According to CNN, the bill in question would impose a lifetime prison sentence on anyone caught having gay sex. It would impose the death penalty on homosexuals who have sex with minors, or who have gay sex more than once (because obviously, those things are morally equivalent). It would effectively ban HIV/AIDS prevention education, would imprison those who fail to report homosexual behavior, and, perhaps most disturbing of all, would allow people to be executed for having HIV. The bill even mandates that Ugandans who engage in homosexual sex abroad be returned to Uganda for prosecution. A coalition of American Christian leaders have denounced the bill, and human rights groups are asking Western countries to deny aid to Uganda if it passes. But some Americans seem to have helped inspire the bill.

Rick Warren, for instance, told a conference of Ugandan Anglican Bishops last year that the right to homosexuality was not a valid human right, and that "We shall not tolerate this aspect at all." His mentor, C. Peter Wagner, was a direct inspiration for the legislators behind the bill. According to Jeff Sharlet, a professor of religion and media at NYU, the legislator who introduced the Ugandan bill is a member of the fundamentalist group called The Family, which also includes American lawmakers like Sen. John Ensign (known for his impeccable sexual morality).

Then there's Richard Cohen. Cohen claims he is both a former gay man and a therapist (he's not licensed). His book Coming Out Straight was cited as an authoritative text at the conference that led to the Ugandan anti-gay bill, as proof that homosexuality was actually misdirected love for a parent. On Rachel Maddow, he responded to Maddow's claim that he has "blood on his hands."

Throughout the interview, Cohen tries to distance himself from the legislation and appear as harmless as possible. He claims his organization teaches compassion and tells Maddow, "we are for your right and anyone's right to live a homosexual life." Cohen's book claims that gays are much more likely to molest schoolchildren, feeding Ugandan fears of "recruiting" — but Cohen says he's going to excise that quote from the next edition (potentially, after the bill is passed). He says that he's not trying to "cure" homosexuality. And when Maddow points out that his other book, Gay Children, Straight Parents, lists "race" as a risk factor for homosexuality, he claims not to know how that got in there.

Cohen repeats a number of times that he's only interested in treating "unwanted" same-sex attraction, that he thinks people have the right to live as they wish, and that he's against the Ugandan bill. All these things may be true. At the same time, it's hard not to suspect him of double-talk — of saying one thing on a show with a liberal audience and hosted by an openly gay woman, and another to groups of homophobes and zealots. He's not the only one — Warren too has tried to distance himself from the Ugandan bill without condemning it outright. American fundamentalists appear to have learned that there are certain things you can't say in front of American audiences without losing your mainstream cred. However, you can still say those things (like that practicing your sexual orientation is not a human right) overseas, and you can support others who say them — as long as you're not worried about people dying.

Why Is Uganda Attacking Homosexuality? [CNN]
The Secret Political Reach Of 'The Family' [NPR]
Rick Warren And Uganda's Looming Gay Genocide [Daily Dish]

• Gene Robinson, the gay Episcopal bishop, delivered a four-minute invocation at the Mall on Sunday. Although HBO had exclusive rights to broadcast the invocation it did not make it to air. [Politico]

• Thoroughly reliable source and garbage PUMA blogger Perez Hilton says that Robinson's invocation didn't air because Obama's people told HBO not to air it. [Perez Hilton]
• HBO says that the invocation did not air because of a "planning error." The Inaugural concert began its live broadcast at 2:30pm (ET) and Robinson's invocation started at 2:20pm (ET). The invocation will air in repeats and will stream on HBO.com. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Meanwhile, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 61% of people surveyed said they back Rick Warren as the inaugural invocation pick. [Washington Post]
• Dick Cheney pulled a muscle in his back yesterday while moving boxes into his new house. He will be attending Obama's inauguration in a wheelchair. [Reuters]
• Meanwhile, on Monday a federal judge lifted an injunction requiring preservation of Dick Cheney's records because she said she expected Cheney to preserve them himself. The injunction was put in place when a group of government watchdogs and historians claimed that Cheney might destroy some of his records. [UPI]
• Blogette Meghan McCain got an exclusive interview with her mother for The Daily Beast. Cindy said that although she "is not bitter" she did think there was a strong bias in the media against her husband, John McCain. [Wonkette, Poynter]
• Last night Obama held a dinner honoring McCain whom he called an American hero and whose bipartisanship he hopes to follow. [MSNBC, The Page]
• McCain has told Fox News that Palin could someday be President. [The Page]
• An effigy of Sarah Palin with a noose around her neck was taken off of eBay on Sunday. This is the same effigy that was protested by the Mayor of West Hollywood when it was hung outside of a West Hollywood home of a professional window dresser and his partner before the election. [UPI]
• George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, died peacefully in his sleep last night. He was 62. [The Onion]
• Nancy Pelosi went on Fox News to say that she wants Obama to extend the Bush tax cuts (for families earning more than $250,000) when they expire in 2010. [Politico]
• Adorable child-reporter Damon Weaver is still looking to lock down a one-on-one with Obama as he covers the inauguration today. [NPR]
• Ha ha: Bush has decided to not pardon Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, for his 2007 conviction in the CIA leak case. [Newsweek]
• Sources say that Obama may quickly issue an executive order to reverse a Bush abortion policy (commonly called "the Mexico City policy") that prohibited funding for international family planning groups that provided, promoted or provided information about abortion services. [CNN]
• Bill Ayers has been denied entry into Canada because of a 1969 conviction during an anti-war demonstration. [MSNBC]
• Oh yeah: in keeping with tradition, Bush left a note for Obama . [MSNBC]

Despite all the pound puppy advocacy that has lit up the blogosphere since Barack Obama won the election and promised his girls a puppy, one name continues to resurface in the Obamas' public statements about their choice. That name, sadly, is Labradoodle. I am sure that despite the silly name, Labradoodles are fine dogs but, frankly, they are not very Presidential-sounding and, Ted Kennedy advocacy aside, Portuguese water dogs are not any more Real American than arugula. Plus, you're not likely to find either in the D.C. Humane Society shelter (though, presumably, there are rescue groups for breeds which are almost as good, I guess). Either way, quit with the Labradoodle. Get a dog America can believe in.

