[New York, September 24. Image via Getty]

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel (R) speaks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) as they attend the United Nations Security Council meeting during the UN General Assembly at UN Headquarters in New York, NY, September 24, 2009. AFP PHOTO/Jim WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

And not a moment too soon. As the cries of socialism, death panels, and health care increased to an insufferable din, finally, someone at the White House decided to heed my "no bitchassness" mandate and pull the plug on this foolishness posing as public debate.

The New York Times reports:

Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority's cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.

Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans' purposely strident tone against health care legislation during this month's Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair.

Rahm Emmanuel, acting in accordance with his usual MO, finally just put the truth out there:

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the heated opposition was evidence that Republicans had made a political calculation to draw a line against any health care changes, the latest in a string of major administration proposals that Republicans have opposed.

"The Republican leadership," Mr. Emanuel said, "has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama's health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day."

The latest political plot twist reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend G.D. of PostBourgie two nights ago. He made the cardinal mistake of trying to engage me in a political conversation (1) after-hours and (2) after I was three glasses into a bottle of wine.

The ensuing conversation:

G. D.: hey
so

me: what up
<—-giggling at Entourage

G. D.: your Jez piece on the public option
everyone inthe comment thread is up in arms
and throwing tantrums
and it's like

me: ?
huh
G. D.: the public option was never going to pass.
people are like oh, no! Obama, you're disappointing me!"

me: lol, well, like I said, no bitchassness
If he was serious about healthcare, he'd be railroading dems, not fucking with repubs
those fuckers are persona non grata for at least 4 years

G. D.: there are only about 37 senators who would go for the public option
i don't think backing off the public option is the White House's failing. it's the Senates.

me: politics ain't about sense or deals it's about [the full court] press

G. D.: he'd need 23 more votes.

me: there aren't that many senators
he could press
he won't
but he could

G. D.: but he has been pressing.

me: no
he has not yet begun to press
I haven't heard Ari [Rahm Emanuel] say shit
and the Repubs know how to press

G. D.: they've been needling lawmakers on the Hill for months
arm-twisting and glad-handing
the votes aren't there.

me: they [Republicans] have a nobitchassness clause
and it works when you need to do something gritty

G. D.: such as?

me: The Patriot Act
press and figure that shit out later
I'm not saying it's fair or pretty
but shit, we're talking about a legacy

G. D.: right

me: if Healthcare becomes a quagmire, it's better than being some dickless legislation

G. D.: but does the public option have to happen now?
could it not be added in 4 years?

me: I don't see anything on the horizon he's falling on the cross for
so fuck it - full press!

G. D.: could we have
1) an end to rescissions
2) subsidies for the uninsured
3) community standard
4) raising the Medicaid threshold?

me: Obama may not have for more years
especially if that mofo raises taxes [with no results]
that's the GHWB mandate [if you raise taxes when you said you wouldn't, you're a one-term prez]
Medicaid isn't doing dick for us working poor
we need drastic change
no stagnation

G. D.: just the fact that we're going to get all this other stuff would be a dramatic improvement.
like
MAJOR

me: not really
it only improves for folks who have coverage
or can afford to pay for coverage
if you are working poor
it's still the same deal
if you're poor, poor, you may get covered

G. D.: well
the plan is to raise the ceiling on medicaid
subsidize the working poor who it doesn't cover

me: to what G?

G. D.: that's what they're disagreeing over.

me: do you know how the gov't defines poverty?

G. D.: how much.
yeah, i do.

me: Don't forget - [I have been] on some of these programs of which you speak
there's a big ass gap between when they say you can pay and when you can actually pay

G. D.: but they're talking between 3 -400% of poverty
you subsidize the uninsured
and eliminate the "preexisting conditions" provisions.
so then we fix that.

me: ...

G. D.: [Then] we push the public option.
but it's not going to pass now.

me: you think that will pass but not the public option?

G. D.: absolutely.

me: please
insurance = business
that is bad for business
Repubs in the pocket [of business]
Dems are bullshitting
business will fight this hard as fuck
all these sad eyed kids and seniors [on the current pro-reform commercials] will be replaced with more fear mongering
the way death panels worked, but better
more efficient
Did you watch Meet the Press on Sunday?
Dickface pulled the play book

G. D.: nope.
no TV.

me: ain't gonna be no compromises
they want "open competition"

G. D.: who said this?
DeMint?

me: so as long as there's a kaiser [or some other plan], which doesn't disqualify for pre-conditions they'll point to that
Dick Armey
Rep. Tex
R

G. D.: Armey's not a rep anymore, i thought [Aside: G.D. is right - Armey is a former Rep, just connected]
he's an activist.

me: he's got the playbook
those bastards don't deviate
and there it is
laid out

G. D.: It's zero-sum. ANY health care reform would be catastrophic for the GOP

me: exactly
so they are doing the full shut down
even if they are dealing with the cuckoos

G. D.: that doesn't mean we can't get 60+ w/o the public option
me: and if the Dems don't press, shit is not happening
hey
have your dreams Gene.
I just live in this shit town

G. D.: wow @ the condescension.

me: it's true homes
my jadedness comes from watching it
but hey, if you want, I'll even send some white friends to infiltrate tortilla coast [popular hang out for repubs, though that may change]
I'd stand out too much

me: No, it's ok to be realistic
I just think it's time for liberals to sack the fuck up
what is the point of Rahm Emanuel if he's not going to intimidate people?
that's a serious question
that's like hiring the Rock to be on your security team
if there's no people's elbow, what's the point?

G. D.: one sec
i want the public option.
i just don't know how it works this year.
did you read that NYT story on the arm-twisting from two months ago?

me: I'm looking at the photo
that is patient face
not gangsta face
when Rahm looks like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, I'll believe something is happening

G. D.: lol

me: seriously
someone [like Dean] needs to be hollering
the time for rational is over
This is how our country got hijacked the first time

G. D.: i know.
i don't disagree

me: and I refuse to sit by and watch that shit happen when we have a majority

G. D.: but it's not a strong liberal majority
that's the problem.

me: No, it's a strong bitchassness majority
So, G, what do you propose?
Are we supposed to just be patient and lobby?
Because I wish I could say slow and steady wins the race
but it's really crazy and media savvy

G. D.: the pressure needs to be put on, obviously
but it's a legislative failing.
Blanche Lincoln won't go for it. she's hinted that it's a non-starter.
Kent Conrad has been making a funky noise about "government-run" health care.
and these are DEMOCRATS
who sit on the Finance Committee, which is hammering it out.
this is sort of a structural problem
Lincoln is from Arkansas, which has a population a little bigger than Brooklyn.

me: Yes
again, the article YOU referenced
Obama has told Congressional leaders that his top priority is to get a health care bill signed into law this year. But whether that happens will depend, in some part, on whether the members in both chambers feel they can take the new president at his word. Veteran lawmakers know that presidents always arrive with grand plans to spend their political capital, but more often than not they end up cutting deals with their adversaries or retreating altogether. When they do compromise, it's the representatives and senators who stood with them who often end up paying the price with their constituents. Clinton's failure on health care embarrassed Democrats who had agreed to help build support for his plan, just as his proposal to pass a new energy tax the same year - a proposal that passed the House but died in the Senate - left the representatives who voted for it feeling needlessly exposed. When many of them went down to defeat in the midterm massacre of 1994, the lesson that surviving Democrats took away was to beware of presidents who care more about their own survival than they do about yours.
Ummhmm
the waffling aka bitchassness is not providing these senators with proof a photo op is forth coming
no photo op, no support

G. D.: that's not the only lesson of '94.
Clinton/HRC were too hands-on.

me: You can't just write shit and drop it off
true
but no one is saying that

G. D.: right.

me: I'm saying fight for the shit you put out there
it made it [to the floor] in 1000 page form
allegedly made with a coalition

G. D.: Obama's laid out broad parameters
and letting the legislators go wild

me: well, now it's time for him to pull a John Henry
and start hammering shit into place
they have run amok

G. D.: okay.
so again.
where do the rest of the votes come from?

me: brute force.
the people's elbow.

