The Wall Street Journal (natch) provides the most concise summary of the resolution and the text of the actual proposal.

But first, writer Peter Wallsten offers this interesting observation:

RNC meetings, traditionally fairly staid affairs focused on mundane rules and convention planning, have become lively in recent years as the party has slipped into minority status. Many committee members are elected by conservative party activists in their home states, and some pushed resolutions in the waning years of the George W. Bush presidency challenging his support for more open immigration laws.

Organizers of the new purity test said they decided to allow deviation on no more than two issues in deference to the mantra of the late President Ronald Reagan, who, as the resolution states, believed "that someone who agreed with him eight out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent."

Still worshiping at the altar of Reagan? Good to know!

The actual proposal is even better - was there any Republican Party before Ronald Reagan - and reads as follows (all emphasis mine):

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed that the Republican Party should support and espouse conservative principles and public policies; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan also believed the Republican Party should welcome those with diverse views; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed, as a result, that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies and Republican solidarity in opposition to Obama's socialist agenda is necessary to preserve the security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way of life; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies is necessary to restore the trust of the American people in the Republican Party and to lead to Republican electoral victories; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee shares President Ronald Reagan's belief that the Republican Party should espouse conservative principles and public policies and welcome persons of diverse views; and (Wait, is this a repeat from three lines ago?)

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee desires to implement President Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates; and

WHEREAS, in addition to supporting candidates, the Republican National Committee provides financial support for Republican state and local parties for party building and federal election activities, which benefits all candidates and is not affected by this resolution; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support [...]

And what are these ten key public policy positions? Here's a hint - the list is defined by what they oppose, not what they support.

1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;
(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; be further,

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy positions of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee [...]

The Party of NO has spoken. (And in the case of number nine, spoken in circles. Isn't denial of health care and rationing occurring because of this prohibition on government funding of abortion? Whatever, details, details!)

The NY Times' Caucus blog accurately summarizes the nature of the proposal by explaining:

The resolution invokes Ronald Reagan, and noted that Mr. Reagan had said the Republican Party should be devoted to conservative principles but also be open to diverse views. President Reagan believed, the resolution notes, "that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent."

Hence the provision calling for cutting off Republicans who agree with the party on seven of 10 items.

The Times also explains how the proposal is going to cause problems for RNC Chairman Michael Steele:

While it is unclear whether the test will be adopted when it is put up for consideration before the Republican National Committee early next year, its drafting is a striking example of the intensified internal debate among Republicans about how best to handle pressure from conservatives to move the party more to the right and to recapture control of Congress and the White House.

Its introduction increases pressure on the party chairman, Michael Steele, as he tries to maintain a balance between those in his party who have been saying the road to a Republican comeback is to include divergent views and appeal to the political center, and those who say the party needs to more fully embrace conservative principles.

The Times reached out to spurned GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava, who was so thoroughly attacked for her "liberal" views by the Republican establishment that she ultimately ended up endorsing a Democrat earlier this month:

The list was clearly influenced by the divisive Congressional race in upstate New York this fall, when conservative activists deemed the Republican nominee for the seat, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, too liberal and instead supported a third-party candidate, Douglas L. Hoffman.

Under conservative pressure, Ms. Scozzafava withdrew from the race but supported the Democratic nominee, Bill Owens, whose victory removed the seat from Republican hands for the first time in more than 100 years.

On first blush Ms. Scozzafava said she found the new proposal "ridiculous," though she said she would have to read it in full before drawing a final conclusion. "I'm not a big fan of pledges," she said in an interview, "because things don't always fit through a keyhole and governing isn't always that easy."

However, by choosing to create the we-embrace-diversity-until-we-don't doctrine, the GOP has assured the prediction from BarbinMD over at DailyKos: "They're all teabaggers now."

Some Conservatives Push a ‘Purity Test' for GOP Candidates [Wall Street Journal]
G.O.P. Considers ‘Purity' Resolution for Candidates [NY Times]
Conservatives Make a List to Measure Candidates' Commitment [NY Times]
Purity Now, Purity Tomorrow, Purity Forever ... [Daily Kos]

Barbie Nadeau pens a quick opinion piece, noting the problems she had with the health care system when she moved to Italy. She blasts the doctors and nurses there for the "anachronistic approach toward mothering and the lack of communication" and reminds readers of an opinion piece she wrote in 2002, titled "Next Time, I'll Pay." So what changed in the ensuing seven years? Just her perspective:

I still dislike the way they treated me, his mother, but my son is alive today and I didn't have to go in debt to save him.

But it never really occurred to me just how important the outcome was, at the expense of all the other atmospherics, until I found my lump. Living without health insurance in America for nearly eight years was a huge risk. Back then I was too old to ride along on my parents' health policy (they were farmers so their policy was complicated and expensive), and I made too much money to be covered by Medicaid or social assistance. I worked for a small magazine that couldn't afford to pay benefits, but I took the job because I needed journalism experience and bylines. I couldn't have afforded even the most basic coverage on my own: cash went to rent, food, and car insurance-because it had to. Like a lot of underemployed, I just hoped to stay healthy. It was before the Internet, and I couldn't Google symptoms or home remedies. When I was seriously sick, I either ignored the symptoms or borrowed prescriptions from friends. Back then I would not have had this lump checked out. I would have ignored it and simply hoped it went away.