One other pick Obama has made is that of Sharon Watkins to lead the post-inauguration National Prayer Service, which he probably hopes will mellow that harsh taste in people's mouths from letting Rick Warren give the Inaugural invocation but totally won't in the end. It also won't let liberals ignore that he's not keen to start investigating — let alone prosecuting — the Bushies, though he won't stand in anyone's way. Between Warren, not forgoing governing to start prosecuting and — gasp — talking about tax cuts (which are nearly always supported by those pesky swing voters), Obama is seeming less like the most liberal, practically Marxist, Senator that McCain and Palin promised and more like a centrist guy interested in reaching out to everyone that he said he was and no one wanted to believe he could really be. Hell, he's not even going to bring back the estate tax.

But at least he's going to close Gitmo, and GOP Senator Jon Kyl is doing his part to make him seem really liberal by claiming that anyone that doesn't support torture doesn't deserve to be in the Executive Branch, which is, I guess, a start. Bush is himself taking personal credit for signing off on torture, which is, I guess, part of that legacy he wants to leave office with. Cheney, however, gets to leave office having expanded the power of the executive branch and, you know, what the hell, they've still got a couple of days to find Osama bin Laden and redeem the entire enterprise, so there you go. You know, since the New Deal failed and all, which makes about as much sense as anything the GOP is saying these days.

And Joe The Motherfucking Plumber is there to help, heading to Israel to let us all know that reporters should never report on war because it, like, totes interferes with government propaganda about how important war is. Not that we're seeing any other alternative news source because this Administration has been so effective at propagandizing against them already.

Oh, right, and Biden's resigning on Thursday, Clinton's got her confirmation hearings this week, Bush found a bail-out package he didn't like, it's going to be cold as balls for the Inauguration, and Michelle's mother is totally moving in. At least Obama knows where he can go for some authentic food in D.C. though, even if it's only half a smoke.

Ms. Hathaway, whose strong public support during the campaign for President-elect Obama totally pushed him over the edge with voters, would really like him to explain the selection of Rick Warren to give that prayer at the Inauguration and is speaking up now because there's no downside. The fundies, however, have unearthed a video of Rick Warren saying that denying marriage rights to the LGBT community is a "humanitarian" issue because that's a good idea right now and unlikely to piss off Obama's base again, and, Rick Warren, I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Larry Flynt is up to his old tricks and, no, I'm not talking about making porn or pissing off Republicans, I'm talking about engaging in a little political stunt for media attention. This year's entry is his push for a piece of the stimulus pie to save some all-American porn jobs, a stunt he's wanking away at with Girls Gone Wild founder and tax evader Joe Francis because Joe Francis figures that if the banks can pull the wool over Treasury's eyes, so can he. They are right about American job losses, though, as the new unemployment numbers are out and things are not only bad but Macroeconomic Advisers Chairman Joel Prakken calls them about to be "gruesome," which is how I describe Joe Francis most of the time.

In the meantime, there's plenty of hue and cry at the Hay Adams Hotel, where Obama is staying, because he really, really, really wants to keep his Crackberry after he becomes President and no one else wants to let him. He, Michelle and the girls are staying there, you'll recall, because the place that President-elects generally stay before the Inauguration — Blair House — was "previously booked" according to President Bush's people. It was booked, apparently, for former Australian Prime Minister John Howard so he can accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom from his good friend Bush — but lest you think that Howard had to stay there, former British PM Tony Blair and current Colombian President Alvaro Uribe are getting the same award on the same day but managed to find somewhere else to stay.

Speaking on snubs, China is now snubbing American debt in favor of keeping its money at home in China during the world financial crisis and the Inauguration planners have decided to close every single bridge from Virginia into (and out of) D.C. for the Inauguration — but not most of the Maryland crossings, so that's apparently what Virginia gets for going blue. But no one got snubbed yesterday at the confab between the former Presidents, the about-to-be-former President and the about-to-be President which made headlines but no real news.

Roland Burris is still sort of being snubbed by the Senate but they'll probably stop doing so next week when enough of the TV lights turn towards the Inauguration and Harry Reid figures he won't look as much like a wimp for doing so. Burris himself, though, seems determined to prove true what people in Illinois said about anyone who would accept an appointment to the seat by Blagojevich — that he much be crazy. He's not quite as crazy as Bobby Rush yet, but he's only been in D.C. for a couple of days.

MEGAN: Greetings from the frigid north, where my father is currently suiting up in full snow regalia to head outside and snowblow away the foot of snow in our driveway in temperatures that should reach 15 degrees! (Without wind chill, of course).

SPENCER: Greetings from Washington D.C.'s historic blogger Flophouse, where the heat has evidently decided to give out the week that the managing company and most of my roommates have skipped town for this farkakteh holiday. I'm typing this on my couch in a Triple F.A.T. Goose coat and probably look like a South Park character

MEGAN: Only if you have a knit hat with a pom pom on it, or your hood drawn close around your face.

SPENCER: Hmm I should put the hood up.

MEGAN: Also, the local "news"cast here reliably informed me that it is now Hannukah, this strange eight day holiday celebrated by the Jews over something to do with war with the Syrians and macaroons and candles. And oil, though I'm not sure Syria has much oil.

SPENCER: now now now. Hannukah is more properly understood as the first-ever war for oil.

MEGAN: I still fail to see why it merited 70 seconds of explanation! On the news! The Jews! They don't celebrate Christmas! Do they even know it's Christmastime at all?

