• Not that it's surprising, but the 43 economists of the Economists' Policy Group on Women's Issues graded John McCain and Barack Obama on 10 issues of importance to women and Obama came out ahead. McCain got an "F" because the group was concerned that his positions would do harm to women. [US News & World Report]
• They probably didn't take into account, though, that the highest paid person on McCain's staff in October was a woman. She's, um, the woman that does Sarah Palin's make-up, and she got $22,800 for the first two weeks of work. [Huffington Post]
• Once upon a time before Ahmadenijad or Chavez came to power, McCain was casting votes in Congress to get the Reagan administration to sit down with an Mozambique group designated as a terrorist organization without preconditions. [Huffington Post]
• And long before Obama met Bill Ayers, McCain was palling around with Chilean dictator and human rights violator extraordinaire Augusto Pinochet and his pals. [Huffington Post]

• Speaking of domestic terrorists, people that bomb abortion clinics and assassinate doctors aren't, in Palin's Weltanschauung. For some reason, that sounded right-er in German. [Firedoglake]
• For those people keeping track of these sorts of things, Palin announced today that the McCain-Palin Administration would except disability programs from its spending freeze. So far, they're exempting defense spending, homeland security spending, veterans programs, science programs and disability programs. Kinda makes you wonder what they are actually going to reduce spending on. [Washington Post]
• Tom Ridge thinks that maybe John McCain would be doing better in Pennsylvania if he'd picked Tom Ridge as VP, but he totally supports Sarah Palin. Tom Ridge: not as blindingly stupid as one would assume if one watched his performance at Homeland Security Secretary. [CNN]
• In a stellar end of the week for the campaign, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, former Massachusetts Governor (and Republican) William Weld, former Minnesota Republican Governor Arne Carlson and current McCain adviser Charles Fried announced they were all voting for Obama. But they just did it because they're bla... Oh, wait, they're all white. I'm sure Rush Limbaugh will find another reason. [Christian Science Monitor, Talking Points Memo]
• The Republican Party in New Mexico has hired a private investigator to go around and harass elderly Latino voters and try to intimidate them from voting by threatening those completely legal citizens with deportation. [TPM Muckraker]
• In further Republican stupidity and assholery, noted asshole Michelle Bachmann has taped an ad apologizing for calling for the media to investigate anti-Americanism in Congress. Left out of the advertisement is the text of the legislation she'll introduce if re-elected to force Congress to conduct the investigation. [Politico]
• And Joe the Motherfucking Plumber is going to run for Congress in 2010, like anyone will give a fuck about him on November 5th. [The Hill]

MEGAN: Oh, God, I seriously considered propping my eyelids open with toothpicks this morning. Why are Wednesdays worse than even Thursdays and Fridays in that regard?

SPENCER: You know what will wake you up? The brand-new Gaslight Anthem record The '59 Sound. I've been listening to this all morning — it came out yesterday. Bruce fronting 1979-era Clash. Benny, you made a great fucking record! I remember when their drummer put on shows at the Manville Elks Lodge in central Jersey that I'd take the bus from fucking Brooklyn for. Holy shit is this record good. Christ that was TWELVE YEARS AGO.

MEGAN: You'll have to play it for me sometime, but I don't think even punk is going to pop my eyes open this morning if the news that our boy Toby is praising Obama didn't. It's hard to type with your eyes closed, I'm just putting it out there.

SPENCER: See this is the kind of shit that I can't put up with. Fine, Toby Keith, you're a Democrat. So are lots of assholes. Call me when you're a hardcore hang-them-from-telephone-poles liberal. all me when you write the theme tune to RACHEL MADDOW'S NEW MSNBC SHOW. This is a racially-backhanded compliment currrtesssy u'da redwhitenbloo:

"So I thought it was beautiful the other day when Obama went to Afghanistan and got educated about Afghanistan and Iraq..."

Educated, eh, Toby?

MEGAN: You know I'm excited about Rachel Maddow. Even the WaPo's Howie Kurtz sounds enthused and he never sounds enthused.

SPENCER: Let's pause to reflect here. This shit doesn't happen. Phil Donahue got fired from MSNBC for opposing the Iraq war. In the intervening years, this country has become a ceaseless nightmare and progressivism has had something of a rebirth with a new style. The idea that that rebirth might actually be represented behind a cable newsanchor's desk is mindblowing. Liberals on the TV!Rachel Maddow is the TV version of the GASLIGHT ANTHEM.

MEGAN: I mean, the real question for us — and for MSNBC and Rachel Maddow — is whether this new progressivism is as much of a fad as the old patriotism was, and whether it ends after the election, or if we get attacked again or whatever. That's my big concern. Flags are still relatively cheap, and you can pull off the tags that let people know they're Made in China.

SPENCER: This isn't going away. Do you think Atrios is going to switch his style up if all of a sudden there's another attack? I've been to Netroots Nation. I see what we've built over these years. What happens if we're attacked is that there'll be in an infrastructure in place to point out that the attacks are bin Laden's fault, but with a special assist from George Bush. Having Rachel on TV will amplify it all. But you have a good point — she's going to be scrutinized by the MSNBC bigs in a way that Joe Scarborough will never be.

MEGAN: Although he should be, because sometimes he's really dumb.

SPENCER: But Joe Scarborough is Foreigner and Rachel Maddow is Black Flag. Rise above. Oh fuck i just accidentally called that guy Sozi we met in Philadelphia on primary night. Kids, always lock your BlackBerrys.

MEGAN: Wait, the guy with the beard? Do you guys still talk? I remember him being pretty cool, but by the end of that I pretty much thought everyone was pretty cool.

