• Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chair Bernanke were on the Hill today, metaphorical hats in hands, asking for gobs of money and the ability to spend it with no oversight. Unlike what Sarah Palin actually said about the Bridge To Nowhere, Congress told them, "No thanks." [Washington Post]
• Dick Cheney tried his hand at asking nicely, but House Republicans, knowing Cheney well, told him to go fuck himself. A couple of them then fist-bumped Pat Leahy on the way out of the meeting. [Politico]
• Ahmadinejad doesn't care who we elect because he plans to keep building his nukes regardless. [CNN]
• The Supreme Court issued a stay of execution for a Georgia man convicted of killing a police office on the sole basis of eyewitness testimony since recanted. Scalia, Alito and Roberts must have taken a really long lunch today. [CNN]

• Rachel Maddow is kicking Larry King's wrinkly old-man ass. [Huffington Post]
• Even Fox News thinks it's "unprecedented" that McCain and Palin aren't allowing reporters to even shout questions at them. No, really. They're pissed too. [Huffington Post]
• But it's totally in line with other potential McCain Administration policies, like not talking to Israel, Syrian or the Palestinians about that whole peace-process thing. That bores Johnny. [JTA]
• Rush Limbaugh: more of a fucked-up racist piece of shit than you thought. [Think Progress]
• And, finally, some men's delusions know no bounds. [Politico]

MEGAN: This D.C.-based hangover case is trying to get pissed about something but all I can come up with is a sense of mild disgust that Cindy McCain cites Princess Di as an inspiration. I mean, I know between all her recipe-swiping and whatever that Cindy isn't the most creative person in the world but come on! Between this and Jackie O, can she choose more archetypes of the supportive-but-not-controversial wife to emulate to get her husband elected?
MOE: Wait, one sec, I forgot to tell you I'm doing DIRT BAG today. You know what that means? I fucking read TMZ and Page Six etc. etc. all morning. Apparently Janis Ian via David Geffen turned down an offer to do music for The Graduate. And that is what passes for a Page Six item on a Thursday in late June when Richard Johnson is on vacation!
MEGAN: Well, you go get dirrrty, I'll be here when you get back and not remotely envious of your gossip-reading.

MOE: Wait cindy mccain cites jackie as an inspiration? I thought that was Michelle's territory? And wasn't Jackie kind of controversial? Didn't she like, do drugs and give her daughters eating disorders and repress a full 90% of her emotions like all those beautiful icons of her generation??
MEGAN: Well, sure, but no one said anything about that until much later.

MEGAN: Anyway, we should probably totally talk about the whole North Korea thing briefly. Like, I sort of wonder if it's a good thing that all Kim Jong Il has to do is turn over some stuff detailed his weapons programs — without actually, you know, stopping them — and we're already lifting sanctions?

MOE: Well, what the fuck good have the sanctions done? How much thinner can they get in North Korea? I dunno…I kind of don't get the sense that we're dealing with a rational, logical guy in that Kim Jong Il. Maybe "engagement" would be kind of like the oil cleansing method of fighting breakouts. Like a "love bomb" on that show "Intervention."
MEGAN: Except that didn't we try that in the Clinton Administration? We offered them enticements, conducted negotiations and then Kim did what he wanted to do anyway which was get his hands on nukes. It's totally a no-win situation, but I guess I'm concerned in the medium- to long-term that allowing ourselves to be economically invested there could have negative repercussions on our foreign policy since it, you know, seemingly always does.

MOE: Has becoming economically interdependent with China had negative FP repercussions? I mean, sure you'll find lots of instances where that would be the case — the whole career of this guy, such as — and they haven't been exactly helpful when it comes to dealing with the DPRK, maybe some casino magnate can convince them to change their policy about sending North Korean border-crossers back to North Korea, but I'm trying to hone in on what you're saying with the "always does." Anyway in the case of North Korea is the big new concern their cooperation with Syria? I still haven't read the story. I'll do that now. Also we should maybe discuss child rapists and FISA.

MEGAN: I mean, in my mind, we find it really easy to take a hard foreign policy stand in countries where we have no economic interest or, in the case of the Iraq, where a hard foreign policy stand is aligned with our economic interests. Sometimes, like with Burma, that's probably a good thing, other times less so — agricultural competition and Cuba comes to mind, actually. But, yes, China was the example I was thinking of when saying our economic interests seemingly trump our foreign policy ones. Like, there's a whole army of lobbyists that will lobby for their companies' interests in China and strongly oppose any government action against China in a foreign policy sense that might interfere with that.

MOE: Oh god CHECK IT OUT we averted recession go us.
MEGAN: Well, we avoided it first quarter by just being anemic.
MEGAN: I'm not feeling the growth love.
MOE: Yeah I was being sarcastic but you know me.
MEGAN: Also, don't we all love how we live in an age where all kinds of information is at our fingertips, but economists still can only call it an official recession in retrospect 2 financial quarters later?