Again: Having served under seven commanders in chief during his time in the Senate, Biden understands as well as anyone the pervasive fear in Congress that presidents are out only for themselves. "I've had presidents who say to me, ‘Hey, Joe, get out on that limb for me,' " Biden told me. At this, he rose from his chair and began acting out the metaphor, half-crouching as he glanced at the limb behind him. "And I'm out there. I'm out on that limb. And then you hear this shew shew shew" - he nicely approximated the noise of a saw rasping back and forth - "and you look back, and the limb's being sawed off.

I'm telling you
Flex means a lot in Congress
there is not enough flexing
the troops have no confidence

G. D.: and just like that
Nate Silver rides in to the rescue.

Open Left's Chris Bowers lists 43 senators who as of last Wednesday, he believes based on official communications would vote in favor of a public option. This appears to be the best and most contemporary whip count of its kind.

There are at least two names on Chris's list of yea votes that I'd regard as less than certain: one is Ted Kennedy, who obviously supports the public option but might not be healthy enough to vote on it, and the other is Diane Feinstein, who has indicated that she's open to either a public option or non-profit co-ops — wherein lies the whole debate. But let's give the Democrats credit for these two votes and start counting upward. What's their easiest path to 50?
G. D.: He cites Mary Landrieu, Johnny Isakson, the aforementione Conrad and Ben Nelson.
G. D.: just a quick glance: Louisana, Georgia, North Dakota, Nebraska. All red states
11:46 PM it's not a slam dunk, either way.
but to mix metaphors

me: ummhmm?

G. D.: one is a mid-range jumper in traffic, the other's looking like a Hail Mary

me: The crowd loves an underdog long shot like a Hail Mary

G. D.: of course.
the problem is: the dems aren't the underdogs and the GOP have nothing to lose and are playing the spoiler.
please back away from the metaphor!
okay
dean's website has around 43-45 now.
in favor of the option.
we could get to 50.
then what?

Hopefully, G.D. has learned not to engage with me when I'm drinking. And he's absolutely correct - it is important to have the votes. Even if the White House does stop engaging with Republican concern-trolls, there is still a long, hard fight to get all the Dems on board.

I agree with Greg Sargent when he writes:

That said, it's too early to conclude that the White House is now serious about going it alone. It could just be a tough-talking bluff at a time when more liberal opinionmakers are questioning whether Obama and Dem leaders are getting rolled because they're refusing to acknowledge the ever-more-obvious reality about the Republican opposition's intentions.

Yet, I still can't help but be hopeful that the Dems are ready to saddle up in favor of this country. After all, look at what happened when Rep. Barney Frank decided he wasn't engaging with the bullshit conversation blockers:

The crowded hall had both supporters and detractors, but the opposing side was much louder and more raucous, booing the Massachusetts Democrat from the moment he was introduced and shouting questions and challenges at him throughout.

"You want me to talk about it or do you want to yell?" he asked over and over when interrupted while trying to answer. Continued shouting brought a sterner rebuke.

"Disruption never helps your cause," he said more than once. "It just looks like you're afraid to have rational discussion."

While Frank attempted to respond to all questions, he gave up when one woman compared health care proposals favored by Frank and President Obama to policies of Nazi Germany.

"When you ask me that question, I'm going to revert to my ethnic heritage and ask you a question: On what planet do you spend most of your time?" Frank asked.

"You stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis," he said, adding such behavior demonstrated the strength of First Amendment guarantees of what he called "contemptible" free speech.

"Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table," Frank said to the woman. "I have no interest in doing it."

Cosign. If the Republicans won't play ball and won't come up with a tenable plan that address the needs of both private industry and the 45 million Americans without health care, then we don't need to speak to them.

Well, with anything other than the people's elbow.

Front Page [The Huffington Post]
Rahm Emanuel: Bipartisanship Is Dead [The Plum Line]
Democrats Seem Set To Go It Alone On A Health Care Bill [NY Times]

Related: Blue Cross Praised Employees Who Dropped Sick Policyholders, Lawmaker Says [LA Times]
Taking The Hill [NY Times Magazine]
45 Senators For The Public Option? [The Progressive Electorate]
Beefing Over The Public Option [PostBourgie]
Barney Frank Goes Toe To Toe At Health Care Town Hall [CNN]

Of course, that's sort of her job — to serve the President, not the coddle the big egos of her mostly-white, mostly-male colleagues. And, by all accounts, she does a damn good job making sure Barack Obama hears the voices he ought to hear — including the ones who counsel him to think beyond the status-quo advice of the typical white, middle-aged male operative. It's probably unsurprising that there are people who consider her to have stepped on their toes, or that the people who feel that way are mostly white men.

The profile, written by Robert Draper, delves into Jarrett's early life of relative privilege and stifling realities.

The fast track laid out for Valerie Bowman - a Massachusetts boarding school, then Stanford, then a law degree at Michigan, then marriage and work at a corporate law firm - was one she pursued without either resistance or zeal, "kind of like an automaton," she told me. While Jarrett's family rejoiced when Harold Washington was elected mayor on April 22, 1983, the atmosphere at her nearly all-white firm the next day was one she would remember as "polite silence." Four years later, as a 25-year-old community organizer was wading into the tumult of her hometown, Jarrett, then 30, decided at last to reconnect herself to it. She quit both her marriage and her job, and in 1987, as the mother of a 2-year-old daughter, she went to work for Mayor Washington's corporation counsel - relinquishing her high-rise office for a cubicle in the city law department.But like the "sibling" she had yet to meet, Valerie Jarrett had found a path of her own.

It was in city government that Jarrett came to know and befriend the then-Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama, getting closer to the couple even as she experienced her own meteoric rise in Chicago business and social circles. And, then, her friend Barack decided to run for the U.S. Senate. Jarrett was skeptical.

"It was a lousy idea," Jarrett said as she recalled the decision by Obama, then a state senator, to run for U.S. Senate after he was trounced two years earlier in a bid for Congress. "He called and said: ‘I want to come over. Let's invite my closest friends. There's something I want to bounce off of you.'

"Well, Michelle had already told me what it was. She said, ‘So we're not in favor of this, right?' ‘Absolutely not!' ‘That's the right answer!' We conspired against it for all the obvious reasons.

But Barack convinced her, and she stuck by him, including when he asked her to join his campaign for the Presidency in 2007 at the advice of his finance chair, Penny Pritzker. Not everyone agreed. Obama's Senate chief of staff, Pete Rouse, wasn't keen on Jarrett's expansive role, and his campaign manager, David Plouffe, openly disliked her. So much for "No Drama Obama." David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel come across as decidedly cool to Jarrett, as does spokeman Robert Gibbs.

Why? Rahm Emanuel got steamed that she talked to the Bushie she was replacing before he talked to his counterpart. Plouffe and she "tangled" over campaign strategy, which he now says she "wasn't terribly involved in." Pete Rouse didn't like her wide portfolio. Axelrod focused on the strength of her personal relationship and advice to Obama over her job-related qualities — and pointedly doesn't invite her to his Wednesday "hard core politics" meetings at his house, which just sounds kind of dickish, if you ask me.

On the other hand, the piece is filled with Jarrett's champions, from the women on staff at the White House and the campaign (like Pritzker and Anita Dunn) to staffers of color, who felt that their advice about how to speak to minority communities was often ignored by the white dudes up front.