SPENCER: Anyway, before we get caught up in this whole promise-of-the-progressive-moment shit, let's point out that the latest LAT poll shows McCain's summer of disreputable attacks on Obama have really done some damage. (and no, the tall guy, Farah's friend.)

Overall, Obama holds a narrow edge over the Arizona senator, 45% to 43%, which falls within the poll's margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. In June, Obama was ahead by 12 points. Other polls at that time showed him with a narrower lead.

MEGAN: (Well, I'm sure I hugged him, too)

SPENCER: But the guts of the poll has the significant stuff:

Obama's favorable rating has sunk to 48% from 59% since the last Times/Bloomberg poll in June. At the same time, his negative rating has risen to 35% from 27%.

By comparison, McCain's ratings have hardly budged during the same period: 46% of voters have a positive feeling about him; 38% give him negative ratings.

That negative rating is still low, but the upward trajectory is steep and could get much steeper still, particularly because this shows the track McCain's on is working. It's not working well enough to give people a reason to vote for McCain — stuck at 46 pos/38 neg? — but the GOP convention clearly has a map laid out in front of it to give people that reason. Actually let me qualify that, and not just because it's bad writing. Everyone knows McCain and his bio, and it's not driving to people cross over. But if he starts introducing new arguments, there's enough reason to believe from this poll that he could draw people to him, not just away from Obama.

MEGAN: Man, Bob Barr needs to ramp up his efforts. Where are the Dems to start giving him money, the way Republicans gave money to Nader in 2000? But, I thought this part was interesting:

Less than half of the registered voters polled think the first-term Illinois senator has the "right" experience to be president, while 80% believe McCain, a four-term senator, does.

When I went to those DNC protests back in the day, that's all anyone could talk about. This is why people were telling Hillary to lay off the negative attacks at the end, because they figured they would outlast her campaign and they did.

SPENCER: Yeah, that's really worrisome. As is this:

The poll also illustrates some racial undercurrents that confront Obama as he strives to become the first African American president. Nine percent of voters say they would feel uncomfortable voting for a black candidate. Most voters say they know people who feel that way. About one in six say the country is not ready to elect a black president.

MEGAN: "Most voters say they know people who feel that way." Dude, when are people going to learn that when you say you "have a friend" who did something bad, everyone knows you're talking about yourself.

SPENCER: My understanding is that the way pollsters get around respondents' reluctance to say THEY wouldn't vote for a black candidate is to ask if you know someone who wouldn't. It's very junior-high but apparently it works, from a statistical perspective. But, yeah.

MEGAN: One in 6 says "the country" isn't ready for a black President? So we'll elect my grandpa instead?

SPENCER: And let me say: over the last several weeks, I've been privvy to a massive amount of netroots fear/anxiety/antipathy to Obama, intensifying since he got the nomination. People think he's fucking this up, and I'm not talking about HRC supports, I'm talking about his people. Liberals are never satisfied, it's true, but the fear is palpable.

MEGAN: Well, but, like fucking it up how? Are we talking FISA and the Bayh flirtation? Not attacking McCain enough?

SPENCER: By not aiming a Howitzer at McCain's balls, as Roger Sterling would say. They don't want him to say things like "McCain is a patriot" — not give him any quarter at all. Just endless, ceaseless attacks. I'm of two minds. It's not really a policy issue, though the policy stuff doesn't help. They think he should have been talking about how Maliki endorsed his plan as a game-ender on Iraq, which remains McCain's central issue. THAT I agree with 1000 percent. One percentage point for each year McCain wants us in Iraq.

MEGAN: I mean, I agree with you that Obama's camp hasn't been great at taking full advantage of even the positive opportunities that have presented themselves, it seems like they need to be able to improvise better — which could be a result of their very top-down, locked-down structure. But I'm of two minds of seeing him as an attack dog. I think it undermines his overarching Hopey message, which is why he's been leaving some of it to the Netroots. And why he should've gotten off his ass and picked a VP by now.

SPENCER: Like why is the campaign alienating Wesley Clark? You want a guy with stars on his shoulders who actually has connections to enlisted dudes/junior officers who can aim the Howitzer at McCain

MEGAN: But he also needs to work on his ability to draw attention to what the 'roots are saying without endorsing it. McCain and Clinton are much, much better at that.

SPENCER: Yeah, I agree with that entirely.

MEGAN: Meh. I think Wesley Clark isn't helpful except to you guys that already like Obama that love him, too.

SPENCER: Why do you think that? Clark commands a bank of cameras wherever he goes, his credibility on national security is automatic, he can answer McCain in a second by saying, truthfully, you know, I've actually won a war... Even if he's not the asset I think he is, what's the upside to alienating him?

MEGAN: Oh, I didn't say tell him to go fuck himself, I just mean, I don't see him being a keynote convention speaker. He's not that eloquent a speaker, which is fine in small settings but with an already overcrowded speaking schedule, I can see why they didn't award him a speaking slot.

SPENCER: Anyway, one of my old boss' interlocutors says liberals should calm down:

I think we'll look back on August as when Obama won the election. August was when John McCain had the chance to define Obama and so cement a negative view of him that he could never recover. Now his time is almost up, the conventions are about to begin and we get into the full swing of the campaign. And what did McCain get out of his month? The Gallup tracking poll barely budged; most polls show Obama still with a modest lead, only slightly less than where he started a month or so ago. Obama's negatives are up somewhat — no surprise after the pummeling he took — but hardly up to critical levels.