A lot has changed since then. Not only have I moved abroad, but I also married into a private-insurance policy that works in conjunction with Italy's socialized health-care system. Many Italian residents have basic public health insurance but navigate the system using private health care when it is urgent for things like fevers and anomalies like breast lumps. (Private insurance costs a fraction of what it costs in the United States.) A basic family policy in the States, according to a USA Today poll, runs up to $13,375 a year, whereas its Italian equivalent costs roughly $1,500. Government-sponsored health care suffices for routine issues like for vaccinations or specialized equipment like mammograms or MRIs. I had my private doctor diagnose my lump and then visited a public facility for the specialized ultrasound. I had a private surgeon remove it last week.

Ultimately, Nadeau wishes the systems were different and notes that each system has it's own flaws. But at the end of her second piece, she reinforces that ultimately, the outcome - a healthy and still living son, the removal of her lump - made it all worthwhile.

Over at the Washington Post, Ezra Klein also tries his hand at demystifying the terms socialism and equal payer, and explains:

About 30 percent of Americans think HMOs are socialized medicine. Which implies a couple things. First, the term "socialized medicine" has been diluted beyond all meaning. Second, it's no longer considered a terrifying outcome. And third, nothing that's this amorphous — and actually preferred by a plurality of the population — is likely to prove a terribly effective attack against health reform. Socialized medicine has become such a stand-in for "not this system of medicine" that it's begun to look good in comparison.

Meanwhile, what we're actually going to get is not socialized medicine or single-payer health care. It's a hybrid system. Private insurers, hopefully competing with a public option. Private doctors and private hospitals. Government regulation and subsidies. It's going to be complicated and messy and inefficient and hopeful and the product of a strange mix of corporate preferences and public compassion and latent populism. It will, in other words, be a uniquely American system, and hard to describe with a single epithet.

So why is there such animosity toward socialized medicine?

Perhaps it started with Ronald Reagan.

Now, my own views on Ronald Reagan are informed by having black parents in the 1980s, so I learned Reagan was like this:

Seriously. I still remember a conversation like this:

Me: Mommy, why are there so many homeless people on the streets?
Mom: Reagan.
Me: Why do they talk to themselves?
Mom: Ronald Reagan closed the places where they could get better in order to save money. They have no where else to go to be alone, so they talk to themselves on the streets.
Me: Was Reagan mean?
Mom: He was the devil incarnate.

But to many conservatives, Reagan is an icon who staunchly defended personal freedom and liberty. In 1961, Reagan - then a private citizen - assisted with Operation Coffee Cup, an appeal to voters to vote against socialized medicine. Here's one of the most famous addresses below (audio only):

The legislation Reagan spoke out against would eventually become Medicare.

These ideas about the erosion of personal freedom are quite powerful. In 2005, the Winter Cato's Letter featured John Goodman speaking out about the myths of socialized medicine. He raises some good points, particularly when discussing how some systems start to thrive on the inefficiencies and how marginalized populations tend to suffer under government run initiatives. (Check out the Indian Health Service for how that plays out today.) However, one of Goodman's key points falls a bit flat:

The cosmetic surgery market is about the only market where patients are really spending their own money. And guess what? It works like a real market. People get package prices. They can compare prices. And over the decade of the 1990s, the average price of cosmetic surgery actually went down in real terms, even as there were all kinds of technological innovations that we are told drive up costs elsewhere.

Well, one of the reasons that cosmetic surgery can function like a real market is because cosmetic surgery is an elective surgery. You can postpone a nose job indefinitely, but not a ruptured artery. So in this case, does our adherence to free market principles still work ? Or is it as Nadeau states, where the outcome is what needs to be prioritized?

On Second Thought [Newsweek]
Next Time, I'll Pay [Newsweek]
Health Reform for Beginners: The Difference Between Socialized Medicine, Single-Payer Health Care, and What We'll Be Getting [Washington Post]
How AMA 'Coffeecup' gave Reagan a boost [SFGate]
Cato's Letter - Winter 2005 [Cato Institute] (PDF)
Who Is Responsible for Your Health Care? [Racialicious]

• Last week, Katherine Heigl complained that "cruel and mean" Grey's Anatomy producers forced her to work a 17-hour day, but according to rumors, the schedule was the result of producers shuffling things around to let her promote The Ugly Truth.