It was Jarrett who strongly encouraged Barack Obama to give his race speech - convinced when other senior advisers were not, says Dr. Eric Whitaker, a close friend of Obama, "that he could actually pull off the speech," and that in the wake of the incendiary Jeremiah Wright tapes, now was the time to do it. Numerous campaign officials credit Jarrett, along with the communications director Anita Dunn and Stephanie Cutter, Michelle Obama's chief of staff, for helping to rehabilitate Mrs. Obama's angry-black-woman image. (Three staff members say Jarrett encouraged the future first lady to focus on military families.) According to Clifford Franklin, one of the campaign's African-American media consultants, "Having Valerie at the table kept African-Americans and Hispanics and women at the forefront of our outreach - where before it had been an afterthought."

And there's more than simple encouragement, nonetheless recognized by some people who worked on the campaign.

"But within the campaign, Valerie had been saying, ‘You guys, you're not getting this issue right,' " recalls a top official. "And Obama communicated to his senior advisers that he thought we were a little gun-shy on race issues; that the reality was, he did look different. There were also African-Americans on our staff, some in relatively senior positions, who were clearly upset that we had not consulted them in the response. And she actually organized a meeting to discuss it.

"And that's not just a process thing," the adviser said. "Because moving forward, the candidate made it very clear to us that we were just a bunch of white people who didn't get it - which, by the way, was true."

This, in fact, is exactly what diversity is supposed to bring to a work force: a different way of looking at a set of issues that is not just helpful, but necessary.

Jarrett was also instrumental in organizing one of the more interesting photo ops and discussions of the Obama Administration to date, in which she brought together Al Sharpton, Newt Gingrich and Mike Bloomberg during the commemoration of Brown v. the Board of Education in the Oval Office. Other staffers thought the idea was amusing, while Jarrett and some of her supporters thought it was important.

When I talked earlier to Robert Gibbs about the gathering, he mentioned something that I now relayed to Jarrett: "If you would've started out a line by saying, ‘Reverend Sharpton, Newt Gingrich and Mayor Bloomberg walked into the White House together,' I would've thought it was the start of a joke." But the press secretary had also said, "I think it shows how important she thought that event was that it ultimately got on [Obama's] schedule." Of course, Gibbs wasn't exactly saying that he thought such a meeting was important - which, judging by the measured smile on her face, Jarrett seemed to understand.

Pressing the point anyway, I asked, "If you hadn't suggested that this meeting take place, do you think anyone else would have suggested it?"

Jarrett looked across the table at her friend, the White House communications director, Anita Dunn, who had dropped in on the interview. Dunn stopped taking notes and flashed Jarrett a look of abiding doubt.

"Probably not," Jarrett then murmured.

"Probably not?" exclaimed Dunn, who had been virtually silent until now. "Absolutely not!"

Dunn, as stated, is one of Jarrett's supporters in the White House (other than the Obamas, who could not have been more effusive in their praise of her to the Times Magazine reporter Robert Draper). And Draper heard much the same from other senior African-American campaign staffers.

Without Jarrett, these officials said they believed, their opinions and the often-legitimate concerns voiced by black leaders like Sharpton would have been thoroughly disregarded by the white-dominated senior staff. "There's a cultural nuance that they just didn't get," one such African-American staff member told me. "And the landscape of our campaign is littered with hundreds of stories where she intervened and voices got heard and decisions got made that might've gone a different way."

I think maybe Plouffe, Axelrod and Emanuel ought to worry a little less if Jarrett's got designs on their turf and a little more about whether listening to her will help them better serve the President.

The Ultimate Obama Insider [New York Times]

• Barack Obama reportedly interviewed Judge Diane Wood for that open Supreme Court seat, though she played coy with reporters and Republicans are ginning up some sort of outrage (because that's what they do!). [Washington Post]

• Another judge played Solomon yesterday and said that we are allowed to hold detainees indefinitely if they're members of al Qaeda, but we have to really, really think they were involved in it and not in a "Iraq has WMDs" kind of way. [NY Times]
• Hillary Clinton got to play the rule of Captain Obvious and state that Iran having big nukes is a bad thing. [CBS News]
• Wait, what? Congressman Steve LaTourette called Rahm Emanuel a "motherfucker" and Rahm hasn't yet had him killed. [Washington Post]
• Rush Limbaugh "resigned" as head of the Republican Party, because he can't actually make any money at it. [ThinkProgress]
• A friend of Texas Governor Rick Perry likened "allowing" moderates in the GOP to making the party a whorehouse. [MSNBC]
• Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty isn't going to certify Al Franken right away if he can see any way around it because Mitch McConnell scares him. [Huffington Post]
• Later today, Obama is going to give a speech claiming that not being a bunch of imperialist assholes makes America safer, and Dick Cheney's going to give one about why being a bunch of imperialist assholes makes his cock hard. [Time]

• Sarah Palin gave an unsurprising speech at a "anti abortion banquet" last night, opining that women should carry their unwanted pregnancies to term, embryos should get rights and President Barack Obama sucks. [Associated Press]

• Great news: Michael Steele has decided Palin is a party leader; hopefully this will fuck up her chances in 2012. [MSNBCEveryone is making money off Palin, including me. [Politico]
• Except for Wayne Anthony Ross, Palin's Crazytown pick for Attorney General, who was rejected while Palin was off proclaiming her opposition to a woman's right to choose. [Huffington Post]
• The press and the blogosphere are combing through the memos about the various ways in which people were tortured under the Bush Administration. [NY Times]
• There may be no prosecutions of those torturers, however. [Associated Press]
• Instead, President Obama is going to focus on high-speed rail. Hint: if it wasn't still cheaper and faster to fly or take a bus than a train, probably more people would take trains. Can I get a DOT appointment now? [NY Times]
• Currently, Obama is in Trinidad for the Summit of the Americas. No beefcake shots have been made available to the press at this time. [ABC News]
• Hottie statistician Nate Silver thinks we should just let Texas secede from the Union. [FiveThirtyEight]
• Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal thinks Cheney should shut the fuck up. [Politico]
• Defense Secretary Bob Gates isn't exactly keen to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. [Associated Press]
• Obama's car czar Steven Rattner is under investigation for possibly participating in a kickback scheme with New York state's pension fund. I suspect he and Bill Richardson will have plenty to talk about. [Politico]
• Americans are in love with Michelle Obama. [Marist]
• Apparently Howard Dean and Rahm Emanuel have kissed and made up. However Dean's still not going to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. [The Hill]

In an effort to find a unified theory for the blinding stupidity that is sometimes American politics, I have searched far and wide and while I'm not yet ready to claim this is the reason rather than just another symptom, I feel it incumbent on me to bring your attention, dear readers, to the fact that 61 percent of Americans just aren't ready to buy into that whole evolution "theory" thing. And, with that, somehow the presence of Val Kilmer on the political stage feels explained, so don't come crying to me when he's the governor of New Mexico, Ah-nuld is still in California and Bruce Willis is running against David Paterson in New York because of his time playing a New York City cop in Die Hard. Maybe he'll even get Justin Long to be his nerdy-but-sweet Lieutenant Governor and make moonie eyes at Rumer! (And, yes, I saw the last one, don't judge.) We all know how I feel about Justin Long, if not evolution.

Anyway, so, everyone pretty much hates Tim Geithner and his super-pricey bank bailout plan, even the dudes that already took $60 billion and plan on paying out $2-3 billion in "retention" bonuses in this 7.6% unemployment, the-sky-is-falling economy because, naturally, they're afraid of losing their employees and not of having to admit that they're paying bonuses again. Not that paying out bonuses would be more than a PR problem, like, say, a failure of foresight, leadership or common sense of anything. Nope. A PR problem, because us peons will just strut and fret our hour upon the stage and then be heard no more, no more. I mean, even fucking Fidel Castro thinks it sucks so, apparently, he's got some money in or a cousin in management at Citibank. Barney Frank, though, thinks the bankers and Fidel Castro and maybe even Tim Geithner should shut the fuck up, but Barney Frank feels that way most of the time, which is why we love him.