MEGAN: Oh, I disagree with the idea that we'll see this as when Obama won. It's maybe when Obama didn't lose, but what has he done this month to win?

SPENCER: He's been on vacation, McCain's most potent opportunity to cement a narrative, and McCain didn't do all the damage he needed to, is the point. But to a more important question: which of these young Republicans would you bone? You ponder that while I go to the bathroom

MEGAN: Man, you and your incredibly small bladder. First off, I don't understand how "young" Republicans include people in their 40s, only I do because it just makes the point that most Republicans are really, really old. Also, not that I've never had sex with a Republican, but there's not one in the group that I'd nail even drunk and having gone two months without sex.

SPENCER: It's just a lazy, cheap glossymag cliche. young people in America are SUPPOSSSSSSSED to be Obama supporters, according to something my editor mused about at the story conference, but here's a bunch of non-Obama supporters that we should gawk at like zoo creatures... I'm a fan of Aliciamarie Falcetta, 40, of White Plains: "After 9/11, I was happy that [Bush] stood up and let the terrorists know that he wasn't going to let it happen again." Yeah baby they got that message got that message loud and clear.

MEGAN: I mean, that's the thing. It's like, there are plenty of very religious young people who feel very strongly about things like abortion and gay marriage. There are (strangely, to me) plenty of young people who feel very strongly about taxes — though all of them might already work in D.C., I can't say. I think it's insulting to them to think that all young people must be liberals, and insulting to liberals that we're all liberals just because we're too young to know better.

SPENCER: It's also retarded that Esquire decided to use Republicans as a surrogate for conservatives, but that would probably undermine the conceit of the piece, for the reasons you point out.

MEGAN: Not that that ever stopped a glossy magazine.

SPENCER: Because you know what Republicans really want? They want not to be investigated! Scott McClellan to Politico:

[W]hen asked what advice he would give to a President Barack Obama or Democratic Congress on the matter of handling former Bush officials, McClellan speaks now of the perils of probing the past.

“If Obama were to win,” he said last week, “that would be an issue his administration would have to face early ... because he’s pledging to be a uniter, not a divider — without saying those exact words we campaigned on in 2000. He’s pledging to change the way Washington works, and if Congress were to pursue that, it would be very divisive.”

MEGAN: Oh, sure, this is like the House Republicans bitching and moaning that Pelosi wanted to start a new kind of bipartisanship and work with them but she's so meeeeeean and never lets them get their waaaaaaaay.

SPENCER: Yeah sure Obama might not be able to do it. But he could just, say, order declassifications of torture/rendition/GTMO/US attorney firings/WMD as, oh, let's say, a "broad policy review." And then turn the prospect of empaneling grand juries over to Attorney General Patrick Leahy or better yet Attorney General Russ Feingold. Meanwhile the Senate Democrats call investigation after investigation

MEGAN: Well, don't piss on Waxman's lawn too soon, he's been doing a fine job keeping malfeasance in the headlines.

SPENCER: Make the GOP infrastructure too busy worrying about being INDICTED to block health care reform or ending the war.

MEGAN: Probably if less of them were indictable, they wouldn't be quite so worried.

SPENCER: The GOP can defend itself on Rachel Maddow's show. Bring on the witch hunts. Reconciliation is nice, but not as nice as retribution.

• So, hooray, Ted Kennedy is out of the hospital. [NY Times]
• But, tomatoes might kill all of us, and I ain't even talking about the mutant kind. [Washington Post, Killer Tomatoes, with full info from the FDA]
• But daily sex with your partner definitely won't, though it will propel you to the top of the NY Times most emailed list and, actually, that might be more depressing than killer tomatoes. [NY Times]
• But it's okay because the Democrats "stunning" refusal to grant telephone companies legal immunity for doing potentially illegal things means the terrorists are all winning so we'll all be dead soon, so you might as well eat some damn tomatoes and try fucking tonight. [NY Times]

• It doesn't help any that Michelle and Barack Obama are sending super-secret signals to al Qaeda through their open use of the fist pound. No, for real, someone said that. I wish I was kidding. [Politico]
• I will continue to play Cassandra and point out that 17% of Clinton supporters currently plan to vote for McCain in November and another 22% plan to stay home, and that doesn't even count all the people I know that keep telling me they're going to make her a write-in candidate. Oh, and she's totes McCain's new BFF, what with her "centrist foreign policy views," as McCain aide and former National Review writer Michael Goldfarb says. [CNN]
• But, I can always get cheered up by talking trash about Cheney. [LA Times]
• But there's always something to bring me down, like about how you can actually catch a dude giving you a roofie and call the cops and go to the hospital and be able to prove it but the prosecutors can claim there's not enough evidence. Paging BAngieB. [LA Times]
• Oh, and, naturally, we've diverted all this humanitarian aid money that used to go to doing humanitarian stuff in Pakistan to helping them help us fight the War on Terror, you know, like finding Osama and shit, which means that lots of good humanitarian projects, like helping women fight and recover from abusive relationships, are severely underfunded. [Washington Times]
• But, hey, Scott McClellan is going to testify under oath about what little he knows about the nefarious doings in the Bush Administration. That should accomplish exactly nothing [HuffPo]
• I think I'll stick with let's get drunk (on Bloody Marys, natch, since vodka kills germs) and screw.

By the end of a season spent viewing the most thought-provoking and revelatory and turnout-generating political showdown in recent history transpire between a black man and a woman, few but the likes of Pat Buchanan, one of Nixonland's most heinously cynical architects, and Schlafly surrogates like Charlotte Allen seemed willing to cling without reservations to the scraps of angry white male ideology that has so laid waste to this once greatness-aspiring society. More people changed or were encouraged to entertain changing their minds during this marathon primary than in any political campaign my generation has seen, so for that, thanks Hillary. Who knows, the country may even be ready to vote for the both of you now.

