: I think the ability to get an erection def affects a dude's libido. They're simple that way, etc. etc.

SPENCER: Not that Linkins and I would know, high-five.

JASON: HAHA. Give me another decade. In my family, our prostates are like ticking time bombs.

MOE: Oooooh I am a total prostate "expert" and my advice is: limit animal product intake, quit smoking, etc. etc. It is so cold I have almost personally quit smoking and I don't even have a prostate!

SPENCER: And speaking of. Notice the voice of defiance raised by Jim O'Bierne — husband of National Review's Kate — in opposition to the temerity shown by Barack Obama for staffing his own Pentagon. O'Beirne was so committed to quality public service that when he was in charge of hiring people for the occupation of Iraq he asked whether they voted for Al Gore and solicited their thoughts on Roe.

MEGAN: Oh, God, you know, I read about that memo earlier this week and I thought it seemed pretty fucking whiny for a political appointee to bitch to other political appointees that their tenure serving a partisan President would end with the inauguration of one with a different party, but I didn't realize that!

However, he said, if employees "harbor residual doubts" then they can "content yourself with the likelihood that it was your outstanding performance as a Bush appointee that drew the opposition's attention to you."

Yeah, the Bush Pentagon: a paragon of public service and outstanding bureaucratic performances.

SPENCER: For the last CH, answer this for me, will you? Why do you people read Peggy Noonan? You have singlehandedly doubled her readership by making her a staple of this feature. And for what? She's irrelevant.

MOE: I like her sentences. Tom Frank does too, he told me.

SPENCER: Namedropper.

MOE: She's not irrelevant. She's always the most-clicked shit on that shit.

MEGAN: She's Peggy! She's the right's answer to Maureen Dowd, and also far more readable than just about any major newspaper columnist who subscribes to a similar philosophy.

MOE: Reading Dowd is painful. Reading Noonan is fun!

KAY: Also shorter than Camille Paglia columns.

JASON: I think Peggy Noonan is widely read for her MAGICAL THINKING. And also because every column is like a puzzlebook, leading readers to the location of her secret stash of laudanum.

MEGAN: Man, I want to share in her secret stash of laudanum.

JASON: I will find it! It will be a mjor component of being fine in '09.

MEGAN: Also, in my head, when I typed "She's Peggy!" was a chorus of dancers doing jazz hands. So maybe I don't need the laudanum after all.

JASON: No. YOU NEED THE LAUDANUM.

MOE: Camile Paglia is too vicious. Noonan has a Maddow-esque gentleness to her. I like that in conservatives. And I wonder if I can get laudanum from this new doctor. I would say Peggy Noonan = interesting. Caroline ≠ interesting. Gaza ≠ interesting. Joseph Cao = interesting.

MEGAN: The Senate segeant-at-arms forcibly blocking Blago appointee Roland Burris from the floor of the Senate tomorrow = interesting.

MOE: Jenna Bush = interesting. Any other Bush ≠ not interesting. Zbignew Brzezinski absolutely fucking gold. His daughter = meh.

KAY: Also, as a total aside, this one about Barack Obama has to be one of the most obvious of 2009, "To Some Conservatives, Advisers Are Alarmingly Liberal." I think that's ≠ not interesting

SPENCER: How do you make that counterslash in your equals sign?

JASON: GOD ROLAND BURRIS IS THE BEST. And Bobby Rush! Spencer, you and Eli need to drop another verse.

SPENCER: I don't want to turn into Capitol Steps. That would be backslash-in-equals-sign interesting.

MEGAN: Roland Burris thinks the Senate will totally let him in anyway, because he's already found Peggy Noonan's laudanum stash and sipped deeply from the bottle.

JASON: They are writing a sequel to BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES in Chicago. Honestly, though? I'm not sure how the Senate keeps him out. I can't remember the name of the case that applies, but all the legal opinions I've read that run around it seem pretty sketchy to me.

MEGAN: I think they are trying to just keep him off the floor until they figure out something better to do. It's not like he can vote retroactively. So if they bar him from the floor long enough for Illinois to get its shit together and impeach Blago, sign up for a special election and whatever else, then he'll never really serve. I wonder if they can keep him out of office space? I'm assuming he'll end up in the basement at best, like Milton in Office Space

SPENCER: All of you read Courtney Love's MySpace blog, right? Did you notice that her new record didn't come out on schedule? The "head administrator of her MySpace" explains:

Courtney Love is a true artist, and as most true artist, the true artist simply communicates from within. That special place that Courtney holds so deep, especially for her fans is a really honest haven that exhibits skill, versatility, self-discipline, formal and conceptual rigor, and a commitment to excellence.

Sounds like Peggy Noonan.

MEGAN: Spencer, you have officially blown my mind with that comparison.

MOE: OMG if "edgy" "magazines" still existed one of them could have Peggy Noonan interview Courtney Love and Vice Versa. But I think Peggy Noonan is more like Gwen Stefani.

JASON: I'm going to think of "Doll Parts" whenever I read Noonan now.

SPENCER: Courtney apparently has "30 million dollars in sponsorships, "from a prominent feminine hygiene/menstrual company and a prominent tequila company" but I don't think Peggy Noonan has figured out how to monetize her column yet.

MEGAN: Tampons and tequila? That sounds like my Christmas week.

MOE: Yeah but Peggy doesn't exactly scream HYGIENE the way Courtney Love does

KAY: Wait, hygiene products want to advertise with Courtney Love? I guess she's a cautionary tale.

JASON: They need to bring about a merger between those two companies.

MEGAN: Dude, I would totally switch tampon brands for that shit. "Free bottle of alcohol with every box?" I would even start using OB and shoving that shit up in there with my fingers.