In other news, the Senate is finally going to vote on Hilda Solis's nomination to be Labor Secretary and Leon Panetta's nomination to be CIA director, so maybe even Congress is evolving past catfights between Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and corruption scandals featuring Democratic Congressman John Murtha. Or, you know, not. Bobby Jindal, no great believer in evolution, will be giving the Republican response to Obama's faux State of the Union which means both that his aspirations for higher office are about to be totally fucking over and that the Republican Party is going to have to come up with yet another person of color the next time they need a public face for something. Whatever happened to J.C. Watts? That dude was smokin'.

In the meantime, Democratic Senators realize they'll eventually lose power in the Senate, Obama might send more troops to Afghanistan, Pat Leahy thinks Dick Cheney can go fuck himself, Rod Blagojevich says all other elected officials are adulterers and alcoholics; and Rahm Emanue'ls "fingerprints are all over [Obama's] package" which is some Star Trek worth fan fic if I ever heard it.

Did you watch the presse? I watched it without sound at a bar and discovered it is really hard to read captioning when you've already polished off 3 bottles of wine between 4 people. Anyway, apparently, President Obama really wants Congress to stop pussyfooting around and pass the stimulus, Helen Thomas was wearing something with fur and asking about "so-called terrorists", HuffPo hottie Sam Stein asked about Leahy's proposal to investigate the Bushies and then a bunch of other people asked a bunch of other things and we all went back to paying attention to one another because, really, we didn't give a fuck about whether A-Rod depresses Obama or not. But, hey, at least Obama is acknowledging that bipartisanship requires that the other guys be less partisan, too.

Speaking of the other guys, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell ain't having any more of this bipartisan-shit than he was last week and RNC Chair Michael Steele thinks the stimulus is all just "bling-bling" because it's a shiny, shiny win that Obama plans to metaphorically hang around his neck. (Seriously, if it wasn't a black RNC chair using that terminology, we'd be outraged, right? Just checking.) I mean, for fuck's sake, dudes, even the National Association of Manufacturers — helmed by a former GOP governor — is for the stimulus package. It's time to stop being whiny bitches because someone else thought of stimulating the free market economy first.

In the meantime, the Dems have enough votes to stymie a filibuster which has led Ezra Klein to call for the elimination of the ability of the minority to filibuster and me to smack my forehead with the palm of my hand. I mean, really? I said it once to Rahm Emanuel, let me say it to Ezra: do we remember the judges that the Dems filibustered out of appointments in the Bush Administration? When Bill Frist was ready to employ the nuclear option and eliminate the filibuster to keep progressives from stalling the agenda of the majority and progressives all hollered? Because I do. I liked the filibuster then. I like it now. I liked it years ago. I'll like it years from now. I don't like what some people choose to do with it — the Civil Rights Act being a major case in point — but I don't expect that the party I mostly agree with will always be in power and I like that the minority opinion in this country can hold some sway when it's my opinion, so I don't begrudge the same power to the guys I don't agree with.

MOE: Hi, finally got on.

MEGAN: Cool. I have been reading the news, by which I mean watching Morning Joe drinking coffee that my friend brought me again this morning because he remains awesome and responding to Facebook friend requests. Which means I am crazy well prepared and slightly hungover, so we're very old school this morning. But, hey, the Obamas are moving this weekend despite the fact that the Bushes have filled Blair House with their donors until practically the inauguration and thus wouldn't let the Obamas move in until the 15th of January, the girls' schooling be damned.

MOE: Yeah, god, that whole controversy, what the fuck. This is one of those things you don't really have to care about when you're no longer blogging. But why is Bush so committed to sucking. A legacy of suck. Sigh. Whatever. I hate everything. Good morning.

MEGAN: He's committed to sucking because he wants a legacy and that's about the only one he's going to get, so he's just going for it. He should have just taken a page from Blago's Senate pick, Roland Burris and erected a monument to himself. It's not like the Mall isn't already fucked by the addition of the shitty Stalinesque World War II memorial, which should really just be torn down, Tom Hanks be damned. But Burris' monument to himself probably doesn't mention all the money he obviously raised for Blagojevich or his work lobbying Blagojevich personally that resulted in thousands of more dollars in campaign donations and contracts steered to his clients. Nope, nothing to see here. There's no taint on Roland.

MOE: Does anyone know what hotel the Obamas are staying in? Because this one night I went out with Angie and Liz Glover, and the next morning for some reason I woke up in a hotel, and I'd like to recommend that one. It's next to an ATM machine so if the ATM doesn't work and your cab driver is threatening to just leave you there on the side of the road, you can say "Fuck you then, discriminator against drunk people, I'm staying in the fine Americana Motel, where they still use real keys." They have free copies of the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

MEGAN: Dude, I have no idea how you ended up in Crystal City but you made a fine choice, I think. That's where my parents stayed for years when I had roommates and they didn't usurp my bed. And the drug deals have totally moved down the road closer to the strip club. My guess on the Obamas is the Hay Adams or the Madison. The Hay Adams has the best bacon (my reason for choosing a hotel, obviously) and is closest to the White House, but there is better egress at the Madison. Pre-Spitzer, the Mayflower probably would have been on the list and you know they are pissed about that shit.

MOE: Sorry I am being distracted over IM by someone who does not want to be blogged about but insists on IMing me right now. OH WELL.

MEGAN: Yeah, that always works out well for people around me, too. If you don't want to be blogged about... You should probably just ask me nicely, give me a really good reason, refrain from pissing me off and pretend like something isn't about you even when it obviously is.

MOE: Dude we should sew that on pillows.

MEGAN: I tried, I'm really crap at embroidery, it ended up all cut off and crooked and shit. Hey, by the way, Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush — who, it should also be noted, was one of the biggest advocates of putting convicted bribe-taker-turned Congressman Alcee Hastings atop the Intelligence Committee because of his race — called Harry Reid and all the rest of the Senate Dems "segregationists" this morning for refusing to seat Roland Burris in the Senate. I wonder how much money he gave to Blago's campaign coffers and what he got in return. But, hey! Joe Biden's granddaughters named the puppy Champ. So we don't have to talk about anything else ever again.

MOE: Oh, Goddamn, okay, I lost my box, ha ha. I was going to direct your attention to a fascinating H'aaretz or however you write it interview with Ehud Barak from a few weeks before he started dropping bombs. Then my browser crashed. Vicky Iseman is suing the Times for seventeen million dollars, why now. There's a front-page Journal piece on Colombian president Uribe that's also interesting. True fact: Nina Garcia offered to get me in touch with Uribe if I wanted more information on FARC. In any case, all this stuff is gone now because of my browser crash, and we still haven't discussed Blago or Barack the Magic Negro, which I guess are the memes of right now. So, your pick, choose a topic, any one. Typing as fast as I can.

MEGAN: Vicki Iseman is suing now because the campaign is over and she didn't sue before to avoid bringing more attention to the story. I choo-choo-choose Blago because Barack the Magic Negro is sooooo 2008 and it's nearly 2009 but Blago is the gift that will keep on giving for the new year.

MOE: Confession: the only Blago story I've read in its entirety is Robin Givhan's hairpiece (heh)... "foppish" ... otherwise I was like, ha ha, everyone thinks Chicago is so crooked now, the stories I could tell them about Philadelphia. So anyway, Roland Burris, Bobby Rush, people not named "Limbaugh" should stop having "Rush" in their names bc it's really fucking confusing.