SPENCER: Is it actually Hannukah? I hate that bullshit holiday too. It's a bunch of Jews trying to out-vulgarize Christians. Have some self-respect, it's embarrassing. Do you really need an explanation for why THE MEDIA devoted so much time to a JEWISH HOLIDAY

MEGAN: To explaining its existence? Yes. What amused/annoyed me was how the anchorwoman managed to infuse such awe into her voice when explaining it, as though she was explaining to the viewers some strange, secret thing they'd never heard of before. It's fucking Hannukah, it happens every year and has for longer than Christmas. The end.

SPENCER: I love how the Catholic girl is more offended than the Jewboy

MEGAN: Former Catholic. I get offended over the insult to my intelligence, and more so when I've been drinking until my parents seem normal.

SPENCER: sorry! I keep forgetting that you Christians don't have to be Christians if you don't choose to be, which is not the case for Jews.

MEGAN: Former Catholics get all of the guilt and none of the absolution. It's the only real choice for a true masochist. Anyway, so a real media outlet informs me that the mortgage crisis is Bush's fault?

SPENCER: Ah, now we have the natural tie between religionethnicity and broader political questions. I didn't read that story and wouldn't have understood it if I had, so I don't know if it blames Jews at all for the mortgage crisis, unlike the giant Ponzi scheme that's been going on for some time which is obviously the fault of the Jew. But isn't it fair to say that over the last eight years, our three biggest core-competencies as Jews — the media; international finance; and American foreign policy — have seriously suffered? I'm kind of gratified Obama doesn't have Jews in his cabinet. We need to take a knee and think about what we've done.

MEGAN: I believe it blames it all on Bush's laissez faire regulatory policies, not the Jews. But I had not been paying attention to who wasn't in the Cabinet, that's sort of interesting.

SPENCER: well, that's the whitewashing Jewish media for you. Actually it isn't! Politico is the one media organization in DC that's practically judenrein. Seriously, they're one giant cucumber sandwich. Wrapped in a foreskin. Another symptom of the Jew's weakening hold on this country.

MEGAN: Cucumber sandwiches? I have never once eaten one, but I come from the land of Fluffernutters and baloney-and-cheese-on-Wonder-bread.

SPENCER: Nonsense. I read on Ta-Nehisi's blog all about cucumber sandwiches.

MEGAN: I cannot get on board with a steak cooked past "mooing." If I wanted to eat carbonized carpet padding, I wouldn't pay $30 for the privilege.

SPENCER: PREACH IT. I have no idea why you'd ruin a perfectly good piece of red meat

MEGAN: Besides, like Sarah Palin before me, something about the thrill of the hunt makes me enjoy it more, even if it is just chasing a piece of beef around my plate as it tries to escape from my fork, screaming.

SPENCER: No one could possibly believe a steak is improved by removing its flavor. Speaking of removing its flavor, or at least numbing it, did you & Ana talk about Levi's mother's apparent oxycontin dealership? Because, i mean — SHIT.

MEGAN: Was it oxy? I was convinced it was meth. Either way, I'm guessing someone won't be babysitting much. If it was meth, though, the house could be a Superfund site, depending on how long she was cooking. For real, Arkansas had so many meth labs a couple years back that it cost the state and the feds a ton to clean up because they all ended up being so polluted they became Superfund sites.

SPENCER: no it was definitely Oxycontin. I learned it from watching Alex Pareene.

MEGAN: One would think it would be hard to get enough oxy to distro in rural Alaska, since it's a controlled substance and all and monitored by the feds, but I guess that is why she got caught.
SPENCER: In any event. I liked his point about how we were supposed to venerate the Palinites' rugged white authenticity. Cuts both ways, doesn't it?

MEGAN: The only people that venerated the Palin's white rural authenticity are Republicans that grew up in urban areas and avoid places like where I grew up in the fear that they might get their wingtips dirty. They like the idea of the noble lower middle class or the poor that could lift themselves up by their bootstraps, and not the actuality of sitting on there decomposing sofas with the Coors light cans and full ashtrays talking about how both their kids went to state schools but live at home because they can't find jobs. A Republican friend who grew up around D.C. called me last week in the midst of some Caroline Kennedy coverage and said, "Did you know that half of the welfare payments in the state of New York are made upstate? And that half of the industrialized jobs in the country that have disappeared since the Reagan years came from upstate New York?" And I was like, um, yeah. I grew up there.

SPENCER: I'm just going to sit back and watch you riff. Preach!

MEGAN: There wasn't a boom in the 90s up here! We went from being the headquarters of General Electric (hello, Jack Welch, and fuck you very much, the stock sucks now, too) to being a minor gas turbine generating plant and a bunch of semi-reclaimed green space. One in every 2 adults or something up here works for the state. Ohio? Pennsylvania? We got your rust belt, only it's gotten a little thinner in the last 25 years, but so have our local budgets. It didn't take 7 days to fix the electricity here and in Western Mass (hello, Rachel Maddow's family!) last week because they couldn't. It took a week because there's not enough money in it for a big electrical company to care to spend the money to fix it quickly.

SPENCER: I'm from Brooklyn, where upstate — everything north of Yonkers — is an abstraction. I've heard you also have a nuclear power plant that doesn't work well?

MEGAN: Not where I live, there's still some minor nuclear research that's done, apparently, but no one really talks about it. Anyway, my parents were without power for 5 days and we live in "town" so I'm a little bitter. Also, I spent the one night that I wasn't snowed in drinking with a really old friend whose job was outsourced to China this year and who, because of the economy, is working at a FedEx facility part-time, unable to make ends meet, but thankful that the work means he doesn't have to be on the dole.

SPENCER: God, my feet are startng to freeze.

MEGAN: If I had money, I would buy you a slanket.

SPENCER: Is anyone around Scotia NY expecting to see anything out of the Obama job-creation package?

MEGAN: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Oh, thanks, I needed a good laugh. I mean, that stimulus is aimed at temporarily fixing the recent unemployment. This part of the country — and others, I shouldn't mock our Ohio and Pennsylvania brothers-and-sisters-in-shabby-arms too much — the unemployment and underemployment is structural. It's two decades worth of declining employment and population. I mean, we lost a Blockbuster and a McDonalds here, and one of the two liquor stores went out of business. When you can't support a liquor store, man... Anyway, in other outrage news, the Prop 8 people who totally promised they weren't going to go after the same sex couples that got married before the vote are totally going after the same sex marriages that were performed just in time for Christmas! They want to give 18,000 married people annulments for Christmas! How charitable!