• Ken Levine, a producer who does not work on Grey's, says that everyone on the crew was paid overtime for the long day, adding, "This is an extreme case of chutzpah, but it's not uncommon that when shows become big hits cast members become much in demand... All of a sudden, the show that launched their success is now sort of an imposition... So producers are put in the sticky position of either denying them these outside projects or moving heaven and earth to accommodate them." [The L.A. Times]
• EW reports that Jude Law is expecting his fourth child this fall, "following a relationship last year." A rep adds, "no other statements will be made." Mwahaha...we'll see about that! [EW]
• Brad Pitt joked, "It's so tough being an actor... Sometimes they bring you coffee, and sometimes it's cold, and sometimes you don't have a chair to sit on." [People]
• This morning Star said that Michael Cera is 21 and had been dating 33-year-old Charlyne Yi for the past three years, but the two recently broke up (right before their film Paper Hearts opens). Newsweek ran an article dubbing him "The Hipster's Cougar Cub" but then posted a retraction, saying she's probably in her early 20s even though numerous sources say she's 33. Nobody knows here real age, and Newsweek also says he's 20, so we really have no idea how old these kids are. [Newsweek]
• Michael Jackson's friend Dick Gregory said that during MJ's molestation trial he called him saying, "They're trying to kill me ... they'll poison me!" but he was actually just so extremely dehydrated that a doctor at the hospital said if he'd waiting another 12 hours to come in he would have died. [TMZ]
• Michael Jackson's former nutritionist says he mostly existed on juice and smoothie diet, but "He loved trail mix, and once a month he had to have fried chicken." [E!]
• Michael Jackson's chef, Kai Chase, said she knew something was wrong on the morning of MJ's death because Dr. Conrad Murray didn't come downstairs to get the juice and granola he brought him every morning. She says, "I started preparing the lunch and then I looked at my cell phone and it was noon. About 12:05 or 12:10 Dr. Murray runs down the steps and screams, 'Go get Prince!' He's screaming very loud. I run into the den where the kids are playing. Prince runs to meet Dr. Murray and from that point on you could feel the energy in the house change. I walked into the hall and I saw the children there. The daughter was crying. I saw paramedics running up the stairs." Chase, the nanny, the housekeeper, and the kids formed a prayer circle as paramedics tried to save MJ. [Us]
• The DEA and the LAPD are fighting with Las Vegas police because the former agencies wanted to do a simultaneous raid of Dr. Conrad Murray's Houston and Las Vegas residences to maintain an element of surprise, but the Las Vegas police held up the second raid for nearly a week. [TMZ]
• Q: What's hanging above your sofa? David Cross: A painting of Michael Jackson being honored in the Rose Garden with Ronald and Nancy Reagan by his side. [N.Y. Magazine]
• Is Blake Fielder-Civil just holding daily press conferences now? Today he announced that Amy Winehouse cheated on him with four other guys during their marriage. [The Sun]
• When asked about the tabloid-generated rumors that Jessica Simpson would reunite with John Mayer, John's friend Rob Dyrdek said "absolutely not," but added that he "wouldn't rule out... I'm just saying [I don't think so]." [People]
• As mentioned in Midweek Madness, Us claims Tony Romo is dating Natalie Smith, the daughter of his former athletic director at Eastern Illinois University, even though all parties deny it. A source says they're "are are not officially dating, but they are having an intimate relationship." [Us]
• Ryan Reynolds rep has denied rumors that he skipped Comic-Con because of a fight with wife Scarlett Johansson saying, "[The report] is completely untrue. Warner Brothers never planned to have Green Lantern as part of their panel at this year's Comic-Con and Ryan is in Europe shooting a film." [People]
• Yesterday Kelly Clarkson blamed producer Ryan Tedder for not telling her that the backing track on her song "Already Gone" is the same one used on Beyonce's "Halo." Today Tedder replied, "They are two entirely different songs conceptually, melodically, & lyrically and I would never try to dupe an artist such as Kelly Clarkson or Beyoncé into recording over the same musical track, the idea is both hurtful & absurd." [TMZ]
• Ugh. More Twitter clues that Miley Cyrus is leaving her Jonas Brother for Justin Gaston. She Tweeted a line from one of Gaston's songs (apparently he writes music) this morning. [People]
• Georgia Sheriff Al St. Lawrence says he didn't do anything wrong by arresting and releasing the 53-year-old man accused of stalking Miley Cyrus last month. "If we had heard something about this guy supposedly being a stalker or he had been charged with a felony he wouldn't have been released," said St. Lawrence. [WSAV]
• Johnny Depp is looking at schools near Bath, England, where he recently bought a home, for his children Lily-Rose, 10, and Jack, 7. [The Daily Express]
• Madonna has written a column titled "How My Life Changed" about her religious awakening for the Israeli paper Yediot Ahronot. [AP]
• Russell Crowe walked into a charity shop in the U.K. next door to the cafe he's been frequenting while working on Robin Hood and made a £1,000 donation. [BBC]
• Friends of LeAnn Rimes and Dean Sheremet aren't doing much to dispel the rumors that their marriage ended because he's gay (in addition to her affair). They say the two were always spotted shopping for clothes for LeAnn around Nashville and, "When she met Dean, the whole image of who LeAnn Rimes was completely morphed into 'fabulousity," says the source, adding, "Her wardrobe, hair and makeup changed almost over night from the time they started being together." [People]
• For some reason Radar Online has posted the last blurry picture taken of American Idol contestant Alexis Cohen a few hours before she was killed in a hit and run. [Radar Online]
• Bob Barker met with members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina to ask them to stop exhibiting bears in pit-like enclosures at local zoos. [Yahoo]
• Yesterday Courtney Love insulted The Veronicas and Taylor Momsen via Twitter. Lisa Origliasso Tweeted: "Is wondering what is considered 'credible' these days anyway!? A sob story? A drug addition? A guitar? Bleached hair? Give me a break.." [The Veronicas]
• Though a promo for The Real Housewives of Atlanta shows Sheree Whitfield pulling Kim Zolciak's wig off, Kim says, "It didn't happen." Co-star Lisa Wu Hartwell said of the incident, "Did that happen? You have to tune in to see that. But I know she had a hell of a grab on that. She had a serious mean grip." [Us]
• A public records search has revealed some of the names of the rides at the theme park Wizarding World of Harry Potter inside Universal Studios Orlando, including Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, Flight of the Hippogriff, and Dragon Challenge. [The L.A. Times]
• While promoting her new reality show How'd You Get So Rich? Joan Rivers said, "I'm still in this business at age 197, and am still relevant." [Media Week]
• A memorial garden honoring Adrienne Shelly, the Waitress actor, writer, and director who was murdered in 2006 will be dedicated in New York's West Village next week. [The N.Y. Times]
• Dolly Parton's Broadway musical 9 To 5 will close around Labor Day after a short run, losing about $14 million. [N.Y. Post]
• The Bachelorette Jillian Harris says of her engagement to Ed Swiderski, "It feels more normal than any relationship I've ever had," Harris says. "It's very strange how it's such a contradiction to have something so normal come from something that's so manic." [People]
• DJ AM was once a cocaine addict and survived a plane crash, and this fall he'll help the families of addicts stage interventions on the MTV show Gone Too Far. "There's no reason why I should have lived or why I lived and they didn't," Goldstein said. "I'm never gonna know. But I am alive and I'm here and I have to do something better with my life now." [The L.A. Times]
• "(I'm) a woman who has been through life experiences, thank God, and therapy. I love therapy! I'm very into it. I'm very in touch with my feelings, so I'm a completely different person. Not that different but you know... I gotta tell you, there's nothing like going in and sitting down and talking to someone who has no emotional tie to your life. Just to talk to someone. It's amazing." — Eva Mendes [The Daily Express]
• A fan asked David Beckham where he came up with his children's names and he responded: "With Brooklyn, we found out when we were in New York that Victoria was pregnant with him, so that's where his name comes from. Romeo comes from [the fact] that we're a very romantic couple. When we first met Tom Cruise - actually quite a few years ago – I said 'Isn't Cruise a really nice name?' And Cruz came from that. Tom was one of the first people we phoned when Cruz was born and told him. [People]
• When a reporter suggested Mad Men reflected the classiness of the '60s, Jon Hamm replied: "Buddy, I don't know if they had class back then. I can send you a couple of links of stuff where guys are berating their wives for making their coffee badly. What I think happened in the '60s is I think irony happened. And the idea of selling non-earnestly became cool. And obviously that's not a mistake that that's when the baby boomers started getting 18. We're seeing a lot of it now, we're seeing these cool hipsters, man ... You can't tell 18-year-olds anything. ... That's what happens. The irony happens. And it's cool to be in a not-cool place. Get it man? And so that's what the big shift was that our guys are trying to figure out." [The L.A. Times]
• January Jones said Mad Men producers admonished her for looking too thin. "I'm naturally pretty thin, so I'm trying," she said, explaining that all the women on the show are "encouraged NOT to work out. We want soft; we don't want any muscle definition. They tell us to gain weight, gain weight, gain weight, because they want a soft, voluptuous woman which they were [back then] which is beautiful, as it should be." [I'm Not Obsessed]