• Hillary suffered a coughing fit in South Dakota today and might give up altogether tomorrow. I have been suffering coughing fits all weekend and I haven't even managed to give up smoking, so I'm not placing any bets, but apparently there's a deal in the works for the Obama campaign to Bernanke her Bear Stearns. [Huff Po]
• Speaking! Krugman defends Bernanke on the grounds that there are no unions in America sending inflation spiraling of control with their wage demands like there were in the seventies. But hello Paul, you know what the Chinese were making in the seventies? [NYT]
• Also, I bet Americans had slightly less than a trillion dollars in credit card debt in the seventies. [WSJ]
• Stuff we did have in the seventies besides unions: regulations and trade barriers. Without those things to eradicate economic growth may be so hard to achieve that Barack Obama can call himself the "growth candidate" with his proposals to focus on preschool. [Wash Post]

• Ahmadinejad said something about how Jesus will come back and kill all the Jews this time. [Breitbart]
• Sadr City: 110 degrees, lacking potable water or a decent sewage system, but — your boss will be so stoked! — there's totally decent BlackBerry service! [WSJ]
• "I used to watch this mooncalf blunder his way through press conferences and think, Exactly where do we find such men? For the job of swabbing out the White House stables, yes. But for any task involving the weighing of words?" Hitch suggests you forego Scott McClellan's tell-all in favor of Doug Feith's epic defense of Don Rumsfeld, on account of a bunch of bullshit retorts to straw arguments no one seriously makes — "that there was no consideration given to postwar planning," for instance; oh please — and also, Feith's superior prose style. Natch. [Slate]
• Can "parenting classes" save the next generation of inbred underage incest victims from the clutches of Fundamentalist Mormon mind control? Well… [AP]
• Ted Kennedy's brain surgery was successful. Now comes the fun part: radiation and chemo. Good luck.[WSJ]
• Matt Drudge as microcosm for the nation's ideological shift. [Politico]
• Henry Louis Gates talks to James Watson and finds him to not be a racist but a "racialist"; Gates explores his own love-hate relationship with DNA; generally depressing story reveals James Watson has a low IQ. [TheRoot]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MOE: Um I love how Condi Rice is recovering from being so pilloried by McClellan.
MEGAN: That's a week late and a dollar short, dude. Also, Mr. Korologos is a former Bush appointee, and is now a "strategic adviser" which means he does everything up to the point of official lobbying in order to avoid registration. So, um, what a great defender. Someone who uses his former position to almost lobby but stay under the radar.
MEGAN: Ugh, I seriously, seriously cannot see Gene Simmons anymore without flashing back to the demoralizing experience of seeing his sex tape. That was cringetastic and unimpressive. Spits on his finger to be able to finger the fake-titted chick. Small penis. Never removes his shirt. That line from Bridget Jones never seemed so apt: "Coitus is brief and perfunctory."
MOE: Ah! I often use the word "perfunctory" to describe sex sessions. I didn't realize Bridget Jones — well, that and distinctly shitty taste in dudes — was to blame. That is so depressing. Let's talk about something else!! Victory on Al Qaeda perhaps? That epic Bear Stearns series? The Fundamentalist Pedophiles being awarded their inbred children? It's all so heartening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe we should just redefine "imminent."

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

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

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

MOE: Well you can do that here.
MEGAN: No, because I have a rule that I only tune into the Today show for NKOTB.
MEGAN: Oh, the McClellan interview, they've been replaying that ad infinitum on MSNBC.
MOE: Which I can't watch. I'm practically dead from some ailment with its origin in cigarettes and insomnia
MOE: Anyway we need to have a sincerity summit
MOE: A sincerity evaluation summit.
MEGAN: Ha, I was gonna say!
MEGAN: Also, wtf is up with us having attacks of insomnia at the same time?

MEGAN: I have to say, watching this interview, I'm far more convinced by him today than anything he did in his 3 years as press secretary. And he seems far less bumbling and stupid.
MOE: Yeah, he's convincing but um not slick.
MEGAN: If overly made-up. Oh, make-up artists, you failed him! (Although, I understand it may have been deliberately).
MEGAN: Oh, God, no, not slick at all. I mean, he says he still has a "great deal of affection" for GWB, he's obviously not particularly capable of slickness.

MOE: Oh man and I still haven't seen the most-buzzed video "Lohan's sapphic smooch"
MEGAN: It's on video? Also, why do we care that she's a lesbian or bisexual, if she is?
MOE: We care because SAMANTHA RONSON COULD TURN ANYONE GAY. And um... speaking of... did you see Anderson Cooper last night?

MEGAN: Whoa, I totally did not. Also, sniff, I remain sad that Anderson plays for the other team. Such a loss that one. Wait, is Samantha Ronson what happened to Anderson Cooper? That bitch!
MOE: Dude now I am going to have weird SamRonAnderson sex dreams. Oooh did you catch this passage?

A page later, he recounts what he perceived as a moment of doubt by a president who never expresses any. It occurred in a dimly lit room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a room where an injured Texas veteran was being watched over by his wife and 7-year-old son as Bush arrived.
The vet's head was bandaged and "he was clearly not aware of his surroundings, the brain injury was severe," McClellan recalled. Bush hugged the wife, told the boy his dad was brave and kissed the injured vet's head while whispering 'God bless you' into his ear.
"Then he turned and walked toward the door," McClellan wrote. "Looking straight ahead, he moved his right hand to wipe away a tear. In that moment, I could see the doubt in his eyes and the vivid realization of the irrevocable consequences of his decision."
But, he added, such moments are more than counterbalanced by deceased warriors' families who urge him to make sure the deaths were not in vain.