SPENCER: CL also has some unique observations this morning about the financial crisis:

Rob Jrs latent homosexuality its recieved psychiatric wisdom that anyone that homophobic AND Mysoginitsic, ( He roundhoused him after he told him0 my employee= that he worked for ME) is on some level a repressed homosexual,
so in terms of lawyers yes i have contacted a few m fron Civil Rights to Lititgation, id rather go deal with the mortgage fraud sitiuation wich has now grown to over 800,000,000 netted by the Estate Of Kurt Cobain and embezzled by a cospiracy of cpas , lawyer slash bankers and a few corrupt loan officers, look at Dovetail enterprises and all the dirty old south developement or David Sitt the Hasidic developer in Brooklyn in New York...

MOE: Oh hey look here guys do you think this means Israel has nukes?

MEGAN: Israel doesn't have nukes the way that Courtney Love doesn't have drugs.

JASON: But...I thought there was "Growing concern over Hamas’s new arsenal!"

MEGAN: Did Hamas steal the nukes that we all pretend Israel doesn't have?

SPENCER: Look, proportionality in warfare is a fundamentally anti-semetic concept. The Qassams are a kind of Chinese water torture.

MOE: Long sigh

But unless the current furious street protests spark a region-wide revolution that scares the wits out of Israel and its friends, Hamas will still face the same painful old choice of how to come to terms with an immensely more powerful and equally determined enemy.

KAY: Sigh, indeed.

SPENCER: Ah, the Economist's rhetorical style: pose a choice between two extremes that don't materialize on the ground and tsk-tsk the one that possesses the least establishment respectability. The "painful old choice" that Israel has to face is how to stop confusing metaphysical kind-changes — "crushing Hamas' will" — with military strategy while providing for the negotiated settlement with an increasingly radicalized Palestinian population, since that's the only path to sustainable security. Sorry for not being interesting this morning. And yes, it's true, the Economist is the least Jew-controlled of all major publications. But still.

JASON: In some cases, even observing the effects of warfare can be fundamentally anti-Semitic. And, let's all remember, those Palestinian kids deserve Sean Penn-like credit for their acting ability.

MOE: LOL today in anecodotnomic indicators: piggy banks "flying off shelves" (Ha ha ha the proverbial flying pigs!)

"People were very upfront about the need to save...the pig is very symbolic of that sentiment."

MEGAN: So did anyone else read about the Muslim family thrown off an Airtran flight for noticing that they were sitting really close to the engines? What, no flying big jokes about the AirTran employees and air marshalls?

JASON: I didn't know AirTran still flew! Weren't they relegated to the shitty terminal at National? I'd pull everyone off those planes, for their own safety. That airline is going to fuel much of the footage for DISCOVERY's new show "Destroyed in 30 Seconds" (which J.G. Ballard will masturbate to, furiously).

SPENCER: I didn't, but it's perfectly understandable, since despite months and years of careful reporting, if you read Marty Peretz's blog America is host to legions of Muslim terrorists, so what's the big deal?

SPENCER: My last two domestic flights have been AirTran, and as dismal as their National terminal is, I have found my flights affordable and comfortable. They've got a bad record?

JASON: Maybe I'm thinking of ATA! Or Braniff! I fly Braniff exclusively, on their tequila-and-feminine-napkins plan.

MOE: Oh…my…GOD. That said the only place I'd ever seen air marshals remove a passenger and interrogate him was REAGAN National. Also can we blame the terror war in part for decimating the Motown economy you think? Did anyone read the Weekly Standard cover story about Detroit on that note?

SPENCER: I couldn't get past "Detroit isn't in fact dead" on the coverline. Why bother creating a straw man if your heart's not into it?

MEGAN: With Obama coming into office, all the Weekly Standard writers hearts are broken! It's why this week's cover features a muscle-y flexing Uncle Sam and a story about lowering taxes, to give them all something to jerk off to.

SPENCER: Please! No Weekly Standard writers are closeted homosexuals! Where did you get that idea?

ALEX: [enters the room] Morning!

MEGAN: Look who the cat dragged in! Man, I hope you're at least hungover.

ANA MARIE: [enters the room]

MEGAN: Hey, Ana! I hope you're hungover, too

ANA MARIE: Not unless it's from cold medicine.

SPENCER: She's on that sizzurp

JASON: You need to keep sipping that stuff for the "fun" part to start.

MEGAN: We were just discussing how absolutely zero Weekly Standard writers are closeted homosexuals.

ANA MARIE: Well, now I guess that Tucker left... (kidding, Tucker!)

MOE: The Weekly Standard story actually turns into a Charlie LeDuff profile, which is kind of fun. And speaking of ha ha yeah don't tell Paul Wall drank ain't "fun."

MEGAN: Is cold medicine cheaper than alcohol by weight? Because I feel like a teeny, tiny bottle of it is like $6 or $8, and you can get booze for at least that price that, though crappy, certainly tastes better. Except for the grape stuff, that was awesome. The cherry flavored shit makes me want to gag.

JASON: I had friends who did it habitually, and none ended up working for Giuliani. I think that Boone's Farm more readily paved that path than the Tussin.

ALEX: I'm thinking salvia is responsible for the Fred Thompson "campaign" actually.

SPENCER: I used to entice hardcore kids in high school to get Tussed up, which created an interesting colloquy about whether cough medicine was straight-edge-acceptable.

ANA MARIE: I'm going to do an awesome segue now: SPEAKING OF GAGGING, what news have I missed this morning?

JASON: OOOH. I would love to see Fred Thompson star in a Salvia YouTube! Directed by Guy Maddin.

MOE: Okay I've gone back to read the Weekly Standard piece, which is a thrilling combination of "complete clip job hackery with no real point" and "kinda interesting." Message: Detroit totally sucks, but that is exactly what one of the nation's preeminent journalists loves about it!" LeDuff disses Tom Frank, which is stupid, but I think he probably doesn't read Tom Frank, and neither does anyone at the Weekly Standard because if they did they'd be working for Media Matters by now. Sorry if I killed the uh mizzzood up in here.