[Simi Valley, July 14. Image via Getty]

SIMI VALLEY, CA - JULY 14: Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (L) and former first lady of the United States Nancy Reagan walk together after Rice spoke at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library July 14, 2009 in Simi Valley, California. Rice served as the 66th U.S. Secretary of State under the George W. Bush presidential administration from 2005 to 2009. She is currently the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution and professor of political science at Stanford University. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

Solomon seemed slightly amazed that O'Connor is attempting at her advanced age to use the Internet (better that Solomon not find out O'Connor knows about Jon Stewart), then asked her to sell out a variety of Republicans from Tom Delay to Bill Frist to John McCain to George Bush to Harriet Miers. When asked about being considered too liberal for a Reagan nominee, O'Connor seemed to show her annoyance.

Look, that's your spiel, not mine.

Solomon didn't exactly take the hint, but she did move on to ask O'Connor about her husband — who is ill with Alzheimers — and his reported nursing-home girlfriend. O'Connor responded that, as Solomon surmised, she didn't mind that her terminally-ill husband was holding hands with terminally-ill women because they kept him company and brought him some happiness.

That established, Solomon returned to the questions about Republicans that O'Connor had gracefully tried to avoid. Asking her for whom she voted in the last election was, however, the last straw.

Come on, is this about my Web site?

And, since the interview was, indeed, supposed to be about O'Connor's work to help teachers and students get more educated on the third branch of our system of government, Solomon responded:

O.K., go ahead, put in a plug.

Uh, gee, thanks.

She then wanted to know if O'Connor considers herself a feminist. Despite having worked during her time in the Arizona legislature to overturn laws that discriminated against women, O'Connor refused to self-identify as a feminist, saying:

I care very much about women and their progress. I didn't go march in the streets...