MOE: I think we should seal all aggregate economic data for a few years and come together as a nation to figure out what would really make everyone happier.
MEGAN: See, I actually wonder if it would even be possibly to determine that given our culture is so steeped in the idea that the ability to consume = happiness
MOE: Anyway, would you get in a time machine and, like, assassinate Kissinger before he had a chance to chill with Mao? Oh shit that reminds me I've got that Harper's somewhere with the amazing transcript of that. Because I wouldn't. Would I? Nah. I mean, it would be interesting.
MEGAN: I've watched and read too much SciFi to think that changing the past like that would be a good idea.
MEGAN: Anyway, so, wiretapping and child rapists?
MOE: Yeah I mean, I'm not really that interested in this fire and brimstone shit but Bobby Jindal is apparently like, okay, if you won't let us execute our child rapists I am going to have them CHEMICALLY CASTRATED. I'm almost afraid to click and find out what that meas.

MEGAN: Well, look, there are 5 states that have the law on the books now, but Louisiana was the first. Patrick Kennedy (poor, black) was the first child rapist ever given the death penalty in such a case, in 2003— but the law was passed in 1995
MOE: Oh man it's just Depo-Provera??
MEGAN: Yeah, mostly. Also, chemical castration doesn't solve the problem Chemically castrated rapists have offended again.
MEGAN: Plus, hello, life in prison?

MEGAN: Basically, the idea is that you can't get a boner or you can't ejaculate, but you can rape a person without a dick and Viagra can overcome Depo. Plus, it's rooted in the idea that rape is about sexual arousal, when when is at least as much about power and dominance.
MEGAN: So, if a rapist wants to show dominance, he doesn't need an erection. Lots of rapes are committed with objects (see:Joe Francis' rape).
MOE: Oh dude…uh speaking of dominance ?…WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THE POLLS WHY DOES GALLUP SAY IT IS A TIE AND EVERYONE ELSE IS LIKE UH-UH OBAMA IS WINNNNING
MEGAN: Well, Gallup says it's within the margin of error, so they're not even sure it represents a change.
MEGAN: The Rasmussen standard is "likely" voters, while Gallup only asks registered voters.

MEGAN: The real mystery to me is the LA Times/Bloomberg poll which has Obama miles ahead but uses the registered voter standard.
MOE: No but like all the polls had Obama 12 points ahead, and then Gallup came out and declared a tie, but whatever I wanted to go back to the fact that, like, even if you isolate North Korea economically they have gotten really good at printing fake currency so that is a problem. Anyway, here's Condi Rice telling everyone how she decided to remove North Korea from the terror list. Nowhere does she say "they are not terrorists because LOOK THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN ALLAH" but you know that's the subtext.
MEGAN: Sure, counterfeiting our money to give to terrorists in exchange for stuff legit governments won't sell them: not terrorism. Because they're not Muslim.
MOE: Oh, well that's simple enough. Registered vs. likely, sure. Mystery solved.
MEGAN: Also, back to the LA Times poll, they included Barr (3%) and Nader (4%), both coming mostly from McCain voters. Also, the LA Times poll is the only one with that large a margin, the Rasmussen and Gallup are both within each other's margins of error.
MEGAN: Also, it appears that the LA Times poll asked about isues and party affiliation, which would naturally affect responses. Gallup just asks "who you gonna vote for."

MEGAN: So, like, to me, that would indicate that in a knee-jerk reaction poll, they're more even but when voters are asked to think about the issues and with whom they agree and what is most important to them issues-wise, Obama does waaaaay better. Which is really interesting.
MEGAN: Yes, I did take statistical methodology as part of my major in Sociology, why do you ask?
MOE: Wait, ADD time, back to the Supreme Court death penalty decision and how it maybe reflects a shift on how the Court views executing people.

Justice Kennedy's majority opinion includes striking comments indicating possible skepticism about the entirety of capital punishment jurisprudence. In a remarkable statement, he says that the court's extensive body of death-penalty case law "is still in search of a unifying principle." That's a pretty bold statement about the whole project. And consider this statement by Kennedy today: "When the law punishes by death, it risks its own sudden descent into brutality, transgressing the constitutional commitment to decency and restraint."

MEGAN: Well, that goes along with the statement in the majority opinion that taking the death penalty off the table to child rapists reflect shifting social values about the death penalty.
MEGAN: That, like, since the standard for "cruel and unusual" changes over time as society changes, so does the Constitutionality of the punishment. I'm okay with that.

MOE: Me too! I think I'm also okay with Karl Rove calling out Obama's "alpha male attitude." Because, LOL!

Mr. Obama's alpha-male attitude was evident even as he stumbled towards and over the primary finish line. First, his campaign announced in May it was talking to Patti Solis Doyle after Sen. Clinton fired her as campaign manager. This served only to pour salt in the Clintons' wounds.

MEGAN: Right, because most politicians and political operatives aren't Type A personalities AT ALL.

MEGAN: But I guess Karl is himself a little more passive-aggressive, and if Bush really did fire him in church so he couldn't make a scene, so is Bush, so maybe Karl's just too used to passive-aggressivity to view assertiveness as anything other than hyper-aggressive?
MEGAN: WAIT oh my God, Karl Rove is everyone I date.
MOE: Um, also how did I miss Obama dissing Scarlett Johansson, (which Mickey Kaus deems "inexplicably clumsy," somewhat inexplicably, since he cops to having watched her video, and like, hello.)