MEGAN: No, I'm sure we can crack a joke about which psychotropic the Weekly Standard writers take to make themselves completely not homosexual.

ANA MARIE: You have a lot of faith in awesome power of Tom Frank.

ALEX: THE BAFFLER WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE

MOE: PAREENE? WTF dude?

SPENCER: Remember when Matt Labash was the next big thing? Why didn't he run off and become a blogger or something, rather than writing the same piece for 10 years?

JASON: Or just in the flexible standards at Media Matters.

ANA MARIE: The Baffler is how I met my husband, so you know, it changed MY LIFE. Your mileage may vary. FYI: Labash has the best job in journalism. I've talked to him through about a million different MSM pubs trying to lure him away and it boils down to this: He gets to write WHATEVER he wants and he makes decent money doing it. I would not leave that job either.

MEGAN: That would be kind of awesome, both the "money" part and the "WHATEVER I want" part.

SPENCER: So the-same-piece-for-ten-years is whatever he wants?

ANA MARIE: I don't think HE sees it as the same pieces. I paraphrase Steve Albini (who I think was talking about the Spinanes? some Pavementy knock-off and that trend in general) when he said, "hey, if you like grape jellybeans, go ahead and eat nothing but fucking grape jellybeans just don't ask me to tell you it's meat."

SPENCER: But isn't it, though? Conservative-leaning ironic detachment, color heavy, policy light, politics-as-absurdity, garnished with ironic machismo? And isn't that what P.J. O'Rourke wrote when he was funny 25 years ago? (I guess O'Rourke didn't do machismo of any sort but still.)

MOE: His Breakfast Table w. David Brooks actually changed my life back in 2000, and What's The Matter With Kansas actually narrated the philosophical conversions of several people I know, both IRL and anonymous total stranger internet bloggers but yeah I have a total TF hard-on, everyone knows this. I dated this one guy a few months ago who I think was actually kind of jealous. I think I would do him over Stephen Malkmus. Incidentally also a UVA alum. But not I do not imagine a reformed college Republican.

ALEX: Hah, the gratuitous Tom Frank swipe is preceded by a gratuitous Gawker swipe. Labash has all of our numbers. We don't care about poor black people in Detroit even though we PRETEND TO.

ANA MARIE: Labash is enjoying his grape jelly beans and being paid to eat them. To him each my have its own subtle symphony of flavors. It may strike you as unfair that he makes decent money for such a stunt, but I guess I just like grape jelly beans myself enough that it's not the thing I'm gonna criticize him for. And, of course, I'm jealous. At Suck, we got pegged as doing "snarkiness on autopilot" and, well, we weren't but ever since then I've thought that if I COULD do "snarkiness on autopilot," well, that would be a GREAT job.

MEGAN: I think if you can't snark on autopilot, you're trying to hard to snark.

SPENCER: I don't begrudge anyone for getting money, and certainly not during the death of journalism.

MEGAN: Anyway, Ana, to answer your initial question, there's no news to catch up on. Obama's election didn't tilt the universe off its axis, the economy still sucks, there's still fighting in the Middle East, crazy shit is going down in Congress that is all sound and fury signifying nothing. So this feature didn't change the world.

JASON: Moe's had some good prostate cancer advice, though!

MEGAN: Yes, I think once we had some good hangover advice, like eat egg sandwiches, take aspirin, drink water and mainline coffee. Anyway, so, I'm going to go code the shit out of this, making it somewhat coherent in time for my deadline. You guys were all awesome, thank you.

MOE:: Oh GAWKER MEDIA, think of all the CHANGE you might have incited had you not given away your politics blog to prove the point that politics doesn't sell on the internet, which like yeah it is not "nesting" but FREAKING NESTING IS WHY THIS DEPRESSION HAPPENED DUH.

JASON:: Bye Crappy hour!

SPENCER: Bye.

ANA MARIE: ::pouring some cough medicine on the floor::

JASON: Hopefully Jezebel will be labelled a "shovel ready infrastructure project" by the next admin.

ALEX: Oh I forgot that my one piece of important Senate recount news <— FAREWELL CRAPPY HOUR enjoy one last laugh at the expense of my home state, NEVER FORGET.


MOE: Now I feel a twinge of regret for not taking any speed today.

ANA MARIE:: We all picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.

JASON: Oh. Did we agree to stop?

MEGAN: Who's stopping? I have an entire afternoon free now. Jason?

JASON: I do! Though I am hearing from another room the distinct sounds of a cat vomiting, so I had better tend to that.

ANA MARIE: I will see you all in what ever form Crappy Hour next takes, in this life or the next, because if it's first thing in the morning, it must be crappy.

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 Bridget Jones never seemed so apt: "Coitus is brief and perfunctory."
MOE: Ah! I often use the word "perfunctory" to describe sex sessions. I didn't realize Bridget Jones — well, that and distinctly shitty taste in dudes — was to blame. That is so depressing. Let's talk about something else!! Victory on Al Qaeda perhaps? That epic Bear Stearns series? The Fundamentalist Pedophiles being awarded their inbred children? It's all so heartening.

MEGAN: Oh, don't forget Obama's new clergy problem. This time, he's white!

MEGAN: Oh, by the way, you can go watch it right here. Why in the world would they not have stopped taping the sermons, anyway?
MEGAN: Oh, by the way, speaking of bombshells, 111 countries formally adopted a treaty to eliminate cluster bombs yesterday. Just guess who the big hold outs were? Us, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan. We're always in such great company on these things.
MOE: Hahahaha China and Pakistan! They're just like US!
MEGAN: On this and the death penalty and torture! Hoorah!
9:20 AM
MEGAN: Oh, great, the Burmese junta has decided that it doesn't need any stinkin' refugee camps.
MOE: CIA director Michael Hayden:

"The fact that we have kept [Americans] safe for pushing seven years now has got them back into the state of mind where 'safe' is normal," he said. "Our view is: Safe is hard-won, every 24 hours."