SPENCER: one of them is my rabbi, if you can believe that. It's not just a Christmas miracle!

MEGAN: Oh, and noted moralist Ken Starr has signed up, too. Actually, it makes a kind of perverse sense that a bunch of Christian bigots would try to annul your rabbi's marriage for Christmas.

SPENCER: Let's call this for what it is. Barbarism. I'm sick of arguing about the merits of gay marriage. They're self-evident from a civil-rights perspective. All that's left to do is, as you're doing, point out the bad faith and bigotry of people like the man who's going to be preaching during the inauguration.

MEGAN: Well, and if Time's John Cloud is to be believed, Barack Obama, too. Of course, I kind of called it.

SPENCER: I don't like the framing of this piece in the slightest. It's not just a problem for gays that Obama is coddling this homophobe, it's a problem for America, indicating a persistent — what was that word you used earlier? — structural deficiency in American politics that you can say all this Bull-Connor shit about millions of your fellow Americans and be treated as a force to be appeased. I mean, I suppose I'm inconsistent here, as I think you should appease Moqtada al-Sadr and not Rick Warren, but let's treat Warren like Moqtada al-Sadr in terms of the contempt that we hold him in and invective and treat him to.

MEGAN: Yeah, fuck that guy with a chainsaw.

• The Bidens plan to add to their household by getting another puppy from the pound. Double puppy snuggles! [Huffington Post]

• Rod Blagojevich says he's, like, totally innocent and is definitely not going to resign so that he has something to offer prosecutors in his eventual plea deal [Politico]
• Hillary's pay cut is final. [CNN]
• In better news, she might create a post at the State Department for Iran outreach, without even insisting that Iran accede to all our demands first [Washington Independent]
• Plenty of people seem to be ticked about Ron Kirk's appointment to USTR because he's not anti-trade enough. [The Hill]
• James Carville is trying to get more donations for Media Matters, since it's difficult to raise money in this economic climate, and is using the conservatives linking Obama and Blagojevich to do it. [The Hill]
• Al Sharpton is defending the selection of Rick Warren to say a prayer at the inauguration, since he hasn't gotten enough media attention by meeting with Caroline Kennedy this week. [Huffington Post]
• Al Franken is up in the Minnesota Senate recount, though, which might end by 2010. [Think Progress]
• Bush unveiled his auto bailout, but Ford's not opting in [BBC]
• The National Portrait Gallery unveiled the portraits of George and Laura Bush. Laura's got some sort of soft focus thing going on that Barbara Walters hopes to patent in film-format soon. [National Portrait Gallery]

• 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]

MEGAN: Okay, so, the coffee is brewing as is the progressive resentment over Rick Warren's scheduled prayer at the inauguration, so I guess we're all set to go.

ANA MARIE: I'm going to be annoying and say what I did last night upon hearing the Warren news: Anyone who is surprised by this was not watching the same primary I was. This is not to say they shouldn't be upset. I am very much pro-outrage. Sort of in general.

MEGAN: Or they missed the Election Night speech when he said he was also the President of the people that didn't vote for him. Sort of like the opposite thing Bush has done for 8 years? You don't see Bush inviting the Reverend Joe Lowery onstage, do you?

ANA MARIE: Good point. And depending on how things go forward this could be brilliant. Rather than a sign of mainstreaming bigotry, maybe this is the first step toward Obama co-opting Warren?

MEGAN: Like this?

[Reverend] Chellew-Hodge noted that Warren recently said same-sex couples deserve equal rights, though not the right to marriage, a position at least superficially similar to Obama's). Mainly, however, the argument is that the Warren choice falls under the president-elect's stated objective of building a big tent government.

Yes, how terrible. A government of all the people, by all the people and for all the people. Someone said it wouldn't vanish from this earth.

ANA MARIE: People are doing all kinds of things to suck up to Obama, changing your mind about gay rights is totally acceptable in that regard.

MEGAN: I'm cool with any evangelical who wants to try to regain a modicum of power in an Obama administration by backing anti-poverty spending, gay rights and all the stuff they're happily helped Bush push in the last 8 years. Their hypocrisy is marginally more palatable to me if it's promoting a political agenda I support, since it's not like they can stop being hypocrites.

ANA MARIE: Few of us have that luxury.

MEGAN: For today's unicorn chaser, may I recommend children's letters to Obama?

"I hope that you will stop war because we need peace and quiet," wrote McKenna Tucker, one of several letters from Jefferson students that call on the president-elect to end military conflict.

ANA MARIE: So funny it's Wauwatosa. In part because it's so fun to say, in part because that's where Nancy Dickerson was from — first lady national political television reporter. Okay, but THIS is weird: "The letter-writing project is part of a national campaign organized by Handwriting Without Tears as a way to encourage penmanship in a digital society."

Handwriting Without Tears????? Is that a big problem these days? The tears, I mean? I sort of wish there was a slightly less esoteric organization behind this fantastic project. It's like The National Doily Society getting kids to knit.

MEGAN: I don't know, one of the lowest grades I ever got in grade school — even lower than in gym class — was in penmanship. To this day, I am occasionally mocked for my handwriting. Nick Gillespie did it once at a Reason Christmas party. So, I'm not going to say there were never bitter tears when I was little.

ANA MARIE: Hm, maybe the problem with your handwriting is that you weren't crying ENOUGH. CRYING OVER MAKING YOUR HANDWRITING PERFECT. That was kind of my approach.

MEGAN: Yes, that's true. I didn't care enough about my cursive until it was too late. But, any of my tears were probably not as bitter as the tears cried by the sick kids and their parents who won't get their $8 million because of Blago.