MEGAN: Ummm, I would guess it has a lot more to do with downplaying the black man-white woman vaguely flirtatious suggestion aspect of it.
MOE: Ya think???
MEGAN: Which is just sad.
MOE: Interesting Spiegel piece on Why Russia Is Risking Another Cold War by amping up its military might. The answer seems to be that it isn't, but Putin talks a good game.
MEGAN: Well, who would they have a Cold War with? We're all into hot wars now, and really only in terrorist-sponsoring states that just happen to be Muslim and don't have nukes and shit.

MEGAN: Obama, by the way, is flip-flopping on the DC gun ban since he's trying to win swing states and the Supreme Court is expected to throw it out today.
MOE: Ugh and what the fuck was up with FISA?
MEGAN: The security of the American people trumps their need to protect (i.e., sue over) their right to privacy. He managed to combine a Republican argument on the supreme importance of national security with an implied Republican argument on tort reform. Plus, he can't look soft on terrorism or something and the Democrats have collectively decided to cave on telecomm immunity because they like having Bush scratch their bellies.

MOE: Oh here, they threw it out. Yay.
MEGAN:

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for four colleagues, said the Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home."

MOE: Scalia wrote the opinion. 5-4 decision. Can't wait to read!

MEGAN: You can right here, if you want.

MEGAN: No, the Clinton thing is totally epic, I fully support a separate post for that.
MOE: ok cool... i suppose then that we should talk about... florida and michigan, jeremiah wright, rosencrantz & gildenstern…
MEGAN: Wait, aren't they dead?
MEGAN: (Sorry, it was a pun that had to be made)
MOE: we all die is sort of the point
MEGAN: That's sort of existential for this time of the morning, I thought I was supposed to be the depressed one!

MEGAN: By the way, I meant to say, all I dreamt about last night was Bill Clinton and economic insecurity.
MOE: Dude Dodai and I saw the Sex & The City movie. All I dreamt about was…shoes.
MOE: NO NOT REALLY.
MEGAN: Aw, those would've been some awesome dreams, though.
MOE: I would say the movie made me ill, but I was ill before…it's just such A Soul Murdering Work Of Staggering Consumerism
MEGAN: Yeah, that's sort of why I went to see Indiana Jones instead. That, and the fact that my companion was a straight guy.

MEGAN: Anyway, so that that Pfleger guy is the new Wright and Obama's church is the story that shall never die even though he quit it this weekend and no one can answer the riddle of why they would continue to tape the damn sermons.
MOE: This Pfleger guy is soooooo much more fascinating than Jeremiah Wright. WHERE DID HE COME FROM? And unrelated: Did you read how there are still seven or eight Jews in Baghdad? It totally is ruling the Most Emailed List, as if it were a story about pandas or spotted owls, only that's really now how it is…anyway their synagogue closed after the war "made it too dangerous for them to worship openly." Great going, us! And everyone used to be so nice, and Muslims were nice to Jews and Sunnis were nice to Shiites, but not anymore, except that there are so few Jews that the Muslims actually are still nice to them…anyway. Back to Pfleger.

MEGAN: Right, because the only violence the Iraqi state used to countenance under Saddam Hussein was the violence that it itself committed against the Kurds and political dissidents! But, yes, Pfleger.
MOE: Dude, has someone made a mashup of this vs. Harriet Christian? Because that sort of demands to be done.
MEGAN: By the way, in point of fact, "der Pfleger" is German for "male nurse." Not that that's important.
MEGAN: Oh, God, Harriet Christian. What a wack job. "Inadequate black male," Harriet? Gosh, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones must've loved that shit.

MOE: Seriously, okay, the thing here is 1. If it didn't sufficiently speak to Pfleger's own point that what he said was probably just as offensive to most folks as anything Jeremiah Wright said but it's harder to argue with him because he is himself white, then 2. Harriet Christian pretty much does the rest of his job for him.
MOE: And the Rosencrantz reference was MoDowd's. So unlike me, I know.
MEGAN: I don't know, was Pfleger more acceptable? Was he just the straw that broke the camel's back, or was it worse?
MOE: The thing is that this lede

They say that every president gets the psychoanalyst he deserves. And every Hamlet gets his Rosencrantz.

is typically retarded, but I remember that play being my favorite thing I'd ever read back in high school, and maybe that's why McClellan appeals! Except McClellan was probably aiming more for Guildenstern. Spokespretty Dana Perino can be Rosencrantz.
MEGAN: Is openly mocking Hillary Clinton worse than "God damn America" and "the government invented AIDS" and shit?
MOE: See, I guess I didn't see Pfleger until after I'd seen Harriet Christian. How come no one has made a mashup of this shit yet?
MEGAN: Nope. Could we set it to, like, Keystone Kops music?
MOE: Someone should do that, and then splash in some Michael Richards
MEGAN: Ooh, right.