Inspiring! Me to throw up!!
MOE: So what's the deal with the polygamists? Why do they get their kids back? How did that happen? Etc. etc.

MEGAN: They get their kids back as soon as they can, I guess. It seems that the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the state had failed to prove immediate danger to all the kids, since that's the standard.
MOE: Oh god and more.
MEGAN: Like, obviously, infants weren't about to be married off and shit. The state tried to argue that just being raised in the community was turning the boys into cousin-marrying pedos, but the courts didn't buy it.
MOE: BUT WHY?
MEGAN: Because they couldn't prove it.
MEGAN: I mean, let's just all admit that our legal system is pretty fucked, but it's less fucked than a lot of others.
MOE: Here's the dissenting opinion though it also concedes:

On this record, however, I agree that there was no evidence of imminent “danger to the physical health or safety” of boys and pre-pubescent
girls to justify their removal from the YFZ Ranch, and to this extent I join the Court’s opinion. Id. § 262.201(b)(1).

Maybe we should just redefine "imminent."

MEGAN: I guess it's just, like, parents have the right to fuck their kids up, home school them and teach them that humans co-existed with dinosaurs in the garden of Eden and that a woman should aspire to no more than to be a good wife to whomever she's told to marry.
MEGAN: They just don't have to right to physically abuse them or force them to have sex.
MOE: NO THEY FUCKING DON'T
MEGAN: Well, legally they do. Whether they ought to is a different question.
MEGAN: Should the state decide which religious views are valid, short of one that requires or encourages physical or sexual abuse?
MEGAN: Should the state decide by which moral values you should raise your kids?
MOE: What's on the books w/r/t cults? This is fucking mind control. They created their own totalitarian parasite state within a state, which is the only reason it's managed to survive for more than a century, and it has nothing to do with values!

MEGAN: I mean, I guess I feel like, great, if they choose my moral values, that could be totally cool but do I trust the government to choose my values? And I sure as hell fucking don't. I don't trust that they won't decide that some ignorant fucking Christian piece of shit females-aren't-as-good pastor gets to decide.
MEGAN: There isn't anything on the books about cults. As long as there's no physical or sexual coercion, they're legal. You're allowed to brainwash your followers as long as you don't stockpile weapons, try to kill everyone or fuck children.
MEGAN: Luckily for law enforcement, the really scary ones rely on physical coercion, stockpiling weapons, killing people and fucking underage girls. I mean, that's obviously unlucky for the people involved.
MOE: You know about Germany. Don't they have some decent laws on this matter?

MEGAN: Sort of. I mean, Germany's basically a two-religion state (Lutherism and Catholicism) with some provisions made for Jews. In fact, your tax dollars support the Church to which you belong, interestingly. They don't recognize Scientology as a religion, I'm given to understand but will no doubt be corrected, in no small part because to advance within the religion costs you money. They view Scientology (and, in my opinion, rightly so) as a money-making enterprise. They do allow regular LDS (i.e., Mormons) despite the tithing "requirements" of that Church.

MOE: I guess we need to start this now. Peggy Noonan

And they were on the right side, connected to the one making the breakthrough, shattering the glass. They were going to be part of breaking it into a million little pieces that could rain down softly during the balloon drop at the historic convention, each of them catching the glow of the lights. Some network reporter was going to say, "They look like pieces of the glass ceiling that has finally been shattered."
I know: Barf. But also: Fine. Politics should be fun.

MOE: This could sorta be an R. Kelly song:

You want to say "Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues, they break each other's bones, they like to hit you low and hear the crack, it's like that for the boys and for the girls."

MEGAN: My dad's nickname is Butch. Also, wtf is with the overwrought imagery today, Peggy? And why is there a crazy loud motorcycle idling outside my window?

MOE: I'm sure at this point, Peggy Noonan has a programmable robot supplying her with the day's overwrought imagery but that glass ceiling line seems like it might have come old school from her own pen…and I suppose we could talk about Hagee although if it's not newsworthy enough to occupy a minute on the fair and balanced network…
MEGAN: I love, by the way, that calling the Catholic Church the "great whore" and suggesting that Katrina was punishment for not being assholes to gay people was totally acceptable to the campaign, but suggesting that Hitler was sent by God to drive the Jews to Palestine which is needed to bring about the rapture is the thing that gets Hagee the boot. Jews in Florida that don't like Obama? This one's for you.

MOE: One thing I wondered reading fucking Michael Gerson (why did I do that?) this morning is whether the Republicans, when they are skewering Obama's ability to win over these guys:

Tough hill-country men voted for her, men so backward they'd give the lady a chair in the union hall. Tough Catholic men in the outer suburbs voted for her, men so backward they'd call a woman a lady. And all of them so naturally courteous that they'd realize, in offering the chair or addressing the lady, that they might have given offense, and awkwardly joke at themselves to take away the sting. These are great men. And Hillary got her share, more than her share, of their votes.

…ever stop mid-sentence and say to themselves, "Oh yeah…Reagan Democrats…we sure rendered those guys economically extinct!"
'
MEGAN: Oh, wait, and while he's making his point he gets to make an offhand slap at all us snotty little feminists, too, who think that men that give up seats for us are terrible human beings. Actually, Mikey, I wouldn't take the seat because that guy's probably been on his feet all day (and I worked in a factory, so I know how much that sucks even when you're 19) and he's probably as old as my dad and I would think it rude of me to accept even though it would be nice of him to offer. And I'll bet my dad, a union member who occasionally attends Catholic church with my mom and lives in a rural area, voted for Obama.
MOE: Eugene Robinson quotes the Talking Heads today.
MEGAN: Is it sad that I saw that headline and my reptile brain started singing "What a Girl Wants"?
MOE: Oh sorry that quote was from Noonan, who was actually writing about sexism.