Oh, now I'm sad.

Questions for Sandra Day O'Connor: Case Closed [New York Times Magazine, available online tomorrow]

Related: Our Courts
Love Sandra Day O'Connor, Hate Ourselves [Wonkette]

Earlier: Sandra Day O'Connor Schools Jon Stewart

From a sweater-clad Jimmy Carter telling Americans that turning down their thermostats at night would save more energy than any government program to Walter Mondale (correctly) telling Americans that the next President was going to have to raise taxes to resolve the government's debt, Americans have never been fans of the unvarnished truth. In fact, Reagan won every state in 1984 except Mondale's home state of Minnesota (and D.C.) in part based on Mondale's comments and despite the fact that he had already presided over tax increases. He then raised corporate taxes by almost half a billion over 5 years, not that most Republicans like to talk about it.

George H.W. Bush was the same way — he was Mr. "Read My Lips" one day and Mr. Tax Increases the next. Not that his son has been any different — once upon a time, he told Americans that he was opposed to "nation-building," felt that, if the military went to war, they needed to have a clear exit strategy from the beginning and that the goal should be to have the people of a nation build their own nation instead of Americans pay for it. Whoops.

So, how is it that Obama can get away with saying things like this:

People are going to have to embrace — revel in — the possibilities of a transformed energy economy. Over the long term it will mean a higher standard of living. But in the short term it means doing things we don't like to do — turn off lights, check your tire gauges, replace your light bulbs. Just being conscious of energy usage in ways other cultures, like Japan, have been for a long time because they're an island nation and just didn't have resources.

Let alone warning his Congressional allies to think small next year, not big:

So digging ourselves out of the fiscal mess we're in is going to be a big, big challenge, and it's going to require some tough decisions that will not always be popular — particularly when there's going to be a lot of pent-up energy among Democrats. If I win, every member of Congress on the Democratic side, and some on the Republican side, is going to have ideas about pressing needs and worthy programs. Trying to set some very hard, clear priorities is going to be tough.

Is it just that McCain's lies are so egregious that the truth sounds good this time around? Or are we finally so sick of being told crap we all know is untrue — like that Republicans are going to reduce the size of government and lower everyone's taxes — that we finally don't mind hearing a politician tell us that things aren't going to be sunshine, unicorns and rainbows?

And how hilarious is it that the candidate of Hope(TM) is the one telling us there won't be gold at the end of his rainbow?

Obama's Moment [Rolling Stone]

Related: Report To The American People on Energy [Miller Center For Public Affairs]
Thursday Video: Mondale's Pledge to Raise Taxes [Tax Foundation]
1984 [President Elect]
Reagan's Liberal Legacy [Washington Monthly]
Read My Lips [Tax Foundation]
George Herbert Walker Bush [MSN Encarta]
Campaign 2000 - Bush On Nation Building [YouTube]
Once Opposed, Bush Begins Nation Building [WCBV TV]
Searching For An Iraq Exit Strategy [Time]
Iraqi Government Expected To Have $79 Billion Surplus [Think Progress]

MEGAN: Are you sad you aren't enjoying everything that Minnesota has to offer?

SPENCER: My knowledge of MPLS is limited to two things: the bands on Profane Existence and the account of the Hennepin County prison/detox system that I read about in The Night Of The Gun. One thing I wondered, though: did Joe Lieberman look worse on the closed-circuit feed you saw him on? Because he looked surprisingly good in HD.

MEGAN: I didn't see him on closed-circuit TV, I saw his ass from the media stands and his face on one of the really big screens. From what I could tell, he looked much less pale and tragic than normal, which I'm going to guess means he either secretly stood in line at Invesco or the GOP has better makeup artists than he normally uses. He sounded exactly the same. Like, he sounded like the imitation they did of him talking on the phone to Ron Klain in Recount.

SPENCER: On the drive to the Denver airport, me and some of the FDL dudes were PRAYING for Lieberman to get the VP nod so we could reprise Joe's greatest hits. But this guy defies parody. Do you remember the part where he called Obama an "eloquent young man"? Tell me that isn't racist euphemism.

MEGAN: It totally was, but I spent the whole time going, man, What Would Zell Miller Have Said. Zell knew how to bring a brand of GOP-inspiring crazy that Joementum will never be able to touch. And he wouldn't have gone with some mealy-mouthed encoded racial reference either. But that's so like Lieberman, to stick the shank so slowly in your back that you almost don't feel it.

SPENCER: I saw Hadassah sitting next to Cindy, and she probably knows something about not feeling it.

MEGAN: Please, let us vow here and now to work as many dick jokes as possible into today's Crappy Hour.

SPENCER: But did you notice how he used that line about how you'll always know where McCain stands? That was Bush's closing line against Kerry. If ever there was a milemarker on the road to Joe Lieberman's descent into embarrassing crank, it's that right there. Another question: who could possibly be inspired by that speech? Who even watched till the end? Who thought that the only man capable of following spit-hot-fire Fred Thompson was Joe Lieberman? Actually that's three questions, but you get the gist.