MEGAN: Anyway, so Howard Dean (who is apparently the new devil to Hillary supporters) called Geraldine Ferraro's comments on race "outside the mainstream and unhelpful." That's a start, really.
MOE: Here's a little passage from a Chicago Tribune story about how Rev. Pfleger got into this line of work:

Clements has remained an activist ever since, leading anti-drug campaigns, encouraging black adoptions, convincing parishioners to open their hearts to ex-offenders. He often joins forces with a white activist priest, Rev. Michael Pfleger, the pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church on the South Side. As it turns out, Pfleger was also in Marquette Park the day King was hit with the rock.

PFLEGER WAS 16, a kid from nearby Thomas Moore parish. Everywhere he went for several days leading up to the march, people in his Southwest Side neighborhood were talking about the pending march. Why couldn't they stay in their own place? They took away our old house. They took away our old neighborhood. They took away our old church. They drove us out. Now is the time to draw the line.

Pfleger and two friends hopped on their bikes and rode to the park to see if they could get a look at King, the man who was causing all the trouble. When they got to the park, it was scary. "I saw this hate," he says. "I had never seen them, my neighbors, like that. I'd never seen that side of white people."

His neighbors were cursing and throwing rocks. There were police in riot gear and there he was, King, looking calm, trying to say something to the mob. But Pfleger couldn't hear over the screams of "Niggers, go home!"

MOE:

"King was in control," Pfleger recalls. "And the more in control he was, the angrier the crowd became. I thought to myself, 'Either this man is crazy, or this man has some sort of power I want to know about.' It was the greatest, most powerful class in non-violence I'll ever get in my life."

The next day, Pfleger started reading whatever he could find about the march and about King. He cut out photos of King and taped them to the back of his bedroom closet door as a sort of shrine. Today, in his office at St. Sabina, he has half a dozen photographs of him: King addressing thousands of people at the rally at Soldier Field, King speaking at a temple on the North Shore, King and a young Jesse Jackson the night before King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968.

"People ask me all the time why I became a priest," Pfleger says. "I tell them it was really a black Baptist minister who called me into ministry. My activism today was unquestionably birthed that day in Marquette Park. I think of him as a mentor."

MOE: That's from 2006
MOE: In 2002 he was involved in some controversy when a black team joined his mostly white suburban Catholic school league and parents were like "we don't want to go play there it's unsafe."
MEGAN: "I'd never seen that side of white people," kind of helpfully sums up what I think every right-thinking person's view of racism is. Like, the horror that you could be associated with something that is so very, very obviously deeply wrong.

MEGAN: The first time you see it or experience it, it should make you sick to your stomach that there are people like that in the world.
MOE: So here's the question: Geraldine Ferraro: obviously unhelpful. Michael Pfleger: more helpful than unhelpful, over the long haul, I believe. And yeah, racism is completely stomach churning the first time you experience it from your community. I mean, my initial experiences were all in Asia, which was slightly different, because it was like, my little kid friends grumbling about how Chinese spit and/or smelled and/or always insisted on touching our hair. It was beyond my comprehension at the time how they could even think those things, to be honest. It used to bother me so much. I would stand there dutifully while someone touched my hair and yearn to apologize for the Opium Wars and having an air conditioner and such. Oh… phew! Geraldine Ferraro is now back on Fox. Someone needed to put the crap back in this Crappy Hour!

MEGAN: OMG, she looks so freaking happy to be on Fox. Goddammit, Geraldine, try to look a little less self-satisfied.
MEGAN: Dude, they just completely laughed at her when she quoted Jackie Mason. I'm beginning to be uncomfortable.
MEGAN: Oh, are you kidding? She's like, "If people said that crap about Obama, we would be horrified." Oh, really, Geraldine? You mean, like, when Andrew Cuomo said that Obama cannot "shuck and jive" at a press conference and his press people successfully convinced everyone to ignore it and not a single Democratic party leader in NY or beyond called him out on it?
MOE: I'm clarifying the Pfleger thing; it was his school in the "dangerous" neighborhood, and his school was rejected from the Southside Catholic Conference or something on account of that, and then he went public with racism charges, and then a lot of Catholics were like "why couldn't he have been a little quieter about this shit."

MEGAN: Ah, lovely. Well, Chicago is such a lovely, well-planned city. Ahem.
MOE: Jesus I didn't even know what "shuck n jive" meant.

"To shuck and jive" originally referred to the intentionally misleading words and actions that African-Americans would employ in order to deceive racist Euro-Americans in power, both during the period of slavery and afterwards. The expression was documented as being in wide usage in the 1920s, but may have originated much earlier. "Shucking and jiving" was a tactic of both survival and resistance. A slave, for instance, could say eagerly, "Oh, yes, Master," and have no real intention to obey. Or an African-American man could pretend to be working hard at a task he was ordered to do, but might put up this pretense only when under observation. Both would be instances of "doin' the old shuck 'n jive."