MEGAN: Bobby Rush also probably needs to shut his yap about Burris before people start wondering why it's so damn important to him. Also, Rahm Emanuel sent him a personal note with his official resignation and the media thinks it's strange because unless Rahm actually says "fuck you" they don't recognize it.

"As sons of immigrants to this country, you and I have a deep appreciation for the opportunities America provides to those who are willing to work hard and sacrifice for their children," Emanuel wrote.

That's how Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel tells someone "go fuck yourself" these days. He's reforming!

MOE: Yeah, he says goodbye "Fuck you, I love you," right? I was telling my sister how cute I thought that was and she was like "gay" and I was like "No, Israeli" but ha ha ha not so funny right now. "Fuck you I love you" however should be the new Insh'allah.

MEGAN: Fuck you, I love you. I gotta post this shit.

• DC artist Chris Bishop has created this extremely prescient image of the inauguration in T-shirt form for all your speech-watching needs. [Chris Bishop via Boing Boing]

• Sarah Palin's eldest daughter, Bristol gave birth yesterday: The 7 lb., 4 oz. boy's name is Tripp. [As in Linda? -Ed.] [People]
• The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies issued its Inaugural Ceremony advisory, which includes details like: it's going to be cold as fuck in DC; security will be tighter than a nipple clamp; lines will be longer than you dreamed possible; and you will wish to God you stayed home and blogged it drunk. That last part's actually mine. [Politico]
• Barack Obama's got an iPod, and the world has gone back to being explicable. [Silicon Valley Insider]
• Republicans mostly continue to pile on Chip "'Barack the Magic Negro' Is Funny" Saltsman because they don't want any more people thinking that all Republicans are racist. [CNN]
• Speaking of racists, former Presidential candidate of crazy Ron Paul wants you all to know that Social Security is a giant Ponzi scheme that if you had just been smart enough to vote for him he would have eliminated. But, since you didn't, Obama is going to regulate things in the name of freedom that won't make you feel any more free and it's actually less coherent than I just wrote it. [U.S. News & World Report]
• Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar thinks the Senate should temporarily swear in Al Franken before permanently doing so in 2010 or whenever the Minnesota Senate race is eventually decided. [The Hill]
• Rahm Emanuel will officially resign his Congressional seat on Friday and there are already 11 people running to replace him. [Chicago Sun Times]
• The Christmas season sucked so bad you should expect to see retail stores shuttering up and bankruptcies filed. [Bloomberg]

MEGAN: It is very rare that the news is so full of crap as today, which is why I guess they call Fridays "news dumps." That said, I believe Obama's dump of his advisers' Blago contacts is best represented by this doll which portrays him taking a physical dump. I love this doll. I want one so bad that I actually mentally scrolled through everyone I had ever met — including in Spain in 1995 — to think if there was anyone I could get to buy me one.

SPENCER: Can you summarize the Blago stuff for me? I don't want to read it. Like I really don't care.

MEGAN: Rahm Emanuel called him twice pro forma and everyone is as clean as a whistle. The end. Duh.

SPENCER: I see that even this Weekly Standard writer says, "Yep, not raising any flags for me, either. Now, everybody go on vacation." So is this actually the end or will it go on endlessly like Whitewater?

MEGAN: It will go on endlessly like Whitewater, no doubt. I'm just waiting for someone's cats to disappear or Michelle Obama to be accused of faking someone's suicide. I cannot believe you are ignoring the pooping Obama doll. In other crap, Karl Rove thinks Joe Biden is trying to consolidate power too much. I mean, I just mention it because it seemed like you might need a good laugh. We can stop laughing when Joe Biden gets a man safe, a secret bunker from which he can practice his necromancy and begins to age in reverse, but until then...

SPENCER: Maybe it's because it's Christmas but I can't bring myself to care about a pooping Obama doll. Also can we stop using the word "pooping." What happened to respectable slang terms like "shitting"? "Poop" sounds like something you coo to a baby. It's not like you can't curse on this blog

MEGAN: Shit smells. This is plastic. Ergo, in my mind, it is poop. These things are very strictly delineated in my mind. Also, my parents are walking in and out of the room, so I am apparently unconsciously self-censoring like I did in high school.

SPENCER: What's beautiful about that Rove quote, aside from the hypocrisy — which is pro forma at this point — is his bald assertion that he knows what Biden and Obama talk about. Hilarious. I can't wait for this asshole's book.

MEGAN: I believe we can say "Until he shits out his book," because, man, that's going to reek.

SPENCER: Also, did you catch Jason Linkins' Twitter-meltdown last night? WTF

MEGAN: I will admit something right now that likely makes me a bad friend to Jason. I follow him online but no longer get updates to my phone since he started Twittering football.

SPENCER: Oh I took him off my phone long ago. I have a zero-tolerance policy for over-twitterers.

MEGAN: To make up for that embarrassing admission, I will post what he would have said last Friday had circumstances preventing us from doing Crappy Hour:

Since circumstance robbed us of our Friday Crappy Houring, I wasn't able to say something that I wanted, which was what a highlight of the year it was for me to participate in Crappy Hour, and to thank the jezebel community for their many kindnesses. It was a real honor and a privilege.

SPENCER: And in fairness, I think I might have been live-tweeting that particular Redskins game with him and Greg Greene and Amanda Mattos. AWWWWWW I would say the same thing, but I'm not gay. :)

MEGAN: Aw, you guys.

SPENCER: OK so now to discuss Chris Cox?

MEGAN: Oh, fuck yeah.

SPENCER:

Christopher Cox, the embattled chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, is defending his restrained approach to the financial crisis, saying he has provided steady leadership as Wall Street's main regulator at a time when other federal regulators have responded precipitously to upheaval in the markets.

This is a great quote:

"What we have done in this current turmoil is stay calm, which has been our greatest contribution — not being impulsive, not changing the rules willy-nilly, but going through a very professional and orderly process that takes into account unintended consequences and gives ample notice to market participants."

Like watching every investment bank it oversees self-destruct?

MEGAN: But that's not his job!!

"The public might not understand that that wasn't the SEC's job," he said, adding that the agency was not responsible for preventing investment banks from collapsing but rather for sheltering their securities trading units from problems in the broader corporation. "The SEC is not a safety and soundness regulator," he said.

I also like this part:

Cox said the biggest mistake of his tenure was agreeing in September to an extraordinary three-week ban on short selling of financial company stocks. But in publicly acknowledging for the first time that this ban was not productive, Cox said he had been under intense pressure from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to take this action and did so reluctantly. They "were of the view that if we did not act and act at that instant, these financial institutions could fail as a result and there would be nothing left to save," Cox said.

Um, hey, asshole? There's a reason why you got a 5-year term instead of a political appointment: so you wouldn't cave to political pressure to do stuff you know if bad.

SPENCER: No one can resist Hank Paulson. That's how you got those hickeys. What would Dennis Prager say?

MEGAN: Dennis Prager would say that Chrissy Cox should just lie down and spread her legs even if she's not in the mood! Which is apparently what Cox did!

It became the agency's responsibility to monitor them for financial and operational weaknesses under a program set up before Cox's tenure, but under his watch they got into such trouble that today they no longer exist as investment banks. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers failed, Merrill Lynch had to be taken over, and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley converted themselves into bank holding companies.

The March collapse of Bear Stearns illustrated an array of agency shortcomings, according to a review by the SEC's inspector general. He concluded that agency officials had been aware of "numerous potential red flags" at Bear Stearns "but did not take actions to limit these risk factors."

"It is undisputable," the inspector general concluded, that the "program failed to carry out its mission in its oversight of Bear Stearns."