Where to begin? One wants to be sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton at this point, if for no other reason than to show one's range. But her last weeks have been, and her next weeks will likely be, one long exercise in summoning further denunciations. It is something new in politics, the How Else Can I Offend You Tour.

MEGAN: Um, ok, well, I take it back about Mikey.
MEGAN: But if she was actually saying that, I'm saying it to Peggy now. Also, the How Else Can I Offend You tour made me snicker a little.

MOE: "If only to show one's range" was pretty good.
MEGAN: So, is that what Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh have been doing? Showing their range?
MEGAN: Oooh, ooh, Parsley's got videos in which he's all spitting angry mad and bringing The Crazy, and they showed them just now on MSNBC, but I'm sure we'll never see them again
MOE: Oooh ooh tell me more about Parsley I'm too lazy to Google.
9:40 AM
MEGAN: He endorsed McCain like ages ago.
MOE: Also dude I think Coulter showed some range with the Hillary thing. Conservatives really do fucking hate McCain. Limbaugh was just being himself. Also a reader wants us to discuss Hillary as VP. Um…what's to discuss: maybe a "dream"…but not a pleasant one
MEGAN: He's totally crazy, and McCain just rejected him and his endorsement.
MEGAN: Oh, for Chrissakes, why would she give up a Senate seat? I get that Bill wants to be the VP's husband or something because he'll be more prominent and he lurves him some Executive Branch (having never served in the legislative one), but that would be stupid, to give up a lifetime Senate seat for VP. Al Gore showed it's no guarantee to the Presidency

MOE: It sounds horrible and bad to live through, like a piano fallen through a roof or something, but then there's also the part of me that perceives the election through some internal amiable-but-reflexively-anti-"Liberal" angry white man Obama Needs To Win and he just hates it on basic "What the shit, a black guy running with a woman now? What are we trying to prove here?" terms. It's illogical, because she's actually just about the most qualified candidate and on some level not picking her to be VP might be sexist, but it's also not why she would be a nightmare running mate.
MEGAN: She would be a nightmare running mate because she wouldn't be a running mate, she'd garner as much if not more media attention. It would be a co-ticket, or certainly perceived that way, and I can't imagine her wanting to be second banana so I can't think that she'd allow herself to play that role (and good for her).
MEGAN: And, by that role, I mean, she wouldn't allow herself to recede into the background even a little bit.
MEGAN: And she shouldn't, and she shouldn't be asked to. She'll be far more powerful in the Senate than she'll ever be as VP.
MOE: Hahaha McCain just promoted Obama to "young man" from his previous status of "boy."
MEGAN: Oh, good, someone finally explained to him that other people get the racist implications of that. Congrats, McCain staffers.

MOE: Well some "old hand" named Jim Johnson is apparently running Obama's veepstakes but you didn't hear that from me:

Democratic officials on Thursday discussed Mr. Johnson’s role on condition of anonymity because Mr. Obama had demanded that the process be kept secret and they did not want him to know they were talking about it. Advisers to Mr. Obama declined to discuss the search or any elements of the process.

Disciplined campaigns are totes boring.
MEGAN: Hahaha, I love how they're like, don't tell him we're talking about him, press!! I wonder if those "Democratic officials" are the same ones that inspired the story about Bill wanting Hillary to get it...

MOE: I meant to bring it back to the Jews again but now I've gotta post this fucking thing:

If Jews do flock to John McCain this fall, Obama would be in some trouble (assuming, of course, that Hillary Clinton doesn't win the nomination through a miracle more impressive than the one commemorated every year at Hanukkah); a strong majority of Jewish voters has gone Democratic in presidential elections since 1924. Jews have favored the Democrat in 21 straight presidential elections, and by an average margin of 3-to-1.

MEGAN: Well, but we've never had a Muslim running before.
MOE: WHAT I WAS GONNA SAY! Ooooh guess what percentage of Florida is Jewish?
MEGAN: Well, since my grandparents moved back to upstate New York, can I say 100?

MOE: Five.

But a Gallup poll last month — in the midst of the Wright drama — found Obama beating McCain 61-32 among Jewish voters, a far wider margin than among the population as a whole. While that's lower than John Kerry's 76 percent margin among Jews (and 5 points lower than the 66 percent Hillary Clinton got in the same poll), Obama's campaign isn't worried about making up the difference by November. "If we're beating McCain 2-1 after 'Obama is a Muslim' scares and a month of Rev. Wright, then we're doing pretty well," one aide said.

MEGAN: So he needs to get 75% of 5% of the population to win the state or something? Jesus Christ, people, this is what happens when nobody votes, stupid shit like this matters.

MOE: I'll be back in 10. If you have any ideas about what the fuck we should talk about (besides IT'S FRIDAY) I would be stoked
MEGAN: This?
MOE: I actually did read that. It reminded me of BangieB.
8:30 AM
MEGAN: Oh. My. God. Apparently, the New Kids on the Block are performing live at Rockefeller Center today?
MEGAN: Right the fuck now!
8:40 AM
MEGAN: This may be the first time I've ever seen this many women our age in one place since I went to see the anniversary of Dirty Dancing. Also, there's no "background" track and they, um, kind of suck and are playing a medley. No, I take it back, Joey's pretty good. The background dancers outfits were pretty inexplicable except that they looked like they were from when NKOTB was popular. [This mini recap provided possibly solely for the benefit of my childhood friend Caroline]
MEGAN: Wow, Marky Mark is the much more talented brother.
MOE: Um understatement sorta? Although did you ever see that VH1 special where Donny was talking about how he thought he was Liberace? It was kind of priceless.
MEGAN: No, but now I totally want to. Also, that was 2.5 minutes of my life I will never get back.
MEGAN: Ok, so, other serious stuff? The people that owe the copyright to Curious George are going to due over those monkey T-shirts.
MOE: To due?
MOE: haha
MOE: Kidding!
MOE: Sorry I'm still trying to locate my keys.
MEGAN:

"We find it offensive and obviously utterly out of keeping with the value Curious George represents," said spokesman Rick Blake. "We're monitoring the situation and weighing our options with respect to legal action."