MEGAN: Why did we have to listen to all the various degrees of torture McCain underwent? To make us empathize more with him once we were tortured ourselves? I did think it really strange that they ended on Lieberman, though less so when I read this morning that Joe was really intended to be the nominee but everyone talked McCain out of it at the last minute.

SPENCER: That was the least self-aware moment of the convention. That crowd has spent four years cheering the torture of hundreds-if-not-thousands of detainees in the GWOT and bravely standing up for the constitutional principle that Bush can torture, like, whoever he wants. A convention with a sense of irony — or maybe just shame — would have soft-peddled that. I imagine that the 2020 nominating convention of the Neo-Baath Party will feature something similar

Some of Ahmed's fellow Abu Ghraib inmates are here tonight. Stand up! Stand up! We honor your service! Ya Iraq!
While they waterboarded Marwan at an undisclosed prison and asked him for names of the members of a terrorist group he didn't belong to, Marwan just recited the names of the Manchester United midfielders from 1970 on! (...and Bush had them all detained.)

MEGAN: Oh, God, yeah, I don't know if you could hear it on TV, but every time the crowd started chanting "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" I cringed a little. The shouted it every time the surge came up. I was seated next to a German reporter and I cringed a little and hoped she'd been at the DNC because I didn't want that to be her impression of our jingoistic little nation.

SPENCER: It's like how Rick Davis said bluntly that "this election is not about issues." Well fucking obviously when your agenda has been decisively refuted by the cold hand of reality. All that's left is treacly videos about pledging allegiance to the flag and comparing "the angry left" to North Vietnamese torturers.

MEGAN: You should've seen the standing ovation that line got, by the way. Also, if you didn't see the Reagan tribute video, you really missed something. It was all about how much he loved his wife and shit. Also, he saved this country! I heard one reporter openly snort at that assertion. I love being in the press box sometimes. In Denver, everyone was super quiet (or maybe it was just the section I was in), but here people are sort of milling around and talking to one another and stuff. Possibly because they released the full texts of all the speeches relatively early.

SPENCER: Fucking liberal reporters. I wonder what would happen if the reanimated corpse of Ronald Reagan asked a room full of anti-gay Republicans for a blowjob. Which principle is the controlling one?

MEGAN: One blow job doesn't make you gay. Liking it makes you gay... Oh, wait, never mind.

SPENCER: OK I need to wrap this up fairly soon so I can go to Glover Park and beg the Afghan consulate for a same-day visa in order to make my flight tomorrow to Afghanistan.

MEGAN: I am so excited for you which is only slightly tinged with worry for my friend...

SPENCER: I'll be totally fine. Well, presuming my body armor arrives at my office later today. If not, then you can worry.

MEGAN: I will be keeping my fingers crossed for that then. I'm guessing it's not something I could pick up here at an Army-Navy story and overnight to you...

SPENCER: Yeah, if only. Also, do you know that I can't figure out how to make a satellite modem work? I've emailed some people and am a bit reassured, and I'll talk to the guy at Inmarsat customer service today, but Jesus I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I could make this alchemy happen. This shit is heavy as hell and I'll be at an elevation higher than Denver. And this time without alcohol.

MEGAN: Dude, I'll stockpile the bourbon for your triumphant return to Washington... and to Crappy Hour.

SPENCER: I now have something to live for.

MOE: This story is almost too wonderful.

MOE: Gene Weingarten reads blogs and listens to talk radio and watches five television sets for 24 hours and it gives him a brief appreciation for Rush Limbaugh.

MEGAN: The WaPo site has been trying to get me to read that story for 2 full days but I have been resisting its lure because I don't want to know my future.

MOE: Okay, I'll send you some excerpts. First

". . . the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." — Umberto Eco.

MEGAN: I read The Name of the Rose in high school. I was mad, upon seeing the movie, that there was not more of Christian Slater's bare ass. I think this would not be an opinion I would hold today were the movie to be made today, with today's Christian Slater.

MOE: And speaking of ...the down there zone, remember when Jane Fonda said "cunt" on TV?

Fortunately, the gaffe is all over the Web in streaming video, and, yes indeed, here she is, Hanoi Jane herself, the bete noire of right wing radio, flagrantly uttering the unutterable. Clearly, Rush and Bill are courageously willing to address this shocking and distasteful subject even at the risk of driving their audiences into multi-orgasmic rapture.
Limbaugh joyfully eviscerates Fonda and moves quickly on to other things, but O'Reilly is in high dudgeon and is all over this reprehensible event. He's morally outraged, and seems to want to wring all he can get out of it, as though it were, say, a luffa sponge.
As someone in the broadcasting business, he says, he doesn't want to become "the scold police," but he wonders just the same if someone ought to call the FCC and demand punishment.