SPENCER: That's how Cox thought the country needed to show the markets it loved them

MEGAN: I mean, the problem is that Cox was kind of a slut, he'd just spread 'em for anyone.

Treasury and Fed officials viewed Cox and his staff as nonplayers who had failed to foresee the brewing problems, according to people who were involved in those efforts but spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. They said Cox was often brought in for consultation only after major decisions had been made by Treasury and Fed officials.

Let's just say it: Bush nominated a random conservative Congressman from New Jersey to head the SEC because he didn't want anyone there who was particularly smart, engaged, knowledgeable or into regulating jackshit, and Cox fit the bill because he was a reflexive deregulator. And would get confirmed easily because Congress rarely fails to confirm its own.

SPENCER: Since I am not qualified to talk about what actually happened in the financial crisis I want to remind everyone that Chris Cox has been a conservative darling forever. Here's the American Spectator on who should be McCain's running mate:

Chris Cox: The best choice, bar none. This thoughtful and reform-minded chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission made his name for 16 years as the brainiest and perhaps most principled Reaganite conservative in Congress, as well as one of the best on TV.

MEGAN: I needed a good laugh, thanks. "Reform-minded," meaning, "let's get government out of the way of the markets so they can run the universe and make everything sunshine and rainbows!!"

SPENCER: Here's another such column. And here's Lisa Schiffren of NRO who needs no Prageresque advice when it comes to Cox:

Chris Cox is fabulous. He should be president. The only negative — alas, a big one — is that he has never managed to generate real excitement, even when running what should have been sexy hearings on big issues. He is obviously very smart, and a true policy wonk — the sort of guy who usually runs big, serious, difficult government institutions or departments. Is he a vote getter?

So at least that's fairminded!

MEGAN: "Sexy hearings on big issues?" Because the American public loves a wonk, and particularly the Republican American public. The last eight years have completely proved that. Speaking of, the red states are about to get more Congress members in 2011. California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Florida and Pennsylvania are gonna lose. Which means: vote in your state elections next year and in 2010!!

SPENCER: Oh beautiful. This will bolster the arguments of all conservatives who don't see themselves leading the GOP into regional-party marginality to push the party rightward. And here I was thinking Afghanistan will doom the Obama administration.

MEGAN: And I was all excited that a judge ordered the release of 4 Gitmo detainees and The Europeans might be willing to accept some Gitmo detainees in resettlements deals. But we should end on a high note. Of the people Bush pardoned for Christmas, one was Charlie Winters, posthumously.

Mr. Winters was among a group of several hundred Americans and Canadians referred to by the Israelis by the Hebrew acronym of “machal,” or “volunteers from outside Israel.” They secretly helped in Israel’s war of independence in 1948, a year after its creation as a Jewish state.

He was an Irish-Catholic from Boston, and never said a word about it to his son. He was also the only one who did any prison time for it.

SPENCER: Yeah I have to give Bush credit for that. Dayenu. What a merry Jewish Christmas.

A very heartfelt thanks to Esquire's James Folta for the news (and picture) of the squatting Obama doll

• Bill Clinton's donor list for his foundation and presidential library have been released. Yeah, there's all kinds of foreign government money on there, what did you expect? [Politico]

• Meanwhile, Barack Obama has asked Congresswoman Hilda Solis to become the Secretary of Labor, former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk to head up the U.S. Trade Representatives Office and plans to send Mary Schapiro to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. [Washington Post, Washington Post, Washington Post]
• Obama's also defending the selection of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. [Associated Press]
• He might appoint the openly gay William White to be Secretary of the Navy. [Washington Independent]
• "Sources" are telling the media that Rahm Emanuel and Rod Blagojevich were never close. Quelle suprise. [The Hill]
• More surprising is that the Pentagon has noticed that more sexual assaults than are ever reported take place at its military academies — and they want to do something about making it easier on victims to come forward. [New York Times]
• Hey, they might actually finish the Minnesota Senate recount and Al Franken might really win. [Huffington Post]

• Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is free tonight on $4,500 bail and has absolutely no intention of resigning after being indicted on massive corruption and extortion charges. [CNN, Politico, Chicago Tribune]
• Barack Obama said he'd had no contact with Blagojevich over the Senatorial appointment Blagojevich apparently was attempting to sell. [Huffington Post]
• Blagojevich did, apparently, attempt to trade with SIEU President Andy Stern the appointment of Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett in exchange for a golden parachute into an SEIU-funded non-profit. Jarrett dropped out of the running shortly thereafter. [Marc Ambinder, Politico]
• Contrary to early reports, Rahm Emanuel didn't tip off the U.S. Attorneys. [Talking Points Memo]

• Other names that have been flushed out of the indictment by bloggers and reporters: Senate Candidate 2, who Blagojevich was reportedly using to fuck with Obama's team over Jarrett, was probably Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan; and Senate Candidate 5, with whom Blagojevich might have had the most serious quid-pro-quo conversation, might well have been Jesse Jackson, Jr. [Marc Ambinder, Marc Ambinder]
• Obama might have said that he'd had no contact with Blagojevich over the seat, but Axelrod said otherwise a month ago. He's now saying he was mistaken. [ABC News]
• The Illinois legislature is likely to move to impeach Blagojevich, obviously, and they may just change the law and hold a special election to fill Obama's seat. [Politico, The Hill]

• Bill Clinton's going to disclose the names of the 200,000 donors to the Clinton Global Initiative by the end of the year. [Washington Post]
• The Minnesota Court of Appeals is definitely, totally not going to let toe-tapping Senator Larry Craig withdraw his guilty plea. He'll continue claiming he is 100%, totally, utterly, without-a-doubt heterosexual and voting against LGBT rights. [CNN]
• New York Governor David Paterson has agreed to consider United Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat after she contacted him and asked him to do so. If he did appoint her, she's be the first openly gay United States Senator. [New York Magazine]
• Meanwhile, John McCain's going to appear on Letterman Thursday. [ABC News]

ANA MARIE: Good morning!

MEGAN: It does appear to be morning, but I am not going to make any promises about its "goodness" until I, like you, have gotten some caffeine in my system. Also, please type less loudly. Oh, wait, that's me.

ANA MARIE: Fun Jezebel meet up, huh?

MEGAN: Yes, but I was driving so drinking was minimized and then I got home and was like, hey, glass before bed! And it was a big glass. A really, really big glass.

ANA MARIE: That'll do it. Whereas the highlight of my evening was A RAHM SIGHTING.

MEGAN: In tights?

ANA MARIE: Sadly no. But he was with one of his equally brilliant brother, ZEKE, who arrived in the restaurant still wearing his lanyard nametag. Very dorky-cute. They had just been at this.

MEGAN: Oh, man, a conventioneer?

ANA MARIE: A very important powerful conventioneer:

"When it gets rough out there, a lot of business leaders get out of the car and say, 'We're OK with minor reform.' I'm challenging you today, we're going to have to do big, serious things," Rahm Emanuel said, speaking to The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council, a conference convened to elicit corporate opinion on the challenges facing the new president.

MEGAN: Also, I love how a CEO's top concern is card check. Fucking U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Like, hello, new Great Depression but you care whether Obama will veto card check? Hint, hint, dickwad, he won't.

ANA MARIE: (WSJ reports on Rahm's presence, this is how I know Zeke was there. ) This threw me a bit:

"The American people in two successive elections have voted for change, and change cannot be allowed to die on the doorsteps of Washington," Mr. Emanuel said.

Until i remembered that he counts 2006 as an election.

MEGAN: Ooh, Zeke works at NIH? And 2006 was Rahm's big victory, of course he thinks about it that way! But can we talk about the softer side of Rahm? :

According to notes taken by leadership aides, Mr. Emanuel choked up when he told the colleagues his decision to leave the Hill and join the Obama administration was "not an easy decision for me."