Uhhhhh, what was that Heller book…that became a cliche…describing situations like this…didn't that involve war?
The other person, or their software, refused the request.
MOE: Dude now I am going to have weird SamRonAnderson sex dreams. Oooh did you catch this passage?

A page later, he recounts what he perceived as a moment of doubt by a president who never expresses any. It occurred in a dimly lit room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a room where an injured Texas veteran was being watched over by his wife and 7-year-old son as Bush arrived.
The vet's head was bandaged and "he was clearly not aware of his surroundings, the brain injury was severe," McClellan recalled. Bush hugged the wife, told the boy his dad was brave and kissed the injured vet's head while whispering 'God bless you' into his ear.

MOE:

"Then he turned and walked toward the door," McClellan wrote. "Looking straight ahead, he moved his right hand to wipe away a tear. In that moment, I could see the doubt in his eyes and the vivid realization of the irrevocable consequences of his decision."
But, he added, such moments are more than counterbalanced by deceased warriors' families who urge him to make sure the deaths were not in vain.

Uhhhhh, what was that Heller book…that became a cliche…describing situations like this…didn't that involve war?

MEGAN: Can someone please ask those fucking families, then, what would be an acceptable outcome to justify the deaths of their children?
MOE: Dude who is ronaldpagan? Reading his comments alone is like reading…a book? A very long New Yorker piece about the shifting views regarding violence within the jihadist movement, but actually finishing it?
MEGAN: I don't know, about either RP's identity of the shifting views on violence in the jihadist movement. But can we please, please talk about the male liberal blogospheric hard on for Jim Webb? Between Attackerman and Ezra Klein, it's starting to get a little uncomfortable all up in here, especially as neither one of them talks to any degree about his shitty record on women's issues, like Kathy G does and nobody but Politico gets into the 3 obvious female choices, none of whom suck and all of whom have great records.
MEGAN: Because, really, Jim Webb? Is going to corral Hillary supporters? What we need on the Obama ticket is a thrice-married former Republican with a shitty history on women's issues just because he's got a military background? That's why McCain's neck and neck with Obama in the polls? Bish plz.
MOE: I preach general ignorance on this one. But it's cool Kathy G named her blog the G Spot. I do think Obama should pick someone with military experience. I have no fucking clue who that is though. Who do you think he should pick?
MEGAN: Well, A. I voted for Jim Webb despite his record on women's rights because I wanted George Allen out of office. I think, however, with Obama already facing charges of sexism he's not going to do well on the trail and the argument that the seat goes back to the Republicans is rather apt.
MOE: And I don't really care about this shit:

Stepping away from all that high-minded rhetoric, I'll add that, in practical terms, selecting Webb would be a slap in the face to the Hillary Clinton supporters. I'm not saying that Obama has to pick Hillary as veep (and indeed, I think that would be a bad idea). I'm not even saying that he needs to pick a woman.

But Hillary was the first woman to ever have a serious shot at the presidency, and she came so close. So the Hillary supporters (of whom, to be clear, I am not one) will feel frustrated enough that their candidate didn't win.

MEGAN: B. Wesley Clarke is an idiot.
MEGAN: Well, I agree with that. Maybe not the "slap in the face" part, but the people that are pissed at NARAL for endorsing Obama ain't gonna be pleased with him picking a guy who said the Naval Academy was a "horny woman's dream" either.
MEGAN: Hell, I won't be.
MOE: On B. we concur. But okay, of course you voted for Webb. George Allen was a tool machine. And egad, when did he say that? I'm just getting my coffee now.
MOE: I just don't want to talk about gender ANY MORE. We know Obama doesn't want his daughters to be punished with babies. ISN'T THAT ENOUGH?????
MEGAN: Egad, he said that in 1979, more than a decade before he defended the dudes who assaulted women at Tailhook. It's all the feminists' fault, you know, that those Great Men's careers were ruined by a little drunken tomfoolery that the women totally took out of context.
MEGAN: Also, keeps divorcing his wives.
MEGAN: I mean, whatever, obviously Virginia wasn't going to elect a Senator that doesn't make me slightly sick to my stomach with his opinions on things, and great that he's spent his term so far appropriately sucking up to the left wing that got him elected (hello, unions!) but, I'm sorry, he is a shitty VP choice. He doesn't bring Virginia, he doesn't bring the South, his presence as the stooge in the short chair doesn't counter McCain on foreign policy and, frankly, this election stopped being (for most people) about the war or foreign policy for the swing voters when the economy went in the tank and their houses got repossessed.
MOE: Just throwing out a link to an uplifting Frontline on Tailhook. Maybe I'll clip it later! So yeah, he is not the guy. I think Obama should choose someone with military experience in spite of what the election is about. The president has immeasurably more influence on a war than he does the economy.
MOE: But perhaps that line of thinking is a little audacious.
MEGAN: I just don't think military experience matters, cough, Bush, cough, Cheney, cough, Clinton, cough, Gore.
MEGAN: It's part of this whole fetishization of our military that we insist on engaging in.