ANA MARIE: Now there's a thought that will require a whole new unicorn chaser. Ugh. Just when you thought he couldn't get more vulgar.

MEGAN: Yeah, you can swear like a motherfucker, but when you stop legislation designed to allow poor kids better access to specialists for seizures and diabetes, you can offend me faster than calling me a cunt. He's not getting impeached any time soon, in case you were feeling optimistic.

ANA MARIE: Did you see his lawyer's press conference yesterday? IT WAS AWESOME. He was all, "I took this case because it would be FUN." FUN! I don't know if I want my lawyer to take a case ON A LARK.

MEGAN: I was watching part of the hearing and I was like, yeah, this is how this lawyer won the R. Kelly case, by simply rhetorically confusing the shit out of everyone. It's a good tactic, if you can pull it off.

ANA MARIE: Look at how many "[chuckles]" are in that transcript! I think we know someone's prison nickname!

MEGAN: Almost as many as whatever short-sighted tourist wears this to an Inaugural Ball.

ANA MARIE: Hey, it's the People's Inauguration. The people have never been particularly stylish. That will look great with a jokey "WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM" t-shirt and Crocs.

MEGAN: At least you won't see the T-shirt, as it will be covered by a huge coat in deference to the balls-out cold it will be on Inauguration Day.

ANA MARIE: Remember how it was 70 degrees day before yesterday?

MEGAN: Yes, that was lovely.

ANA MARIE: Because you'll want remember what feeling ones toes is like. On the bright side: Frozen human waste easier to deal with/avoid on the street.

MEGAN: I am hoping, like any sane person, to be watching it from the safety of a place with free booze and a heater. Also, there's a horrible rumor circulating that since they're opening up the mall, trains will terminate at Rosslyn and, having been a Georgetown student, I know better than to walk across the Key Bridge when it is cold and windy.

ANA MARIE: ::SHUDDER:: Makes you want to just cuddle up with Jon Favreau, no?

MEGAN: Um, yes. But we already knew that.

ANA MARIE: There is pretty much nothing about that WP story that I wouldn't put into a television pilot about a group of idealistic, funny and hot young people moving to DC to work for the president. 1. He lived in a group house where they played X Box, in addition to writing speeches. 2. He pretend felt-up pretend Hillary. 3. He had a crisis of confidence and had to call a childhood friend 4. His shit is still in boxes while he hangs at S'bucks writing the inauguration speech. I think that you've got you're first 5 episode arc right there.

MEGAN: Also the air mattress. That's a funny bit when he's trying to pick up a girl he likes but can't bring her home because he's embarrassed but she likes him anyway or something. This might be why I don't like sitcoms.

ANA MARIE: My vision is more of a dramedy. And he would bring her home to the air mattress and maybe she doesn't even NOTICE until the morning. Because of the hottness, most likely.

MEGAN: You really can't fuck on an air mattress. If you haven't slept on one in a while, good for you, but, technological improvements aside, the worry about popping it combined with the noise... she'd have to notice. But they'd definitely wake up sleeping on the hard floor on a thick plastic tarp.

ANA MARIE: That would be the scenario for the tv show, I think. We should whip up a treatment and sell this baby!

MEGAN: God knows we need the money!

ANA MARIE: Probably the only way to make money writing about the Obama administration.

MEGAN: It'll take a good two years to get publishers ready for a smear, and the campaign was already a hagiography so no one wants to read that in book format. And here people thought Obama was so egotistical to write his own memoirs before he was anything too important, but he was just presciently undercutting the competition.

ANA MARIE: And while those two hit books on him SORT OF count as fiction, I think there's a lot of room for growth in that area.

LATOYA: Where do you want to start this morning? We've got a piping hot plate of hot mess to go through.

MEGAN: Well, being as this is a women's blog, we should do something woman-y, and I nominate the news that the McCain campaign spent $110,000 on hair and make-up for Sarah Palin in 10 weeks and $180,000 on clothing and accessories for the Palin clan — which is $30,000 more than initially reported.

LATOYA: Oh, I forgot to tell you.

MEGAN: That, by the way, means they spent more on hair and make-up and clothing and accessories than my condo is worth.

LATOYA: I have personally instituted a ban on discussing anything to do with Palin. As far as I am concerned, she is irrelevant. If she manages a resurrection and comes back to haunt us in 2012, so be it.

MEGAN: What are you going to do when she opens up an exploratory committee in 2010?

LATOYA: But until then, I'd love to see her fade into obscurity. She should be remembered, fondly, like Ross Perot.

MEGAN: Ok, but can we discuss that kind of money?

LATOYA: Thanks for the memories of shout outs at VP debates, but you need to mosey along now. Take your folksy ways and return to the ice cave. I mean, we can discuss the money. But somehow, I can't muster up indignant outrage.

MEGAN: Like, I will guarantee that there's no way on God's green earth that I have spent $110,000 on hair and make-up in my lifetime, even though I've been highlighting my hair for about 6 years.

LATOYA: Maybe if I had bought that whole "salt of the earth, of the white people, heartland of real America" tripe they were selling. Homegirl was just an opportunist. Cindy McCain was rocking nice clothes — why shouldn't she?

MEGAN: Totally. Look, if RNC donors want to give me $180,000 in clothes, I will totally run for office as a Republican. They can even call me A Maverick over and over again because of my support of reproductive choice.

LATOYA: And it's obvious they had the money. If the first card maxed out and they let her keep going, I say get what you get. Credit Cards come with limits.

MEGAN: But Republican money never ends!

LATOYA: That's why they're Republicans. They're supposed to have money, want to keep money, spend their money the way they want, and tell the gov't to mind their damn business. That's what I expect from Republicans. It's comforting that way.

MEGAN: Yeah, I get that. So, moving on, want to talk about NOW and the Feminist Majority Foundation going metaphorical balls to the wall to promote Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy for Clinton's Senate seat?

LATOYA: Why not? Obviously, the dice are lucky.