MEGAN: Yes. It's a racist term.
MOE: Um yeah.
MEGAN: But his press people called everyone in the universe (I ought to know) and were like "he meant bobbing and waving!!! you're taking it out of context" and I was like, there's no context for that
MOE: What I wonder is if there would have been way more of those types of slips had Barack Obama been more stereotypical. Had he not been reared with such colossal reserves of cultural capital, the "something for everyone" biography, the arugula plus the brotherhood plus the atheist mom plus the Indonesian stepdad etc. etc.…had he simply been more stereotypical, had he had an "I could have been baking cookies all those years" moment. Do you think there would be more overt racism involved in his campaign? Because I did, but quotes like Cuomos

MOE: Quotes like Cuomo's just make me think it doesn't even matter. They're digging through the history books, finding the anachronistic phrases that will send messages to the right constitutents…so I guess it is less overt.
MEGAN: I mean, he's had his cookie-baking moments, in my opinion, his "stereotypical white person" about his grandmother and stuff. But, yeah, I mean, it horrifies me that either these very bright politicians are using these fucking "code" words like "shucking and jiving" and "kid" and whatever else so that people under a certain age who don't know them won't know that they're being racist and people over a certain age will get the reference. It's like Bush and his fucking evangelical code word bullshit in all his States of the Union and shit.
MOE: But like, it's just racism. You get to the point where, as we've discussed before, he's inoculated himself to this shit, to the point David Duke himself can't get it up to really hate on Obama, and yet we've got Harriet Christian of Manhattan… it makes no sense.
MEGAN: Because, I'm sorry, you don't grow up in the South when they grew up, you don't get to talk about how inspiring the civil rights movement was to you as a politician and then claim not to know.
MOE: And…re racism, institutional: did you read the Post Magazine cover story on Tatum O'Neal's drug of choice? Because I didn't have time but I should have.
MEGAN: I didn't, either, I was still all obsessing about politics, but the sentence disparities for crack v. powder cocaine are completely fucked
MOE: Here's his spiel before Congress:

My name is Michael Short. I am here because in 1992 I was sentenced for selling crack cocaine. Before that, I had never spent a day in prison. I came from a good family. I had no criminal history. I was not a violent offender. But I was sentenced to serve nearly 20 years. I was 21 years old.

They'll be chatting about the story at noon for anyone who still thinks racism exists in this country!
'
MEGAN: But, no, see, it's not racism it's racial resentment, didn't you learn anything?
MOE: Newsbreak Terror Roundup: an attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, a growing sphere of influence for the Taliban, has killed six, Syria has agreed to allow IAEA weapons inspectors to check out its North Korean JV, and something about the Iraqi jail system being less terrible than before. And should we talk about Puerto Rico?
MEGAN: Oh, sure, Puerto Rico. Hillary won! Ricky Martin danced!
MOE: Oh dude, I didn't see the National Review had run six separate stories on Friday trashing McClellan. Good grief.
MEGAN: Well, you know, it's like proving that someone's not a witch by piling stones on them. When they've crushed his chest, he'll be redeemed.
MOE: Ugh, I hate the "well-worn tell-all path" line. I just don't subscribe to the "All ousted tools of the idiocracy are unhappy in the same way" line of reasoning, but if anyone tracks down his partisan ghostwriter the Prince Of Darkness…is probably too lazy but he'll get a lot of hits with misleading headlines suggesting he has!

MEGAN: I really think PoD is giving Bobby too much credit. Let's return to caling him the Earl of Minor Despair. Or the Count of Emotionally-Instigated Intestinal Distress
MOE: Wait, he has emotions?
MOE: Ya think?

Obama's Latest Pastor Disaster [Newsweek/WaPo]
Hillary Clinton Attacked At Barack Obama Church [YouTube]
Clinton Supporter Thrown Out Of Rules Committee Meeting [YouTube]
Glamoracy [Glamour]

MOE: Okay, so here's a dumb question. When North Korean scientists visit Damascus to give them tips on the whole plutonium thing, what language do they use? There are probably a hundred different little cultural misunderstandings on those surveillance tapes that would make for an amusing screwball comedy.

MEGAN: Wanna bet they use English? The official language of nuclear proliferators since 1945!
MOE: Do you think they'd make it that easy on the spies? What if they used Latin?
MEGAN: Then the Pope would have to translate for us! He's into non-proliferation, since the only things he wants to see proliferate are Catholic babies.
MEGAN: Pig Latin, though, that might be hard.
MOE: Okay so maybe I should explain to readers that you are in my house and we are looking at the New York Post and trying to figure out whether we care about the Spitzer hooker scandal. I'm going with "no."