The headline Wednesday on Drudge, from Politico, said, "Republicans Stunned by Loss in Mississippi." It was about the eight-point drubbing the Democrat gave the Republican in the special House election. My first thought was: You have to be stupid to be stunned by that. Second thought: Most party leaders in Washington are stupid - detached, played out, stuck in the wisdom they learned when they were coming up, in '78 or '82 or '94.

They never guessed, back in '86, how government would pay off! They didn't know they'd stay! They came to make a difference and wound up with their butts in the butter. But affluence detaches, and in time skews thinking. It gives you the illusion you're safe, that everyone else is.

The party, Mr. Davis told me, is "an airplane flying right into a mountain."

Could the party pivot from the president? I spoke this week to Clarke Reed of Mississippi, one of the great architects of resurgent Republicanism in the South...Is the Republican solid South over?
"Yeah. Oh yeah." He said, "I eat lunch every day at Buck's Cafe. Obama's picture is all over the wall."

MOE: Okay I cannot tell you how much I read and forgot last night while trying to get to sleep. And then a fucking earthquake came and toppled a thousand cell phone towers and trapped 900 high school students in school and if it's anything like the 1976 earthquake of a slightly lower Richter 240,000 people stand to die.
MOE: Did you also read how in Burma they are counting the survivors because it's easier than counting the dead? I guess the death toll there is supposed to reach 100,000...
MOE: But the Most Emailed story is this thought provoking Tom Friedman column.
MEGAN: That was last week, before the military decided that all the food was for them. So, I think we can safely assume that the total survival rate will be about equal to the members of the junta, the military and their families, since apparently everyone else is just supposed to die quietly and let the soldiers dump their bloated bodies in waterways so no one knows.
MEGAN: Fucking Tom Friedman.
8:55 AM
MOE:

That restriction has angered local government officials like Tin Win who are trying to help rebuild the lives of villagers. He twitched with rage as he described the rice the military gave him.

"They gave us four bags," he said. "The rice is rotten — even the pigs and dogs wouldn't eat it."

He said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had delivered good rice to the local military leaders last week but they kept it for themselves and distributed the waterlogged, musty rice. "I'm very angry," he said, adding an expletive to describe the military.

"The government told us that school must reopen June 1, if you have a schoolhouse or not," Myint Oo told his visitor. "'Teach under a tree if you have to,' they said."

When he began describing the devastation to the school and village, a portly man in a white T-shirt who also seemed to hold a position of power interrupted.

"Don't tell these foreigners anything," the man said.

Myint Oo replied that he wanted to talk to the visitors in the hope that they could help rebuild the village.

"They will send the facts to the world and show the weakness of the Myanmar government," said the man in the white shirt.

"This is not just a new generation, but a new kind of generation...In the omphalocentric process of self-construction and discovery," today's youth "stalks love like a wary hunter, but has no time or target — not even the mellowing Communists — for hate."

MEGAN: Maybe he can talk about how he held the Metro system's budget hostage until they agreed to spend more than a million dollars to change all the signage in the system to reflect the full name of National Airport.
MEGAN: But to guarantee his ability to fuck over the Republican Party and my ability to have something interesting to write about, I would totally make my first political donation to him.
MOE: No Peggy is totes the weird answer to Maureen Dowd. Her prose is kind of hilarious, like the way she seems to go inside a dark room and close her eyes and meditate and return with a Very. Melodramatic. Assessment. Of the feelings and attitudes governing the political awareness of the American populace. I should have Maria do a Best Of Peggy I think. And does McCain really need Bob Barr undermining his campaign when he's got RON PAUL undermining it already?
MEGAN: Scroll down, by the way, for the picture of them standing in front of the Eiffel Tower with a Ron Paul sign. Crazy ass motherfuckers.
MOE: Also: didn't two McCain advisers just step down after admitting to representing the Burmese junta? (That might lose Laura Bush's vote.) McCain is kind of a lousy subject right now.
MOE: Here we go.

Doug Davenport, the regional campaign manager for the mid-Atlantic states, founded the DCI Group's lobbying practice and oversaw the contract with Myanmar in 2002.
"Doug has tendered his resignation and we have accepted it," Jill Hazelbaker, McCain's communications director, wrote in a e-mail.
He joins former DCI Group CEO Doug Goodyear, who resigned yesterday from the post of convention CEO after Newsweek reported that DCI was paid more than $300,000 to represent Myanmar's ruling junta.

The Democratic front-runner's wife did not comment on other rival candidates for the party's nomination, but she has been sniping at Clinton since last summer. According to Obama sources, those public utterances do not reveal the extent of her hostility.

A procedural hearing on Fossella's drunken-driving arrest - which ultimately exposed his double life - is slated for a Virginia courtroom Monday.

MEGAN: Ah, that's the brilliant thing! When he got pulled over for running a red light drunk, his excuse was that he was on his way to a friend's house, after which he admitted he was going to see his sick kid.
MEGAN: Only his official kids were in NY with his wife. And, OMG, they've been having an affair since at least 2003? Five years? Dude, what the fuck. Even Kennedy got a divorce.
MOE: Even Prince Charles got a divorce! Dude did we learn anything over the weekend about this minister who officiated the Jenna wedding?
MEGAN: He's an Obama supporter who also does weddings?

MOE: So Megan. Would you like to have a discussion of the gas tax holiday? Because you aren't the only person who is riled up about

"That might not mean much to my opponent, but I think it means a lot to people who are struggling here, people who commute a long way to work, farmers and truckers," Clinton said. She has called for a windfall tax on oil companies to pay for a gas tax holiday.
"Senator Obama won't provide relief, while Senator McCain won't pay for it," Clinton said. "I'm the only candidate who will provide immediate relief at the pump, with a plan."