MEGAN: Because I don't like the idea that a woman's seat ought to be filled by a woman, but McCarthy does have an established record on women's rights issues and is generally cool. But, mostly, I wish to continue pressing the point that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is an unmitigated casual racist not deserving of elected office but certainly not deserving of an appointment to a lifetime Senate seat by David Paterson, the state's first African-American governor.

LATOYA: Hmm, well, I am not so sure about Cuomo. Then again, I'm only thinking about his record at HUD.

MEGAN: Well, then, there's a question. If you have a good record of doing decent things for the community as a whole while tossing around the phrase "shucking and jiving" in reference to an African-American candidate for the Presidency, followed by a steadfast insistence that it is actually not a racist term after the world notices that you said it, what should a politically active person do? Because I choose to call him a racist and think that he should go fuck himself.

LATOYA: Oh, I wasn't sure about the appointment, not your comment on casual racism. I think his HUD record proves he doesn't care about black people.

MEGAN: Then, yeah, fuck that guy.

LATOYA: But back to the original point, I understand what you're saying about not wanting to do this tit for tat seating thing. But I can understand where NOW is coming from, especially with the whispers of sexism around this bailout committee.

Frank credited the current resistance to doing more about foreclosures to ruffled male feathers. “I think part of the problem now is that, to be honest, Shelia Bair has annoyed the Old Boys Club.” He likened the situation to several regulators “up in the treehouse with a ‘No Girls Allowed’ sign.”

MEGAN: I know! I could not believe that shit when I heard it from Moe. I was like, wait, the new Democratic Treasury Secretary is mad about the (technically independent) FDIC chair telling Bush to go fuck himself while she's trying to save Real Americans?

LATOYA: Pretty much. Just call it the "Fuck that bitch" doctrine. She is showing people up so she has got to go.

MEGAN: Also, I think saying that she has to go is akin to when McCain said he would fire Chris Cox at the SEC. I mean, it's their fucking government, you think they could learn who is supposed to be independent — and therefore given a term — and who is supposed to be a sycophant. Tim Geithner either needs to say a bunch more stupid shit so Obama withdraws his name, or get his head screwed on straight. Yo, Tim, you can throw all the money you want at Wall Street and get them to lower interest rates, but if no one has a fucking house in 2 years, the economy is still going to be fucked, and that's what Sheila Bair is trying to prevent, you dumb cunt.

LATOYA: I think prevention is a dirty word to some people. Kind of reminds them of socialism.

MEGAN: But the Republicans promised that we were electing a dirty socialist! They promised!

LATOYA: The Republicans are promising a lot of stuff, but one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing. Like this rift between the religious right and the ...um...regular right.

MEGAN: This part is kind of awesome.

Ponnuru acknowledges that social conservatives “could present themselves more attractively,” and “pick their spokesmen more wisely.”

No, asshole, at the end of the day, you're still advocating for a fucking theocracy and I am gonna notice no matter how much you pay for Sarah Palin's stylists.

LATOYA: She even used the term Oogedy-Boodgey.

First, to the origins. “Oogedy-boogedy” was bequeathed to me several years ago by my dear, departed friend, political cartoonist Doug Marlette. We were doubtless talking about our shared Southern heritage, about which one does not speak long without mentioning religion.

And, you betcha, oogedy-boogedy.

Marlette, whose childhood was spent among Pentecostals, Baptists, and other passionate believers, had religion in his bones and forgot more scripture than most preachers can recall on a given Sunday. He also won a Pulitzer Prize for his lampooning of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker (peace be upon them) and their “PTL Club.”

If Jim and Tammy Faye put you in mind of oogedy-boogedy, you’re getting warm.

Now, I'm going to be saying Oogedy Boogedy all day.

MEGAN: And, Republican dudes, if you can't figure out what it means, I don't think you get to call me an Un-Real American anymore.

LATOYA: Rick Warren, talking about capping foreign leaders because the bible says so? Oogedy Boogedy!

MEGAN: Also, how is the world not fucking scared of that shit? Spencer said it best: if it was a Muslim preacher saying on national TV abroad that the Koran says they need to suicide bomb us, we would be flipping the fuck out. But a white guy? No, that's cool.

LATOYA: Selective memory. Side effect of the oogedy boogedy.

MEGAN: So, is the oogedy-boogedy something you catch from the Bible, or from other Jeebus-freaks?

LATOYA: Apparently, the bible is OK. It's the freak part that leads to the oogedy boogedy. There have been other strange happenings as well, outside of religion. Like Michelle Malkin talking sense.

MEGAN: Michelle Malkin has been talking some sense on and off again all year and it is sort of freaking me the fuck out in general.

LATOYA: She's done this a couple times before. I'm always kind of shocked, because I can't reconcile a sensible column with the author of "In Defense of Internment." I don't know whether to read or avoid. On her worst days, she makes me want to put my eyes out, Oedipus style, so I do not have to see what senselessness has wrought. But on other days, I wonder if I should move her and Kathleen Parker into regular rotation.

MEGAN: Is it terribly condescending to think that Malkin grew up a little? That after wallowing around in all that scary, informed-only-by-fear filth she sort of looked around at her compatriots, commenters and ass-kissers and thought to herself, damn, these people are crazy?

LATOYA: Then again, we both now she is one "banana cream pie"column (that link is NSFW) away from being in they "why did I ever think we could hang" category. And speaking of even more crazy shit — do you know they are trying to challenge Obama's citizenship?

MEGAN: I am hoping the problem is not just that other wannabe columnists have not decided to out-Malkin Malkin by being crazier, thus making her seem less insane in the process. Yeah, dude, that is some crazytown fucking shit. There are suits claiming the birth certificate is fake, and others claiming that because his father wasn't American, he doesn't qualify.

LATOYA: Remember that Colbert Report segment on Obama going to this crazy foreign nation of Hawaii? Yeah, someone must have forgotten the Colbert Report isn't real news.