MEGAN: Yeah, I mean, without more details then liked to incorporate sex toys, I don't really care enough to speculate.
MOE: I don't even get what the story is other than his "fondness for hookers" was "corroborated" by a second hooker. Haven't we gotten this story corroborated by like 29 hookers at this point? Aren't we pretty much secure in the knowledge that Eliot Spitzer fucked whores? Yes.
MEGAN: I mean, but maybe he liked big dildoes shoved up his ass. Maybe, like most men, he liked to watch them masturbate? I dunno, I guess we just all like to watch something, and somehow people think hearing more about Eliot Spitzer nekkid and fucking is salacious.
MOE: I am sooooo over it it is like the porn you used to love that never does the trick anymore and you just can't get back the magic, no matter how desperate and/or drunk, except it involves Eliot Spitzer so ICK.
MOE: So I wanted to spend the day talking about Israel actually.
MEGAN: I mean, it's slightly less gross than a Normal Mailer sex memoir, but either's a bonerkiller.
MEGAN: Oh, ok. Israel. Um, I hear it's nice and wedding dresses are expensive there.
MOE: And the secret agreement they apparently had with Bush, on the basis of a letter Bush sent Sharon in 2004. I think the letter said something like "well you are there, and uh, you have nukes, so...what about we pretend we never had this conversation? Look, I already forgot!"
MEGAN: This doesn't surprise me, somehow.
MOE: Colin Powell emailed the Post saying he never saw the letter.

MOE: Also, I love this idea:
MOE:

Weissglas said that in 2005, when Sharon was poised to remove settlers from Gaza, the Bush administration made a secret agreement — not disclosed to the Palestinians — that Israel could add homes in settlements it expected to keep, as long as the construction was dictated by market demand, not subsidies.

MOE: Oooh that's a good thought: also, where can I buy some distressed collateralized debt obligation containing some of the securities backed by Gaza mortgages now that we have this news? Kidding, I guess it's still a kind of a shady investment, huh. Better to invest in the kid supplying ammo to the Afghan counterinsurgency, no duh. But yeah, seriously, this isn't about Gaza, it was about other settlements I think? To sweeten the whole "get out of Gaza" deal? Don't you wish reparations would work on these guys? Come back to America, folks! We've got your housing!
MEGAN: But you can't grow olive trees pretty much anywhere but California... luckily, Stockton has a ton of foreclosures.
MOE: Between Condi and Colin Powell and Bush and the ambassador to Israel and Jimmy Carter it sure seems like America is the land of numerous conflicting Israel policies you know?
MEGAN: Wait, we're supposed to have one Israel policy? Other than "support at all costs regardless"?
MOE: Wouldn't it be cool if Obama gave a sort of "race speech," only in Jerusalem? Too bad he doesn't have any Jews in his family to "throw under the bus" for a good cause, so to speak. Oh wait, he probably does.
MOE: Still, it's kind of complicated once you go over there and realize there is really no basic uniting "all men created equal" business.
MEGAN: Not that such shit works here either.
MOE: Yeah but when you say such a thing in a speech it doesn't sound like you're necessarily on Ecstasy. Which by the way the Israelis control the trade of. (WHY DON'T THEY USE IT.)
MEGAN: Wait, so ecstasy is made in Israel? Did you know we have a free trade agreement with them?
MOE: No actually I didn't know that. It never occurred to me actually. I don't spend nearly enough time thinking about trade negotiations. When's that date back to? What's their big export, besides Dead Sea salt scrubs and such? I'm such a dumbass.
MEGAN: It's more than 20 years old, actually!
MOE: I think I noticed that the Dead Sea salt scrubs were not really any cheaper over there than they are here but then I figured that QVC was a much bigger purchaser of such things than the Massadah Duty Free Shop and attributed it to that.
MEGAN: I could use a good salt scrub right now, actually.
MOE: There's some in the shower!
MEGAN: Hooray! I need one of those too.
MEGAN: So, the Israeli FTA is older than NAFTA, and doesn't have labor or environmental provisions but I'll bet neither Clinton or Obama wants to renegotiate that one.
MOE: Does it say anything about employment discrimination? Anyway. I guess we should quickly address the election. I mean...peace in the Middle East...not like we're going to get much clarity on this topic! Oh, you know what I decided would be funny? If the Syrians and the North Koreans decided to find an obscure language with which to communicate their nuclear plans and they randomly chose Yiddish.
MEGAN: Which is also really similar to German.
MOE: And somehow no one in all of Mossad knew what they were saying and they had to get some guy with a giant furry hat to translate and he purposely fucked up the translation and...I don't know. ELECTION.
MEGAN: Right, election.
MOE: Today is the day that all the columnists come out and say HILLARY CAME BACK, OMG, OBAMA'S LOSING STEAM, HE CAN'T WIN, SHE'S CAPTURED THE HEARTS OF THE DEMOCRATIC ELECTORATE, SHE'S SO MUCH BETTER AGAINST MCCAIN I'm totally over it. I wasn't at all surprised by her margin in Pennsylvania, and neither was anyone, and I'm happy for her that she raised some money on this "momentum" but I'm sad for America because this is getting ridiculous.
MOE: It's all Karl Rove to me.
MEGAN: I mean, I think pundits have to keep filling space and controversy makes for good space. On the other hand, she's still losing the delegate race and the popular vote race and even if she counts Florida she's not ahead, soo... Now, if he loses NC and Indiana, then he's fucked.