MEGAN: Can somebody, please, show me one of the so-called Reagan Dems that voted for Hillary in Ohio, PA or West Virginia who is saying they'll otherwise vote for McCain (and not the pissed off women) who would be like, oh, hey, he picked a virtually unknown first term Senator from Virginia with some military experience for his VP, so now I'm totally voting Obama?
MOE: Well sure, agreed, but matters for what? Like, I think more than three highly uneventful years in the Navy might have done Rumsfeld some good; well actually, that point is rhetorical because being a HUMAN might also have done Rumsfeld some good. And, yeah, you've got it: the biggest reason Jim Webb is a bad choice is because no one really knows who he is. To depart for a second: here is a piece from the New York Review Of Books on the ideas of Obama's economic adviser confidante types. They are…um…less socialist than I'd like.

MEGAN: Well, at least they're not Keynesian?
MOE: Oh dude my BROWSER just crashed. I thought I was having a heart attack.
MEGAN: Dude, my other computer is totally fucked, I'm going to finish transferring files today and then reformat that bitch.
MOE: Did you check Dan Bartlett using our favorite SFW term for feces?
MEGAN: Wait, you can say "crap" on TV? It's not as good as Jon Stewart getting away with calling Tucker Carlson a dick, but it's pretty good. Yeah, the Administration has its PR efforts together pretty good on Scottie this week, from Dana's saddened "This isn't the Scott we know" to "total crap," they're running the gamut.
MOE: Okay, so what I would really like to know is 1. How did Scott McClellan come to the realization that this was the book he wanted to write 2. Was it an agent? It had to be, right? 3. Who was the ghostwriter? How long did they work together? I thought I might get some of that from this interview with his publisher but uh…not really. We learn that Mike Allen did, in fact, as he specified in his initial story on the subject, bought the book from a bookstore. I'm pretty sure he did the same thing with the Bernstein Hillary book. So Mike Allen has a "source" at Politics & Prose, who cares. How did this thing actually come about? Why don't we know this yet?
MEGAN: Well, I mean, someone on MSNBC had a good theory this morning (obvi not Joe Scarborough). I mean, dude spent 3 years defending the indefensible and looking like a doofus only to get ousted in 2006 as everything started to suck and he (apparently) got to realizing that everyone figured they could lie to him and he's never figure it out.
MEGAN: Does he have a cushy sinecure somewhere? No.
MEGAN: He's still on the lecture circuit, but everyone knows he's a shit public speaker that didn't know anything.
MOE: I hate how everyone's like, "unbelievable." Dude, have you ever lived with someone who just got fired?
MOE: Midlife crises have been known to spawn from less.
MEGAN: Dude, I've been fired. I sucked. I got drunk for the better part of a week, stayed in bed, and the dude I was seeing dumped me because I got fired.
MEGAN: So, I stayed in bed for like another week after that.
MOE: Yeah, now just imagine Nick Denton had spent six years brainwashing you!!!!
MEGAN: To the point where I still held great affection for him!
MEGAN: Then I'd have to turn on Noah.

MOE:MOE: Dude remember Scott Ritter? What's he doing these days? I don't usually buy this whole "You can't change your views after 30" silliness but that guy's epiphany was a little weird.
MEGAN: Apparently, he's a talk show commentator.

MEGAN: HA! He was also arrested in 2001 but never charged for trying to fuck an underaged girl he tried to meet on the Internet.
MEGAN: So, he either spend a lot of time on his computer or virtually none, I'm guessing.

MOE: can you check real quick if any of the other major newspapers (besides the times) had anything bad to say about mcclellan
MEGAN: Howie Kurtz entitled his column "Turncoat Time" and said "We all may have underestimated how he felt about being dumped in a White House shake-up."
MOE: Oh by the way how hilarious is it that Bush pretended not to remember if he'd had cocaine??? DUDE YOU REMEMBER IF YOU HAD COKE THAT IS THE POINT
MEGAN:

The question is inescapable: Now he tells us? McClellan had deep qualms about Bush using propaganda to sell the Iraq war, about being misled on Valerie Plame, about the president being in denial on Hurricane Katrina, and he utters not a peep of public protest until he's ready to sell his book?

MOE: OH like he was really going to miss that job so much
MOE: I'm just saying the Editorials though
MEGAN: Novak's column is, hilariously, about Clinton.
MEGAN: Um, weirdly, neither the WaPo, Boston Globe, LA Times has anything one way or the other thus far.

• Technology is not our friend today, so we'll make this short.
• Dana Perino used the word "puzzled" to describe the Bush Administration's reaction to Scott McClellan's takedown, which is funny because, as we "reported" earlier, he used the word "puzzled" to describe his reaction to President Bush's puzzlement over the fact that people would get upset about him starting a trillion dollar war for no actual reason. [AP]
• The shitty way economic growth begets famine. [NY Times]
• The thing no one mentions about this "Rock Band" game, which I have only experienced as an observer, is how listening to people playing it is sort of like that time Roseanne sang the national anthem, only for hours because it's so "addictive." [Salon]

• "The strange class war that defined Nixonland renews itself endlessly, with different leaders and different symbols, but always with the same dynamic: the striving squares revenging themselves upon the hip and the snooty. Backlash is a chronic condition now, and one of the reasons is that hipness is chronic, too. The '60s culture that infuriated Nixon and his followers is everywhere today, because hipness and 'revolution' have become a default mode of corporate speech. Youth had nothing to do with it: It happened thanks to the need for ever-accelerating novelty, reverence for a supposedly enlightened cyber-vanguard, and the great god 'creativity.'" Sooooo…basically the primacy of such resilient and defiantly unhip pop cultural touchstones as The Hills and American Idol paved the way for Obama? [WSJ]
• Not that he is necessarily a candidate! [Gallup]

Bush clung to the same belief during an interview with Tim Russert of NBC News in early February 2004. The Meet the Press host asked, "In light of not finding the weapons of mass destruction, do you believe the war in Iraq is a war of choice or a war of necessity? "

The president said, "That's an interesting question. Please elaborate on that a bit. A war of choice or a war of necessity? It's a war of necessity. In my judgment, we had no choice, when we look at the intelligence I looked at, that says the man was a threat."