"At best, this is a plan that would save you pennies a day for the summer months; that is, unless gas prices are raised to fill in the gap, which is just what happened in Illinois, when we tried this a few years ago," he said.
Meanwhile, unless you can magically impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies overnight to pay for the holiday, it could imperil federal highway funding, and cost Indiana more than 6,000 jobs.

MEGAN: I mean, it's just SO STUPID that I am dumbfounded that people buy this. Like, so, so stupid. So, she's proposing a permanent tax increase on the oil companies to fund a temporary gas tax holiday — even though, hello? Raising oil company taxes means that they will raise gas prices because gas demand is practically inelastic. Also, a gas tax holiday (were it to actually do anything to lower prices) would benefit the people that can afford to have really big, gas-guzzling cars and live in big houses in the suburbs more than those of us who have small, fuel efficient cars that we hardly drive even when we have real jobs. Plus, it takes away money from highway spending, busts the budget, yadda yadda and it's like a preview of Clinton II because no one panders to Reagan Republicans quite like a Clinton (cough, welfare reform, DOMA, don't-ask-don't-tell, cough).
MEGAN: Also, ethanol subsidies, like ethanol tariffs, are going nowhere. But, it is amusing that the corn growers trumped the oil companies (and their favorite oxygenate, MTBE) in Washington due to the stupidity of the oil companies.
MOE: Sing it, sister! What about this new poll saying Americans don't really give a shit about Jeremiah Wright, proving once again that Peggy Noonan, who does "not feel a sense of honest anger or violation at his remarks"can channel the public sentiment of America sort of like ...Bobby Jindal's old platonic girlfriend can channel Satan! (How is that for a segue???)
MEGAN: I don't think one can ever have a good segue into a story about exorcism, but that's as good a one as any. Also, reading that story I actually thought, Hmmm, wow, no wonder everyone is talking about him as VP. He seems so normal but he brings that delish Christ-y crazy that the righties love.

MOE: SRSLY OMG
MOE: OMG OMG.
MOE: First of all I have to credit Christian for noticing that on the Wikipedia and sending it to me and I have to thank you for paying the $1.50 since I, for the second time in the past fortnight, lost my credit card.
MEGAN: I love the word fortnight. Also, a former roommate with a similar habit made up for it by always memorizing her card number.
MOE: Today Bill Kristol examines the Bobby Jindal phenomenon. Apparently "no fewer than four" — does that mean possibly more than four? Or was that just no fewer than three excess words added to the word count Bill? — but anyway, no fewer than four McCain staffers are hyping the 36-year-old Louisiana governor, who converted to Catholicism from Hinduism as a youth, as a possible veep. He is old enough to be too old for Meghan McCain and young enough to be too young for Cindy. Oh yes and he was a Rhodes scholar like Bill Clinton. But let's not bury the lede here. He once had a very good friend named Susan...
MEGAN: Who had a tumor, but it was really a manifestation of her demonic possession.
MEGAN: Because, really, what tumor isn't just a symptom of possession by demons brought on by a roommate whose relative is a Hmong healer?
MEGAN: Or a mother who left something at a non-Christian shrine 30 years ago.
MOE: Right her mother prayed to a PAGAN SHRINE.
MEGAN: Also, if I can be Barack for a minute — you know, elitist — only in Louisiana would this guy be elected governor. No wonder he published this shit somewhere that one has to pay $1.50 to read it.

MEGAN: Also, Morning Joe wants us to know that Bill Clinton made 2 people faint at rallies this weekend. Maybe he's the devil, too?
MOE: Okay so there's this story in the New Oxford Review — which is, I guess, affiliated with Oxford University, and to which he has contributed numerous pieces about his faith over the years. The New Oxford Review's mission statement reads thusly:

HAVE YOU THE GUTS? Yes, many hate us. Ah, but they also fear us. That's why many others love us. If you hunger for the red meat of Catholicism, subscribe! (No bozos or sissies, please.)

MOE: Here's how it starts:

Though she had not said anything, I knew something was wrong. Susan and I had developed an intimate friendship; indeed, our relationship mystified observers, who insisted on finding a romantic component where none existed. I called her after the University Christian Fellowship (UCF) meeting — UCF is an Inter-Varsity Christian group composed of undergraduate and graduate students. Though the interdenominational group's weekly program of songs and prayers had produced the usual emotional high among most members, Susan had left the meeting in a very sullen mood. I asked her to join a group of us who were attending a Christian a cappella concert to be held on campus that same evening.

When we finally reached her dorm room, I promptly sat Susan on a bed and placed myself in a chair located several feet across the room. This physical arrangement was hardly conducive to the love and support I was supposed to be providing, but I was too scared and unsure of myself to get any closer.

They considered skin cancer a minor affliction, something that affects those whose vanity causes them to tan in the sun too long. The only friend who expressed concern was worried about the possibility of contagious cancerous cells.

MEGAN: But, I love that Mr. Used-to-be-a-bio-major doesn't use the word.
MOE: Okay, so, he touches her and she feels better.

During Susan's next wave of tears, I found myself putting my arm around her to provide both physical and emotional support. We were soon sitting on the bed next to each other, and I told her a fairy tale. Instead of tackling all of her problems at once, we took each individual concern — e.g., upcoming finals — and magically solved it. Her problems began to seem insignificant and our ability to overcome adversity soon assumed heroic proportions. We were soon laughing, and despair was definitely vanquished, at least for the night. We were both startled to find my arm around her shoulder, but she asked that I continue to hold her for just a few moments longer. I happily complied and we embraced her problems away; along with my soothing words, the simple gesture of a hug was enough to bring peace to Susan's heart for one night.