MOE: Okay so I am depressed and I hope everyone dies. Especially the commenter who thought I was saying the artists that helped revive Philadelphia on an aesthetic level came from PENN.
MOE: FUCK ALL OF YOU.
MEGAN: Yeah, you should've seen the Obama party last night, it was on the river in a nice location and people didn't even stay to watch the concession but damn were the bartenders pouring with a strong hand,
MEGAN: Also, it was a pain to catch a cab back from.
MOE: And then my train was held over an hour in Trenton, so I not only missed watching the returns, I missed Jenna Bush at the 92nd Street Y. And that's when I got a call from an old friend at the Wall Street Journal, which is rapidly being dismantled by Rupert Murdoch.
MEGAN: Oh, God, Trenton blows.
MOE: The world knows.
MEGAN: Like, of the many things I celebrated about leaving the lobbying profession, the fact that I would never again have to be in Trenton was on the list.
MEGAN: Of course, now that I've said that, I'll get stuck going there some time. Fuck you, Trenton.
MOE: Yeah if you take the regional rail between Philly and New York at night you cannot avoid getting stuck at the train station.

MEGAN: Also, by the way, she raised $2.5 million last night.
MEGAN: Hopefully her next round of commercials will be less lame.
MOE: Okay, you know who gets a special "Fuck you"? The New York Times. I have plenty of dear friends who have taken longer to get disillusioned by Hillary (still waiting on Sinister!) but none of them work for the NYT op-ed page. Drudge is calling it an "un-endorsement" I guess. Ugh. Anyway, I'm annoyed. Because I knew this was going to happen, and I was truthfully worried about much worse margins, but the stupid media set expectations artificially high again, which they keep doing.
MEGAN: I fucking love this quote:

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Perhaps the sheer fact of having to get out there day after day to meet Americans, has humanized her, and helped her learn how to relate to citizens from different demographic swathes than her own narrow one. She may have learned a thing or two from them along the way, about their deeper values. (Barak surely has learned nothing of that.)

MOE: Jenna and Barbara are getting fellated on Fox & Friends right now.
MEGAN: Oh, gross imagery. Thanks for helping my hangover with that.
MEGAN: Also, aren't you supposed to be allowed to vote on a provisional ballot? And Obama took Philly anyway, it's just he lost everywhere else.
MOE: Yeah, I was supposed to be, but I was going to try and figure out where my actual polling place was, near another house I used to live in, and then time ran out. I will state that the folks at my polling place were absolutely totally unhelpful, although very friendly in their unhelpfulness. They knew I was there to vote for my Marxist. Hey, now, I know this is sort of a change of subject, but on the "total obliteration" front does it seem like North Korea and Syria have more going for them mass destruction-wise than the Iraq ever did? Not that that's really saying much.
MOE: So, where was the Obama party last night? What did you do?
MEGAN: The Obama party was at some place I forget the name of, because I'm like that, but the address was 1 Boathouse Road, and it was very nice. The DJ was pretty awesome, but no one was dancing despite the fact that I guarantee you his crowd had way more rhythm than Hillary's, if the crowd I had to push through to get out of my hotel (where her party was) was any indication.

MEGAN: I went, I took pictures for Glamocracy and I drank.
MEGAN: And then I came back to the hotel and went to bed because yesterday was an exhaustingly bloggy day, between writing all the female voter profiles for them. I didn't even finish the glass of wine I had, and that's saying something.
MOE: And while you summon the ability to let me in on that, allow me to clarify my BlackBerry dispatch from yesterday — and to answer commenter B_boy who wondered what I need with a blackberry, the answer is I got sort of dependent on it after September 11 when I was working as a newspaper reporter, and I've never been able to give it up, and at this point it's kind of cheap anyway — but with regard to the artists. There is a real, humble, awesome politically-active, socially aware, iconoclastic, big-hearted, entrepreneurial idealistic group of artsy carpenter types who gentrified Philly for the better. A lot of them are from the area, some of them went to RISD and just needed a cheap place to live, but what you have to understand is that when you gentrify a city like Philadelphia you're not driving anyone away from their houses. The remaining residents do not resent you; quite the opposite. And they're fucking cool. It's hard to explain how it worked down there, but I was always amazed by the willingness of some of those kids to look at bona fide ruins and see the potential for a super functional community.
MOE: And zero percent of them came from Penn, thank you v. much. Although one of them, noted Mummer Sonja Trauss, is getting some sort of graduate degree in economics there now.
MEGAN: Yeah, my editor and I drove along the Baltimore Ave/Pike/Ave the whole way from Penn campus to Media, PA and saw a ton of that kind of respectful gentrification, as opposed to the DC kind where they kick everyone out, tear everything down and put up a condo tower with a Starbucks or a Cosi on the ground floor.
MOE: No one wants to build a fucking condo tower on Baltimore Avenue. I mean, on Baltimore — I used to live on 43rd and Baltimore — it's a little different. There wasn't the block after block of 2/3 bombed out rowhouses. Though there was an controversial crackhouse-cum-anarchist squat that was always an interesting point of controversy for the neighborhood. Like, did they like it more when crackheads ate from their dumpsters? Or the smelly dreadlocked white kids?
MOE: Oooooh, voter disenfranchisement from my friend and South Philadelphia homeowner Ryan Creed.
MOE: Ryantastic: well, it's not all that salacious.
Ryantastic: I voted green in 2000, and I found out I never reaffiliated last year when I went to vote for mayor
Ryantastic: I thought I changed it there
Ryantastic: but apparently it didn't go through
Ryantastic: This is the second damn time in a year that it's happened
MEGAN: Apparently, there's a brew pub now on 50th and Baltimore, so the edges of the gentrification is spreading outwards, according to one of our panelists.
MOE: This happened with a few people actually...they thought they changed their registration, and then they showed up and were told they didn't.
MEGAN: That sounds shady to me, but, then, so does street money and ward captains and shit.
MOE: Ah, the brew pubs. Incidentally, Philadelphia is where Yards beer is brewed, and Yards beer is the best beer in the universe, although I think they might have closed because doing business in Philadelphia is a pain in the ass if you aren't part of the machine. Also there's a near 5% wage tax and some sort of business privilege tax that keeps people away apparently. I dunno. It is an awesome place to live if you aren't the type of person who never looks at your ATM receipt.
MEGAN: I am, personally, physically incapable of not looking at my balance, it's part of an overall level of analness.
MOE: Dana Milbank was good today.
MEGAN: Also, I just have to ask, how exactly did Obama "play the race card" on Bill Clinton again? By pointing out the shit that Bill had already said?
MEGAN: I mean, unless Bill was part of their strategic planning, they couldn't've known-known that Bill would shove most of his right leg into his mouth and give them an opening, right?
MOE: So we have to discuss the nexus of my favorite two subjects, Barry Hussein and Abercrombie & Fitch, happening once again.
MEGAN: Dude, fucking everyone was talking about that shit last night.
MOE: We discussed this yesterday. He played the race card the same way Geraldine Ferrarro was the victim of racism; in his own deluded compartmentalizing triangulating victory-deranged mind.
MEGAN: Oh, right, sorry. I forgot, BUT STILL, why hasn't he shut up about it yet. Obama's all like, dude, I have no idea what he meant by that, I'm sorry.