I remember talking to the president about this question following the interview. He seemed puzzled and asked me what Russert was getting at with the question.

This, in turn, puzzled me. Surely this distinction between a necessary, unavoidable war and a war that the United States could have avoided but chose to wage was an obvious one that Bush must have thought about in the months before the invasion. Evidently it wasn't obvious to the president, nor did his national security team make sure it was. He set the policy early on and then his team focused his attention on how to sell it. It strikes me today as an indication of his lack of inquisitiveness and his detrimental resistance to reflection, something his advisers needed to compensate for better than they did.

Most objective observers today would say that in 2003 there was no urgent need to address the threat posed by Saddam with a large-scale invasion, and therefore the war was not necessary. But this is a question President Bush seems not to want to grapple with.

MOE: Did you know Obama was a skilled card player? Surprise of the day! Anything else you can think to talk about? Anything at all? I was going to try and get us to read up on whether oil prices are a bubble. I think sorta! Unrelated: has Maureen Dowd gotten even more insane?
MEGAN: Let me read Maureen and make that determination while you read about how a certain lapdog mauled its owner when he found out he was being fed Facon instead of Bacon.

MEGAN: Completely insane. That's, like, practically insulting to everyone involved. Also, who'd'a thunk that she could try so little and still piss off an entire region of the country by making fun of their accents? She's right about Bill Clinton being ruddy. That's about the only thing.
MOE: Hahaha imagery! And who is the so-called "liberal media" in McClellan's case? Like when people tell their dogs to attack swarthy complected strangers who approached the house? But the people are about to set a 9 alarm fire to the house for insurance so the strangers are actually their friends? Anyway I have to say, I'd hate Bush if I were Scott McClellan too but I'm surprised by the intensity/sincerity?

MEGAN: Yeah, I mean, I guess he just got sick of looking stupid and incompetent or something? For my part, what I'm reading it's like a missive from an ex who still loves you but recognizes and even excuses some of your flaws (I know when you stood me up that time it was all your best friend's fault!) but in the end just wants you to know that s/he's just so tired of feeling stupid for loving you. I'm apparently all about metaphors today.

MOE: You know what I like? How Karl Rove comes off with all the evil and none of the genius. McClellan was obviously so far outside the loop he wasn't even in the same time zone as these crooks. And back to your stupid argument:

“There is only one moment during the leak episode that I am reluctant to discuss,” he writes. “It was in 2005, during a time when attention was focusing on Rove and Libby, and it sticks vividly in my mind. … Following [a meeting in Chief of Staff Andy Card’s office], … Scooter Libby was walking to the entryway as he prepared to depart when Karl turned to get his attention. ‘You have time to visit?’ Karl asked. ‘Yeah,’ replied Libby. “I have no idea what they discussed, but it seemed suspicious for these two, whom I had never noticed spending any one-on-one time together, to go behind closed doors and visit privately. …

MOE: At least one of them, Rove, it was publicly known at the time, had at best misled me by not sharing relevant information, and credible rumors were spreading that the other, Libby, had done at least as much. …
McClellan repeatedly embraces the rhetoric of Bush's liberal critics and even charges: “If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. “The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”

MEGAN: They were too nice to him! Awww. It's like, why didn't you make me seeeeee how bad he was for me??
MOE: Do we have the next David Brock on our hand?
MOE: s
MOE: okay making coffee brb
MEGAN: Well, we will once the Administration rips off his neck and shits down his throat, in 5...4...3...
MEGAN: Oh, holy shit, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao got himself a Facebook page.
MOE: Great Wall Of Facebook ... snicker
MOE: And we have the earthquake to thank!
MEGAN: And it connects to his Flickr!!
MOE: More than 500 people have written on his wall.
MOE:

The page appears to have been set up recently. It is not clear whether Wen, 65, did it himself. Perhaps another government official put it up, or, just as likely, someone with no ties to Wen.

MEGAN: More than 1,000 people have written on it as of right now, actually.

MOE: So far this is the most profound I've found in English

Evelyn Chang (China) wrote
at 9:06am
Please do take care of yourself!!!!
I know there are many tough problems in China,but don't push yourself too much.
You care about Chinese people,and Chinese people also care about you.

MOE:

Cindy Zhang wrote
at 9:04am
John Doededoe i read quite a few your posting and have to response. First i live in austrlain and have been in last 20 year and did not support chinese government until torch relay so i have nothing to gain in support chinese government, since they never pay anything for me.
You impression of china is distorted by biasd western media and if you only read repression of china after incident i would blame western media.
You mentioned Tiananmen square, but i tell you china has come a long way not just in economy but also in personal and political freedom and i hope your view of china can be updated as well, just like we should not use the histroy of black slave as a reason to again today's USA government. I hope i really want to know china go to china and talk to its ppl as some of view about china is breath taking

MEGAN: It sort of makes me wish I could read Mandarin (I'm assuming it's in Mandarin and not Cantonese).
MOE: The characters are the same no matter what dialect you use.
MEGAN: Ah, my former roommate never told me that. Of course, she hated
me, so she didn't tell me a lot of things.