ANA MARIE: Eh, just because someone has a filthy mouth doesn't mean the waterworks are broken. You and I should know!

MEGAN: I don't cry, I just have something in my contact lens. Even when I'm wearing my glasses.

ANA MARIE: So are you stone hearted or just not much of a crier? And I think that is a great segue to Hillary! Are you tired of talking about her yet? Will doing it again actually bring you to tears?

MEGAN: No, that is exactly how I deal with stuff when I "have something in my eye!" Segue! The whole situation in which she's saying she might not want it really makes me wonder what Clinton was doing jetting around in Air Fuck One.

ANA MARIE: The name says it all. Given all the rumors and speculation floating around, I think I trust Ambinder's take on the situation (Hillary's, not Bill's... or rather, not THAT Bill situation).

MEGAN: Okay, best line in the piece:

On the other hand, it is conceivable that President Obama would hand Sen. Clinton a ticket with the words "Middle East Peace" printed on it, and say: "Go," giving Clinton the flexibility and transitive authority to secure her place in history.

That would be nice.

ANA MARIE: On the other hand, there's this:

She would be Secretary of State in an administration dominated by other foreign policy heavyweights. She will wonder where Joe Biden fits in to all of this; the two senators are collegial and competitive. There is some angst with Joe Biden's circle of confidants about Clinton's serving as Secretary of State. It is not clear whether Biden himself shares the angst.

MEGAN: If Joe Biden wanted to be SecState, he should not have accepted the VP slot.

ANA MARIE: I suspect Biden thought that VP would be like SecStatePLUS.

MEGAN: Welcome to the Greater Depression, Joe Biden, when you get to have a domestic policy function. But if Ambinder is right and the whole thing is collegial and proceeding apace, why all the leaks that she's not gonna do it?

ANA MARIE: Because you can be collegial about vetting and still not be sure you're gonna do it. And we still don't know what the vetting has turned up.

MEGAN: Well, and that's what I meant about what was going on on Air Fuck One. Is it the 'stans? The investments? The foreign donors at the library?

ANA MARIE: Well if everyone is being all discreet as they say, we may never know — Hillary's ambivalence could be a cover for making a graceful exit after they find out that Bill was banging a Pakastani tranny. Or accepting money from a Pakastani warlord. Which is maybe more likely.

MEGAN: Yeah, because I think transvestites are more of an Afghani thing. I have listened to a lot of people talk about homosexuality in Afghanistan over the last year. I'm starting to think people want to do more than fuck OBL up (i.e., down, sideways, back and forth, etc.).

ANA MARIE: Everyone needs a hobby

MEGAN: Especially Ted Stevens now.

ANA MARIE: I understand he makes gigantic fish sculptures in his spare time. Presumably they will become truly gargantuan now. Do you continue to live in Alaska if you don't have to? That's my question.

MEGAN: Mike Gravel says: no. His wife says, aw hell no.

ANA MARIE: I'm not sure if Gravel is the best source on the subject of sane behavior.

MEGAN: Well, what politician from Alaska is?

ANA MARIE: I hope the new guy!

MEGAN: Good luck with that. Begich winning does mean that if they can pull it out in Minnesota (decent odds) and then Georgia (unlikely), the Dems will have their filibuster-proof majority if Lieberman doesn't shank them again. Which he will, 'cause he's Lieberman and now has no fear.

ANA MARIE: Yeah, that is what it means! And I think Lieberman is probably more of a pussy than you think.

MEGAN: I'm sure he's less of a pussy than Harry Reid, but that ain't saying much.

ANA MARIE: Harry Reid, the boxing pussy.

MEGAN: Some dudes do think pussy is a competitive sport.

ANA MARIE: And that boxing is as well. Did you see Bill Kristol is "ambivalent" about keeping his New York Times column?

MEGAN: Man, what a copycat. He sees Hillary playing the expectation-management game and then hops on board? Yeah, Bill, everyone knows you're going to be out on your ass when the contract's up, you should've been ambivalent in, like, January.

ANA MARIE: Or more ambivalent about Sarah Palin! His ambivalence is widely misplaced

MEGAN: A lot of things about Bill Kristol are misplaced. Like any rational thought.

ANA MARIE: In an interview with the New York Observer, he says he's actually only met Palin twice. Which could explain a lot!

MEGAN: Oh, right, like he couldn't have fallen in political love in two meetings? That hair, those eyes, her lips, those thighs and drill, baby, drill? He probably had stronger tingles in his leg for her than Chris Matthews did for Obama.

ANA MARIE: I'm sure Chris Matthews would disagree. Oh, and speaking of Chris Matthews: BEST SENATE RACE OF 2010. Unless, you know, Keith Olbermann takes his competitive streak to New Jersey

MEGAN: Oh, God, that will be so amazing. Has Specter even confirmed he's running yet? Could it be an open seat? Can I be THAT lucky?

ANA MARIE: I totally made up that KO thing, btw. Like, that isn't even a rumor, people. I want to spell that out because I think that it was just such a remark that might give us Sen. Franken.

MEGAN: Yeah, unless Olbermann decides to take on Corzine in the primary for the gubernatorial race, he can't run for Senate for a while yet. That said, can you imagine the smear campaign? The heart races.

ANA MARIE: Every campaign ad would be a SPECIAL COMMENT, with lots of chair spinning.

MEGAN: Hey, remember how al Qaeda endorsed McCain and all the conservatives were like, it's psychological warfare! They really are endorsing Obama? Well, no, it turns out, they really were into McCain. Oh, and Ayman al-Zawahri thinks Obama is a race traitor and a — I swear — "house negro." He's also pissed that Obama has "abandoned his Muslim faith."

ANA MARIE: al-Zawahri reads too many right wing blogs.

ANA MARIE: Ok I'm here, and caffeinated. Please turn on Morning Joe so that we can mock in tandem. If it were later in the day, I would recommend drinking every time they say "team of rivals."

MEGAN: Yay caffeine! And, um, boo for Pat Buchanan. who just suggested that our move from a manufacturing economy to a tertiary economy is the reason the American Empire is failing.

ANA MARIE: Because after a few pops maybe "team of rivals" would make sense... As it is, the only "rival" in sight for Team O is Hillary... and I am far from convinced that she's really gonna get offered the job much less take it.

MEGAN: Well, do you have stuff for mimosas and Bloody Marys? Because those are perfectly acceptable alternatives to morning whiskey.

ANA MARIE: If Hillary gets SecState, i will break out the morning whiskey

MEGAN: I only have morning tequila. By the way, when did Mika start wearing Palin's hair?

ANA MARIE: Ugh. Mika. Do you think it's weird that they cycle every editor in NYC through as a "guest host" but NO OTHER WOMEN? Is Mika so insecure that the only other lady she'll share a desk with is Andrea Mitchell and her giant floating head? And I think this is basically the same question: do you want Hillary to be the most powerful woman in the Obama White House? I mean, on the one hand — as it's been pointed out — not a lot of other women's names are out there. On the other hand: Hillary. Bill.

MEGAN: We should probably comment on the fact that the freezing cold Erin Burnett just said that 80% of Russians would have voted for Obama, in part because they're hoping Obama will fix the chilly relations between us that Putin —who has his hand firmly up Medvedev's butt — is making worse over missile defense and South Ossetia... even though Putin, the cause of the chilly relations, is still damn popular himself . Well, she didn't say that part about Putin having his hand up Medvedev's butt but mostly because the KGB starting filming her there at the end.

ANA MARIE: Perhaps the KGB just wanted a look at Erin's delicious ass.