(Later at night, on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor," he will devote an entire segment to the issue, practically sputtering in exasperation when he can't persuade his guest, lawyer Anita Kay, to agree with him that heads must roll. Kay will point out, reasonably, that Fonda wasn't using the word in a hostile manner; she was simply stating the actual title of one of the monologues from the play "The Vagina Monologues," which is, ironically, about how the word should be destigmatized.) B-b-but "this is the most vile word in the lexicon of obscenity!" O'Reilly protests. Laughing, Kay basically tells him to calm down and grow up, that the average 12-year-old girl has heard this word, and it's no big deal. It's my favorite moment of the day. (Anita Kay, the cure for the common scold.) The peril of listening to Limbaugh and O'Reilly at the same time is that you tend to compare them, and these are dangerous waters for an unapologetic, unreconstructed New Deal liberal like me. The comparison makes you actually like Rush. He's funny; O'Reilly is not. Limbaugh teases and baits his political adversaries; O'Reilly sneers and snarls at them. Limbaugh is mock-heroic; O'Reilly is self-righteous. So, when Limbaugh speculates that the Democrats in the House committee went after Roger Clemens because liberals hate cherished American institutions such as churches, the Boy Scouts and baseball, you know he's sorta kidding. When O'Reilly says liberals who oppose torture of prisoners just don't care how many people will die in a terrorist attack, you know he's as serious as an aneurysm.

MOE: I can only listen to Fox News, on account of my mysterious muting problem. Although I was thinking of switching to CNBC this morning. Here we go. The Dow is possibly up because JP Morgan might be raising its bid for Bear Stearns. Wait, the market is not open yet, that is just what the futures betters are betting. They are talking about something called fractionalization creating a lot of possibilities for arbitrage in these securities. I am not really sure what this means. Do regular CNBC viewers really engage in "arbitrage"? Whatever. Ooooh, someone called Wisdomtree.com is pushing an exchange traded fund that tracks India's economy. Good idea. All right, back to the meme of the day. What is it? A lot of things happened this weekend, including the publication of the Peggy Noonan column that finally pushed me over the edge into the realm of begging Peggy Noonan for an interview.

MEGAN: Also, as of this morning, 4,000 soldiers have officially died in Iraq. Cheney would like us to know that the White House mourns every single death but it is, after all, a "volunteer army."
MEGAN: Because there's nothing nauseating about saying that.
MEGAN: They volunteered to die, so it's not as big a deal apparently. Perhaps to commemorate, we can each take a moment of silence today to think about the 4,000 soldiers and then yell "Cheney, go fuck yourself"

MOE: Aiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee. Puppies! Polar Bears! Peggy! Peggy heard the speech and thought "Go America Go." She just thought it was kind of a downer. The first comment goes:

I think Peggy needs to recycle Reagan101 again, and while she's at it perhaps she can read what a real journalist thought of the speech.....Washinton Post writer Charles Krauthammer's article "The Speech, A Brilliant Fraud".

MEGAN: I mean, that sort of a little bit puts the lie to the "all volunteer" army idea. Because definitely some people join despite having tons of other options because it's the family business or they have heroic ideals or just want the extra money or whatever, but some people do it because they don't have good grades, or money for college or career prospects or even job prospects where they grew up. So, yeah, they volunteered to not be even more grindingly poor, to not try to get on welfare, to do something to achieve that American dream thing everyone's been telling them about their whole lives and instead some number of them end up on food stamps anyway and are eking out on existence trying to stay alive in some country where they don't really want us.

MOE: Also, everything that Peggy Noonan said Obama was overly gloomy about can be summed up in this, Maria Bartiromo's response to Tim Russert's query as to what America's biggest economic challenge is.

Well, our biggest challenge economically right now is the tight credit environment.  From an individual standpoint, it is very tough to get a mortgage, it is very tough to borrow money anymore.  From a business standpoint, the same thing.  I would say one of the key representations of what's happening right now is what happened at Carlyle Capital.  Very simple stuff, Tim.  They had $600 million in assets, they borrowed $22 billion. Doesn't work out.  The math just doesn't work.  And that's exactly what's happening.  People have overextended themselves, businesses as well as consumers, and now we're paying the price

MEGAN: Duh, Moe, the $600 million wasn't the only collateral. It was also secured by the fact that 90% of every person involved was an older white man who went to a small number of the right schools and participated in the dinner clubs or fraternities or whatever deemed appropriate by their set and who belongs to a small number of socially appropriate country clubs or whatever. That's the real
collateral.

MOE: DAMMIT YOU AND YOUR FINE PRINT MEGAN

MEGAN: I am a cunt like that.

MOE: Okay does rehashing that conversation I'm pretty sure we already had but for the constant cache-clearing of the 24-hour pundit cycle that we'll come back to a moment because I'm going to tell you about my mom, and also, ask what you did to commemorate Christ's resurrection, about how McCain wanted to switch parties after 2001 just delay the inevitable awesome conversation about the Nixon-tattoed Republican huckster who tipped off the government to Eliot Spitzer's whore habit (because he went to the same whores, duh) and also, printed up those clever Citizens United Not Timid T-shirts that sunk the Hillary campaign?
8:50 AM
MOE: Cunts are such a theme today!

MEGAN: To commemorate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (no H., thanks), I had brunch that included bagels with lox, champagne and coffee. Then I took a nap. I worked, then I went to dinner with a friend who is having relationship issues, and I came home and worked some more.

MEGAN: And I talked to my parents.