MOE: But in China (and Singapore) they use simplified versions of them. And in Hong Kong and Taiwan (which speak separate dialects, Cantonese and Taiwanese or Hokkien) they use the old school versions.
MEGAN: Except that when she was young she was a liberal arts major, too, but then she wised up and went to business school and I would, too.
MOE: That's still my plan
MEGAN: She was from Hong Kong, but her parents moved before the transition so they wouldn't lose all their money.
MEGAN: Well, I don't know how great a plan it was for her, but I can tell you how staying a German Lit major ended up for me. Umm, well, I mean, I guess you already know.
MOE: Here's some sophisticated analysis:

Michael Kingston wrote
at 8:59am
I get tired of some people who always give examples of 1 particular person detained or jailed for speaking against the government. The truth is, millions of chinese protest against the gov. every year, and sometimes the gov. gives in. Its no different frm the west.

MEGAN: Can we friend that idiot?
MOE: I like the first 25 pages of Death In Venice btw! But reading it made me somehow woozy. I need a vacation too.
MEGAN: Yeah, it's kind of trippy, right? Luckily, you don't have that many more pages to go. I don't want to spoil it for you, but somebody dies!
MOE: Did you read TRex's post When Good Droids Go Bad?

Goddamn, can we PLEASE just send Karl Rove to Gitmo until we can arrange a suitable trial for him? You know, like, whenever we get around to it?

He'd also like to send Bush to Gruinard a.k.a. Scotland's Anthrax Island, which I didn't know about. (Thanks TRex!) It's always weird reading stories about weapons of mass destruction andsuch dated shortly before 9/11. Somewhere some guy was like, "DUUUDE, I totally did my thesis on this dammit!" Oh and speaking of — well not really, did you catch the interview with Frank Fukuyama?

MEGAN: TRex interviewed Fukuyama? Dude, I would pay actual money to see that.
MEGAN: Just like I'd sorta like to see the look on the Myanmar embassy staff's faces when they start opening up envelope after envelope of used granny panties.

MOE: I touched on it yesterday in News Roundup…There's some stuff about US-Australian relations toward the end which is kind of boring but basically he loves Obama, he is totally over "hard power"…This is the important part:
MOE:

There needs to be great downplaying of the whole war on terrorism. To call it a war I think has over-militarised our objectives and the means that we have used to prosecute it, and I think there has to be a greater shift to the use of soft power in projecting American influence and then there are large areas of the world where we have kind of neglected thinking about things like east Asia where you have obviously got some very big changes going off.

Not a lot of conservatives have gone out and said that. That said, Fukuyama was never a huge jihad guy. We mostly talked about the Latins and the Asians in the class I took. He was going through this phase where he was super into encouraging and galvanizing societal "trust" — which was why I never took him seriously as a neocon.
MEGAN: That must've been, like, his End of History period, right?

MOE: "The End of History" was 1989 I believe, and this was 1998. He had moved on to some Joseph Putnam shit, corporate culture, this book that sort of blamed The Pill for all the West's modern social problems…terror was less on the agenda. I mean, it sort of makes sense. Remember studying policsci in college? Remember all the dual degree engineers and weirdos who threw themselves into covering the "rogue states"? I remember thinking, "Dudes, you know China is going to be a much bigger deal, right?" Well. Not when it comes to getting in on the DoD budget!
MEGAN: I, um, never took a single PoliSci class in college. I was a German Lit and a Sociology major and I minored in History
MEGAN: Also, I finished college in 1999, I'm not sure if rogue states were quite in vogue yet. Maybe they were. I avoided both the PoliSci and IR departments like the plague. Those people were all really, really intense and kind of annoying knowitalls. Yes, I recognize the irony of me saying that.
MOE: Speaking of, what group of auditors and appropriations monitors is worse off than our financial regulatory system?

MOE: Rogue states were totes the rage in some of my classes. But I also went to Penn, where…a lot of kids went on birthright trips.
MEGAN: See, I think the real question is whether the continuing lack of political appointees hurts or actually fucking helps that.
MEGAN: I didn't get a birthright, let alone a birthright trip.
MOE: (And by the way haters I had a wonderful experience and wouldn't change it for …well maybe I would go back and study economics and Russian lit at a small liberal arts college with a slightly lower tool ratio but, anyway, i dropped out because I didn't have the money. That is all.) Finally though.
MOE: Firedoglake wants to know why all these people who leave always express their fondness for the president even as they admit his administration ushered in an era of unprecedented corruption and inhumanity etc. etc.
MOE: And I think about that a lot and I think the answer is simply that the president is retarded.

MEGAN: Washington has elevated CYA to an art form. It's the only place where you can have your cake and eat it, too, and get two birds in the hand and still leave one in a bush. It's where you can sell your boss and all your former colleagues downriver for the sake of your career and still claim that you like and respect them.
MOE: Ahem, I don't think that's really how it went down with Paul O'Neill.
MEGAN: You gotta practice talking out of both sides of your mouth before you come, and Scottie was the White House Press Secretary, he could probably talk out of both sides and the middle.
MOE: See I disagree? What good does it do to say you respect and admire that imbecile? And meanwhile vilify everyone involved in the administration who might have to hold a job later on? I think there's a class of Bush administration defectors — and he's in the camp with O'Neill and the Italian faith-based organization dude Suskind also wrote about —- who look at it like a cult sorta.
MEGAN: Well, but who is going to get him a job? Pay for his speaking engagements? Karl Rove, who thought that Scottie was an idiot? Or the people that think he should be loyal to Bush (his former boss) but don't give a shit about the other people? He's got to prove he's not a fool while still showing loyalty. I think, on that score, he's pretty successful.