MEGAN: On Hillary, I mean, am I in love with John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, Sam friggin' Nunn or Bill McGrabbyhands Richardson? No. But it's not going to be Sam Powers or Susan Rice.

ANA MARIE: Hagel would be a disaster. I love the rumor that the Hillary thing got leaked basically just fuck with Senor McGrabby.

MEGAN: You thought watching Bush paw Merkel's shoulders that time was embarrassing, wait 'til Richardson gets his paws on her ass, even if she is a little old for his taste.

ANA MARIE: Hagel would just go around hitting people rather than caressing them.

MEGAN: Honestly, in that group, having Bill Clinton paw my ass would likely be my best option, not that he supposedly does that any more.

ANA MARIE: Right. And his complete reform of c) is another reason Hillary will not be SecState.

MEGAN: Please, please, please tell me you just heard that on MSNBC?

ANA MARIE: No. I am projecting.

MEGAN: Their slightly fey entertainment reporter just said, "Justin Timberlake in heels and tights? Yes, Pat Buchanan, there is a Santa Claus."

ANA MARIE: Justin Timberlake for SecState!

MEGAN: I'd smack his ass for him!

ANA MARIE: I'm working really hard to get from "Timberlake in tights" to reminding everyone that Rahm is a ballet dancer... but I guess i don't really have to work that hard. Lindsey Graham totally wishing they all could wear tights to the transition meeting.

MEGAN: Lindsay Graham wishes he could pick the colors, and you know he'd have one of them in fishnets. Hard to decide whether it would be Rahm or Barry. And do you think Rahm still counts time in 8's (that's a joke for everyone who ever took dance lessons)?

ANA MARIE: Perhaps that's why losing part of a finger didn't phase him. Oh, and McCain trivia: When he hosted SNL, Mark Salter left him for a bit to go smoke and when he returned, the senator was in the middle of putting on fishnets for his Barbara Streisand skit... a costuming decision, safe to say, that had not been pre approved. Disaster was avoided, the nations' eyes were spared and McCain held onto his dignity for a whole nuther 8 years. and then Palin happened... Salter was unable to stop that.

MEGAN: And, I have to say, the inside of my brain needs a good acid-wash now, as I was unable to avoid the mental image of seated McCain in a wife-beater and a thong, slowly unrolling a pair of fishnet stockings up one if his legs held high in the air with a pointed toe (because of the ballet conversation).

ANA MARIE: See if you can sub in Rahm.

MEGAN: The thong doesn't fit Rahm as well.

ANA MARIE: How do you think that meeting goes today, btw?

MEGAN: I'm assuming it will be about as productive as the G-20, which is to say that it will be a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

ANA MARIE: Hm. I respectfully disagree.

MEGAN: About the G-20, or the Obama-McCain confab?

ANA MARIE: McCain Obama confab. All Obama needs to do is to tell McCain he wants to put him in charge of a new immigration bill. And then Lindsey will clap his hands together like a little girl.

MEGAN: And thereby shred whatever credibility McCain still has within the Republican party? Awesome. I'm guessing lobbying reform, since that's reportedly where their relationship went sour.

ANA MARIE: I don't think McCain gives a fuck about the GOP. At this point, he is truly free.

MEGAN: True, although McCain did nearly completely reverse himself on immigration since the start of the campaign.

ANA MARIE: Actually, the problem Rs had with him was that he didn't reverse himself enough. He changed his rhetoric but he favors comprehensive reform.

MEGAN: How exceedingly practical of him! That's so unlike a Republican. But pushing an Obama immigration bill would make him the Lieberman of the Republican party, at a minimum.

ANA MARIE: Lieberman is the Lieberman of the Republican party. And, like we're saying, McCain is not a very good Republican. Oh, and another point! Lots of chatter among pundits about whether or not the meeting will be "uncomfortable" because of the "harsh campaigning." I think that's pundits wanting drama where there doesn't have to be any. These are big boys.

MEGAN: Do people think they're going to go at it at 20 paces or something? Bitch-slap fest? If they were going to be dicks, they wouldn't do it.

ANA MARIE: And yet we're going to get HOURS AND HOURS of speculation about it. That's what today is looking like, "news"-wise

MEGAN: I mean, when the biggest bold-faced names out of the Obama camp are Greg Craig, Phil Schiliro, and Valerie Jarrett, imagining a pants-off, dance-off between Rahm Emanuel and Lindsay Graham is way more fun.

ANA MARIE: I think we can imagine the "vetting" of Bill Clinton as a pants-off dance off as well.

MEGAN: [shudders] The other big story is that Obama might have to give up his blackberry, and he's not even going to go into rehab.

ANA MARIE: I have to say this makes me a little sad.

MEGAN: The end of his Blackberry, or Bill Clinton dancing in his underoos?

ANA MARIE: Barry berry-less. As much as I thought the whole "McCain can't email" thing was a pointless crit, the idea of Obama being theoretically available via email was really humanizing, as weird as it may be to think of email as humanizing I mean, surely, there's a way for him to keep emailing. If we can put a man on the moon, etc.

MEGAN: I mean, I also hate and think it's a shit thing that the reason they're doing it is so that less of his stuff will be accessibly under open records laws.

ANA MARIE: Exactly. Sort of voids the point of records laws...

MEGAN: That, and I sort of feel like: if you're not going to be DOING ANYTHING WRONG why does it matter?

ANA MARIE: Because it's not as though those discussions won't happen... or as though Obama won't ever do anything shady.

MEGAN: It'll just be Change if he does fewer shady things.

ANA MARIE: What if he does just as many but because he's so fucking disciplined we just never find out? I consider this a real possibility.

MEGAN: The problem is not whether he remains disciplined, its whether every single person that works with him remains so, and history says that they won't. Four years, let alone 8, is a long time to keep one's yap shut when there are reporters around stroking your ego and lots and lots of alcohol. Plus, as advisers start rolling over around the 2 year mark — and they have at least some time to kill given his lobbying restrictions — people are going to be looking to talk. That's how it works. He'd be better off keeping the Blackberry to remind him not to say or do stupid sketchy shit and turning over his emails to conservative interest groups than pretending like his sketchy shit isn't going to get found out.

ANA MARIE: Megan Carpentier for Deputy Chief of Staff!

Colbert was a gracious victim, taking the shots in stride before taking a few of his own, aiming at everyone from Chris Matthews to Bill Clinton to Alan Greenspan. "Alan Greenspan is here, and we're in the middle of a once-in-a-century financial meltdown," Colbert said, "so of course the question everyone is asking is, How did Alan Greenspan land Andrea Mitchell? Seriously. Keep kissing him, Andrea, he's going to turn into a prince one of these days."

Colbert also carried on his long-standing rivalry with Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who got in a zinger of her own: "Watch out, Colbert," Norton said, "Let's see how tough you are without your writers. What do we call 'The Colbert Report' with funnier material? 'The Daily Show,' sir!" Colbert shot back: "Like in Congress, what you said was duly noted and had no effect whatsoever. Do you ever dream of having a position with more power — like student body president?"

The event was all in good fun and for a good cause; proceeds went to the Spina Bifida Association, an organization dedicated to the treatment and prevention of Spina Bifida, "the most common permanently disabling birth defect in the United States. It occurs when the spine of the baby fails to close during the first month of pregnancy. This creates an opening, or lesion, on the spinal column. The lesion is surgically closed within 24 hours after the baby is born."

For those interested in seeing the hilarity unfold, The Huffington Post has an exclusive video clip of the roast. Or you could be like me and just keep staring at that picture at the top of the screen.

The Colbert Rapport [WashingtonPost]
Rahm Emanuel Roasts Stephen Colbert [HuffingtonPost]
[RoastForSpinaBifida]