MEGAN: Also, that's really poor advance work on Obama's staff's part, because don't they know they're supposed to have, like, white middle-aged people in the background to show their support for him? Which reminds me of the thing I'm still really mad I couldn't take pictures of: little old ladies for Obama. There was one on the median outside the hotel in a wheelchair, a little old white lady, with a sign that said "Obama Granny" waving and getting people to honk. Then, at the party last night, there was a little old African-American lady with a cane shaking her groove thing to Mary J and I had to give her a hug but that might've been the wine or the rum.
MEGAN: But on the 'crombie boys, one of them is kind of rocking the gay-face, and they don't look like they're from Indiana to me.
MOE: Well yeah, I wanted to punch them out. I was at a bar talking about the death of journalism, but apparently one of them was talking on his cell phone. I can't tell if it is more sick or absurd. Knowing what I know about Abercrombie, I am sort of torn. And following the biggest race-discrimination payout in...well I have no idea, but I imagine that Abercrombie now has diversity training and maybe those guys were moved by the race speech. I was always fascinated to find that the very employees who enforced Abercrombie's institutional racism were ...not unaware of it. They were sort of tormented by it I guess. Also gays are supposed to vote for Hillary. Yeah, the whole thing is really weird.
MEGAN: Actually, I don't understand the near-universal gay men's love of Hillary, unless it's some sort of diva worship? None of my gay friends who are Hillary fans can really explain it to me particularly well, but it annoys the crap out of my gay friends who support Obama.
MOE: It's totally diva worship. I mean, you know, I get it. I get people who like Hillary. I think she's great! In any other election I'd be so stoked to vote for her! You guys all know this! I'm just super impressed by Barry and I'm amazed how well he's done. And truly, does last night matter?

Under party rules, congressional districts that voted most heavily Democratic in recent general elections get more delegates to the party's national convention in Denver in August. In Pennsylvania, districts that went most heavily for Democrats in the 2004 presidential and 2006 gubernatorial races got the most seats.
All states use a similar formula, which dates to the 1970s and was intended to reward constituencies and voters most loyal to the party, said Democratic strategist Tad Devine. But the effect is most pronounced in states with large and concentrated African-American populations, which tend to be most loyal to the party.

In Texas, African-American votes for Sen. Obama in delegate-rich Houston and Dallas largely offset Hispanic votes for Sen. Clinton in the delegate-poor Rio Grande Valley. Sen. Clinton netted just four more delegates in the primary than Sen. Obama did, despite winning the popular vote by 101,000 votes and 3.5 percentage points.
Pennsylvania posed a similar opportunity. Philadelphia's 2nd Congressional District, where Sen. Obama long has had his strongest support, will send nine people to the national convention. Two nearby districts with similarly large African-American populations will send seven delegates each.

MEGAN: Hey, you know what's fucked up? One of our Glamocracy panelists said she'd definitely heard of Republicans switching to vote for Hillary to keep this going, the way Republicans voted for Hillary in Texas.
MOE: Yeah but Pennsylvanians don't listen to Rush the same way Texans do.
MEGAN: Thankfully.