MEGAN: Dude! If only! Actually, they are claiming that his mother actually gave birth to him in Kenya but faked that it happened in Hawai'i.

LATOYA: I mean, damn, the birth certificate is online. Hawaii published a column announcing it. WTF?

MEGAN: In this alterna-universe, claiming Hawai'i doesn't count is actually less cray-cray than what they are really claiming. They claim that all that stuff has been faked, as though he's an actual Manchurian candidate.

LATOYA: Oh wait, are you talking about that guy who is suing "the "Peoples Association of Human, Animals Conceived God/s and Religions, John McCain (and) USA Govt." The plaintiff previously sought to sue Wikipedia and "All News Media." Or is he just some fresh crazy? And Clarence Thomas picked up this lawsuit, to presumably dismiss it, which is making blogger like Karynthia get pissed off for having to defend him.

MEGAN: Dude, Alan Keyes filed one of the lawsuits. There are multiple strains of crazy at work.

LATOYA: I expected that. Do you want to talk about terrorism crazy now, or international government crazy?

MEGAN: Oh, it's so hard to decide. I was going to say that we should read what the nanny of the Jewish toddler said about rescuing him because it's sort of awesome in a We-Are-The-World kind of way that transcends race, but we can stick with crazy.

"First thing is that a baby is very important for me and this baby is something very precious to me and that's what made me just not think anything — just pick up the baby and run," Samuel said.

"When I hear gunshot, it's not one or 20. It's like a hundred gunshots," she added. "Even I'm a mother of two children so I just pick up the baby and run. Does anyone think of dying at the moment when there's a small, precious baby?"

LATOYA: I applaud that woman. I am also giving a half-hearted applause to Condi for calling out Mugabe and his general douchbagginess toward his people. The applause is half hearted because we only selectively seek to remove dictators that are screwing with us. Or, rather, standing in the way of something we want.

MEGAN: Right, although, if we're giving Condi a golf clap, we probably have to shout out Raila Odinga, the Kenyan PM, who sorta beat her to the punch on that.

LATOYA: He gets full applause.

MEGAN: I mean, Odinga even beat South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, who probably could have done it as his first act in office or something.

LATOYA: Meanwhile, our neighbors to the South have crazy drug war drama and our neighbors to the North have crazy Parliament drama. Is it just me, or are global current events starting to read like The Days of Our Lives?

MEGAN: OMG, Latoya, seriously, I used to watch Days of Our Lives sort of obsessively. And by sort of obsessively, I mean, once upon a time I stood in line at the mall to get an autography from and picture with Matthew Ashford. That I still have.

LATOYA: And your verdict is?

MEGAN: Days of Our Lives once featured a plot line in which Marlena, possessed by the actual devil wreaked havoc on Salem. I think it's a valid comparison to world events.

LATOYA: Hahahahahahahha — true! I'm about to go get some breakfast (Mocha Hut!) but I did want to leave with this gem. The ignored truth about Iraq is contained in an old ass booklet.

Republished in 2008 by Dark Horse Publications, the tiny booklet for troops heading to protect the Persian Gulf’s oilfields and supply routes is a pronunciation, cultural and religious survival manual whose wisdom applies to Iraq (i-RAHK) during the era of the Toyota pickup truck and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as much as to the age of the camel and the Luftwaffe.

“Show respect to all older persons,” writes the anonymous author.

“American success or failure in Iraq may well depend on whether the Iraqis (as the people are called) like American soldiers or not. It may not be quite that simple. But then again it could.”

MEGAN: Sigh.

LATOYA: The book is so old that Muslim is still spelled Moslem and Israel doesn't exist yet (while Iran is a footnote) and yet, the advice is still kind of pertinent.

MEGAN:

“You aren’t going to Iraq to change the Iraqis. Just the opposite.”

LATOYA: Alright — I am out. Pumpkin chai and salmon cake on a bagel, here I come. Thanks, Megan for a fun week, and thanks Jezzies, for the fun conversations. (And pics! Loved that!)

• The Bushes spent about $3.7 million dollars on real estate in a pricey Dallas neighborhood, and boy, are you going to seethe with jealousy when you see the house the Presidency can buy you. [Washington Post, The Smoking Gun]
• Italy is struggling with a rise in puppy smuggling due to a love of specific breeds and a declining economy. More than 70,000 puppies are smuggled into Italy every year, despite the fact that nearly a quarter of them die on the way and half die within a few months of arrival. There's a video. [BBC]
• Pastor Rick Warren says the Bible calls us to invade Iran. I don't think it says what he thinks it says, but that might be because I read it for my own edification and not to use it to make zillions of dollars or justify my existence. [Washington Independent]

• The recently-published jury instructions in the Lori Drew case make it more clear why she didn't get convicted of any felony counts. [Wired]
• Fred Thompson recently promised that he was getting out of politics and going back to acting. He lied to you. [Time]
• Conservative scribe and Earl of Minor Despair Bob Novak would totally out Valerie Plame again because the media was mean to him after his did so the first time. [Think Progress]
• Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee doesn't think enough LGBT people have been beaten or killed while seeking equality in this country to qualify as a civil rights movement. Also, he thinks if they would just quit choosing to have teh buttsecks, they could have all the rights they ever wanted. [Think Progress]
• Some wacky Republicans who probably spend a portion of their time bitching about tort reform and vexatious litigation are filing lawsuits upon lawsuits about Barack Obama's birth certificate because blah blah blah crazytown nonsense. [Honolulu Advertiser]
• Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, she of the horror of women who don't always wear stockings, is going to challenge Texas Governor Rick Perry in the 2010 gubernatorial primary because she doesn't think he's Republican-y enough. [Dallas Morning News]
• Sarah Palin is totally snubbing Oprah, because Real Americans would definitely go talk to Larry King first. [Huffington Post]
• Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, with an assist from Governor General Michaëlle Jean, has shut down the Canadian Parliament to keep from being thrown out of office. And here you were all worried that George W. Bush was going to be the one to try to upend the democracy he supposedly serves. [NY Times]

MEGAN: Happy week-before-the-convention! When everyone in DC is on vacation or checked out anyway!