MOE: I got high with a very good friend whose name I am gonna leave off the blog even though he seems to have posted pictures commemorating that on his Facebook profile. It was the first time I have ever 1. bought weed by myself, which I did successfully, along with the first time I have 2. attempted to roll a joint, an endeavor at which I failed miserably.The best part of the evening was buying junk food in anticipation of the muchies. The next morning we walked a mile and a half to Chipotle but it was closed. I got on the wrong subway home and ended up getting out in Williamsburg and walking home over the bridge. I smiled unilaterally at a lot of Hasids and realized it was Easter only when some dudes sitting at the front of the bridge said, "Hey sexy, happy Easter."

MEGAN: It was really good weather, wasn't it?

MOE: And my mother said that she always forgets until she visits my sister in Charlottesville how marginalized and disenfranchised black people are. And the throwing his grandma under the bus line went over well with her. She was like "when he said that I was like, oh my god that is like a universal experience, to cringe over how old white people talk about black people." We have a lot of typical white people in my family as you can probably tell.

MEGAN: Wow, your mom is cool. I think I might owe her some wine some time.

MOE: But it made me think, you know, the same thought Gene Weingarten had over the extent to which regular voters are completely oblivious to the meme of the moment and thank god for that.
MOE: Now G-d can you do something about William Kristol? And Pat Buchanan?

MEGAN: Word. The whole Gene Weingarten piece reminded me of the conversation I had with my parents about how I do this in the morning and I was like, well, I get up at 7, read 15+ sites and then start typing and they were like, wow, you're the most well-informed person we know and then I realized I was probably fucked and this is why I'm a political misanthrope.
MEGAN: I think Bill Kristol, who, seriously, if you put that man in some fucking clown make up IS THE JOKER FROM BATMAN will take care of his own demise. But someone get Rachel Maddow a spit shield for when she has to sit next to him on MSNBC.
MEGAN: and by "him" I mean Pat Buchanan

MOE: Apparently Michael Smerconish has been defending the speech. He's a much-beloved Pennsylvania conservative radio talker. Ugh, but before I feel click over on one more thing only to rue that here we are, balls deep in the memes again, let me call out this sentiment from Pat Buchanan's most recent blog utterance.

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

MOE: He actually asked, "Where is the gratitude?

MEGAN: So, why the FUCK is he still a commentator on MSNBC? Oh, right, they're trying to out-Fox Fox or something, because that's why they're 3rd in the ratings.

MOE: I'm not sure. I don't know. I think I have heard sentiments from my grandfather who was a typical white person of the first generation immigrant vein that would echo these sentiments. I think William F. Buckley might have echoed these statements. Enough of these statements might give you the notion that racism is endemic in white America, you know? Because implicit in statements like this, I don't have to point it out to you but I will anyway, was that buying and selling and pricing people as commodities is not a grave injustice if they are black. What is interesting is that Judeo Chrisitian rooted humanism is supposed to be the basis for the notion that a person is a person, uniquely different from other objects and organisms, and yet here he seems to be subverting that notion, rendering it backward according to some logic I can barely fathom, except to echo Obama via William Faulkner.
MOE: Via Peggy Noonan.
MOE: The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past.

MEGAN: Like, it's obviously not the motherfucking past if people like Pat Buchanan think that

MEGAN: Seriously? The means (slavery) are justified by the ends (acceptance of Jesus Christ as their savior, forced or not)? Seriously? This is what people think? What country do I live in? No wonder Michelle Obama isn't proud of it all the time.

MOE: Pat Buchanan went to my brother's high school, a Jesuit boy's school in Northeast DC. That is what is scariest but most fascinating about that statement. It is not coming from the progeny of anyone who actually owned slaves. Who actually knows, at all, what he is talking about. Perhaps he ought to listen to Mike Huckabee.

MEGAN: Perhaps Pat Buchanan, too, ought to just go fuck himself.
MEGAN: The list of people who can go fuck themselves seems to be growing.

MOE: You had a little piece of recent civil rights history you wanted to share with the class, didn't you Megan?

MEGAN: I did, in the vein of people that can go fuck themselves. The New York Times reminded its readers (some of whom heard it for the first time because they were too young at the time) that Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 Presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi with a nod to the unreconstructed racists of the world.

"In 1980, Ronald Reagan, campaigning on a platform that included "states' rights," opened his general election campaign in Philadelphia, Miss. — a decision criticized because it was where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964.

MEGAN: It was in a story on race in campaigns. Also, the incident was actually chronicled by no less than American chintzy painter Norman Rockwell in an enormous and moving painting that you will find in absolutely no book of his work anywhere (because I've tried) but you can see a bad internet print of it here. It's actually really moving in person.

MEGAN: Also, Lt. Governor Michael Steele? Former Senator JC Watts of Oklahoma? Condoleeza Rice? This is what the Republican Party thought was acceptable when you were joining up. Pat Buchanan's remarks? Still acceptable in the Republican party. If Obama has to explain his allegiance to his pastor and friend of 20 years and should have left him by the wayside to "prove" his love of America, I would like some explanations from you about that shit. Thank you. And go fuck yourselves.

MOE: No, go fuck whores!
MOE: Gay whores!
MOE: Kthanxbai.