Susan did not show up at the cafeteria at our agreed upon time and made little effort to warn me of the scheduling conflict that caused her absence. This inconvenience, minor under normal circumstances, proved to be the starting point of an intense struggle of wills...Waiting for an apology, I refused to talk with Susan for a week. She decided I was being silly and refused to admit any error on her part. Somehow, we finally searched deep and found the maturity to discuss our differences.

I had recently heard a priest confidently proclaim that the Bible's words on such phenomena were never meant to be interpreted literally; he had historical evidence that incidents involving spirits were merely metaphors for tangible events.

I left the room we were in for a moment, on some flimsy pretense, made the sign of the cross in desperation, and pleaded with God for divine assistance. Seconds after I re-entered the room, Susan angrily lashed out at me, telling me she never wanted to talk with me again since I did not love her, and ran out in tears. I tried following her, to no avail. I did not understand what I had done. All I could think was, "Gee, thanks God. So much for prayer."

MEGAN: Right, I mean, as long as he wanted her to be happy and asked God and shit, everything should've been okay. What a selfish bitch, wanting human interaction rather than a deep and meaningful relationship with God.
MOE: So anyway, a few weeks pass and she's about to have an operation and they're all gonna pray on it etc. etc. etc. when it is revealed that Susan only wants sex with Bobby because SHE IS POSSESSED BY THE DEVIL.

In a voice I had never heard before or since, Susan accused me: "Bobby, you cannot even love Susan." Before I even noticed the sound of her voice, I thought it funny that Susan would refer to herself in the third person. Then the full impact of the words hit me. Forgetting the frantic students around me and even poor Susan lying on the floor, I thought of our conversation the day before. The real argument had been whether I was capable of loving Susan. I needed the answer to be yes, more for my sake than ours. I have always been a closed and relatively unemotional person and needed to know that my best friend felt that I at least could love her, due to some very strong remarks made two years before by my former girlfriend (hardly an objective source), I was beginning to doubt that I had the capacity for feeling.

MEGAN: Well, I would doubt that he has the capacity to express feeling, is that the same thing?
MOE: I love this sooooo so much.
MOE: Okay so at this point we should also point out that they had been smelling the sulphuric odor of the devil in Susan's dormroom but didn't think too much of it. Anyway, so she's writing on the floor and they're all trying to exorcise her, and for a brief beautiful moment Jindal loses his faith in Christ. And then Susan runs for the door and only Alice feels like chasing her.
MOE: It is at this moment that Jindal begins questioning his misogyny!
MEGAN: Also, why the fuck did no one think to call, like, a motherfucking ambulance?
MEGAN: Girl's got a tumor on her head, starts seizing and speaking in voices and no one goes, um, doctor? They all go running for a fucking pastor for an exorcism.

MOE:

Alice's presence countered Susan's recent burst of energy, and Alice's confidence inspired us all. Surely Crusade's experienced leader would be able to rescue us and reaffirm our faith in Christ, the Bible, and everything good. Even I felt confident enough to approach God once again; Susan's lunge for the door awakened and invigorated me. Strangely, I found myself repeating the Hail Mary until it became a chant. Being a recent convert to Catholicism, I had yet to accept the Catholic doctrines concerning Mary and considered any form of Marian devotion to be idolatry. Though I had never before prayed a Hail Mary in my life, I suddenly found myself incapable of any other form of prayer.

Susan stayed in the house of a missionary with experience in spiritual warfare in foreign countries. Her sister thought it best she stay out of her own room. Susan's roommate, the daughter of a Hmong faith healer, had decorated the room with supposedly pagan influences. Other theories explaining the night's events soon surfaced. Susan's mother had once worshipped and offered a sacrifice at a pagan altar in the Far East for her husband's health, though he had been healed, she had been warned not to repeat such practices, but had returned to that same altar in the Far East upon hearing of Susan's illness. The UCF staff member dismissed Susan's affliction as a psychological disorder, precipitated by the semester's stress, and advised her to seek professional help. Susan, who had experienced visions and other related phenomena as a child, thought her intense flirting with guys and straying away from God had led to this punishment.

It would never occur to me to lie about any of this shit, but then, I live in New York, where nothing is even quite expected of me at 29, except that I have quelled most of the anxieties associated with once having been deemed "precocious" and are therefore a decent drinking partner — that is a good assumption; you can't be precocious after 28 and that is a fucking giant relief — and maybe begun desiring babies and am therefore a perilous romantic partner (a poor assumption, I am a late bloomer though.)

At 29, everyone knows they can flatter the shit out of you by saying you look 24, and they do, but at 29 you can also talk most bouncers in New York out of needing to see the ID you keep losing because bouncers can see in your skin that you are not bullshitting them, you are what you say you are: old enough to drink prolifically and profitably with minimal incident; old enough to remember the lyrics to most modern rock hits from the years between 1989 and 1996.

Anyway, so 29 is a great year; what can I say.

A part of me would like to be 55 and menopausal and "fulfilled" by nothing more than egg sandwiches and Dinosaur Jr. songs, just to get over the disappointment already.

Another part of me thinks "wisdom" is just another word for "having re-learned the same five things the Hard Way so many times my abused and feeble mind has actually absorbed the memories" and that fucking yes, I should really start putting fortnightly facials on a charge card so I can pass for 29 in six years, because fucking hell if I trust my own intellect and work ethic to carry me.

And then there is the part of me that flatters myself into thinking that, you know, something has happened in these years that has been coherent and somehow unwasted and that it will lead to something somehow, that I will always feel exactly the age that I am even though I still occasionally date checks "2003," and that maybe I should stay in tonight and struggle with that for a moment.

But it is Friday.

This We Take From Satchel Paige: How Old Would You Be If You Didn't Know How Old You Were? [WoWoWow]
Put Justin Down Madonna; You're Old Enough To Be His Mother [Daily Mail]