SPENCER: How is it possible that I am still hungover from Saturday night's bout of drinking?

MEGAN: Well, I assume you at least drank well into Sunday morning... Just say you're hungover from Sunday and keep pounding the water.

SPENCER: Red Bull is powerless against the force of this hangover. Let's talk about something.

MEGAN: Ok, not that this will resolve your headache, but we can talk about McCain and Obama's churchin' time.

SPENCER: So neither of us actually saw the debate, but the mystical forces of the internet allow us to comment on it. Jonathan Martin has something that seems significant:

"I am saved and forgiven" [said McCain]

MEGAN: Well, good to know! I guess he got some time on the God phone from GWB.

SPENCER: Where's everyone's bullshit detector? McCain is admirably reluctant to discuss his religion during the three years he doesn't run for president, and here he goes doing this kind of thing to the "agents of intolerance." You're Catholic (the Jewwiest of Christians) and I'm a Jew, so the question we probably can't answer: do evangelicals really fall for this kind of snake oil?

MEGAN: I do not understand the whole "saved" thing, and everything I know about "saved" and that whole brand of Christian theology, I honestly have from Mrs. Chant's 10th grade English class when we discussed Calvinism in regards to The Scarlett Letter. But, yes, I think plenty of evangelicals do. They buy it from candidates because they buy it from their pastors.

SPENCER: Times like these I want to play them "Leper Messiah" off Master of Puppets. I mean, these can't all be stupid people. I guess I like being pandered to as much as the next guy so maybe I shouldn't find it so inexplicable. But here's an idea that I'm stealing from a friend of mine on a secret journalist listserv: everyone figured McCain won, but didn't Obama win just by showing up in a forum that's de facto a base-vote for McCain? Like if McCain spoke before an antiwar crowd or a MoveOn audience, you'd have to say he won by proving he can interact with people who disagree.

MEGAN: I don't think so, because it wasn't just watched by those people. I still don't understand why Obama gave a boost to Rick Warren, though.

SPENCER: 'splain.

MEGAN: Well, so, like if the only people who watched the thing were the evangelicals and the pundit class, then I would sort of agree with you. But it's ended up being like the first debate between the two, and most undecided people aren't going to view it in the way you suggest. They're going to view it as just another debate, and the relatively unfriendly audience — or the more enthusiastic support of McCain, say — is going to be viewed in that way.

SPENCER: But in August, with the Olympics on, did anyone besides evangelicals and punditclassers watch it? I mean, you and i were too drunk/preoccupied to see it, and this is our job, you know?

MEGAN: Hey, I wasn't drunk! I got drunk loooong after it ended. I was eating Thai food and putting away the dozen pairs of shoes that were under the coffee table. I can see the point about that he gets bonus points for showing up, I just don't see with whom. Like, maybe the evangelicals that vote against him won't hate him quite so much once he's in office?

SPENCER: ok, well, one person the McCainvangelical magic worked on was... Sally Quinn. This is a column whose subtext rebels against its thesis.

When I was little, I had a recurrent dream that there was a terrible earthquake. My father, his body a horse with wings, swooped down from the sky, kneeled so I could jump on his back and flew away just as the earth cracked open beneath me. It was my most comforting dream. I want to live in that world again. I want to live in John McCain's world.

UMMM. Now, she says that she thinks we actually live in Obama's world, but still:

By the time McCain finished his interview with pastor Rick Warren at the Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, Saturday night, part of a forum that also featured Barack Obama, I was curled up in a fetal position in my chair, wrapped in a mohair throw, practically sucking my thumb.

UMMMMMMMMM.

MEGAN: Why does it matter that her throw was mohair?

SPENCER: That's what they call 'color' in this business! she, she's a professional. Bloggers can't touch prose like this.

MEGAN: Oh, see, so, like, I should say to you, "Why, Spencer, I feel so inspired to write Crappy Hour, sitting here cross-legged on my leather sofa with my fleece blanket on my lap!" tomorrow? Good to know.

SPENCER: Give that woman a WP column! Also write about dreams involving your father.

MEGAN: Most of my memorable dreams involve falling or losing my teeth. Yes, I am a control freak.

Sally does seem to have managed to put one thing in relatively sharp relief that other writers have hinted and and no one came out and said:

He talked directly to Rick Warren as though they were having a real conversation, whereas McCain played to the audience, rarely looking at Warren.

Who's trying to be a great orator, now, John McCain?

SPENCER: That goes back to your warren point, right? But I want you, Anonymous Lobbyist, to interpret all the lobbyist stuff that we'll check out next week in Denver at the Dem convention.

MEGAN: Well, now, I actually kind of completely love this story. So, if you'll recall in those halcyon says of January 2007, Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues were going to "drain the swamp" that lobbyists had made of Washington by treating people to lunches, handing out coffee mugs and hosting lavish receptions and crap because several GOP Congressmen had taken actual bribes and most Americans viewed PAC and campaign donations as legalized bribery. So, they did nothing about campaign finance reform and wrote some very non-specific language about parties AND particularly about convention parties. Fast forward to Summer 2008 and in the rule-making process, most of the namby-pamby legislative language has been gutted and so, like in 2004, the biggest and best parties will still be hosted by lobbyists in Denver and Minneapolis. Presto-change-o, there goes the "reform." It looks a lot like the pre-reform days except lobbyists file their disclosures 4 times a year instead of 2. Doesn't the swamp look drained to you?

SPENCER: Yeah, but this year, you & I are pigs at the trough! We benefit from the country's lamentable decline! Bring on the ice sculpture that urinates vodka. Yeah, well, Obama will magically change everything.

MEGAN: But only if it's Grey Goose or better!

SPENCER: You can totally have my ice-sculpture vodka, Ican't drink that stuff.

MEGAN: More of a bourbon man?

SPENCER: Exactly. Your grandfather didn't drink no vodka!