• Dick Cheney thinks: The Gays should be happy with whatever states choose not to discriminate against them; Americans should be glad George Tenet didn't have worse intel about the link between Saddam and Osama; and the Guantanamo detainees should be happy we didn't summarily execute them. [Time, CNN, MSNBC]

• David Duke is mad at Rush Limbaugh for comparing him to that Latina Sonia Sotomayor. But he's not a racist! [ThinkProgress]
• Dick Cheney wouldn't have nominated Judge Sotomayor, but even Dick Cheney is smart enough not to call her a racistwhile he's trying to rehab his image. [Politico]
• Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, however, is not as smart as Dick Cheney. [Politico]
• Sotomayor begins the obligatory meetings-with-Senators today; let's hope she wore some comfortable shoes. [Politico]
• The Obama Administration denies that any of the images of American detainees subject to the ACLU release lawsuit depict sexual abuse, as was reported last week. Please note the careful wording. [Salon]
• The Administration also says that it decided not to release the photos because Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Malik objected and threatened to force us to withdraw even earlier than he planned, which is not nearly as dirty as it sounds. [McClatchy]
• Tom Tancredo staffer Marcus Epstein is a crazy-ass racist who assaulted a woman on the street last year because she was black, and he won't be going to law school now because of it. [DCeiver]
• Kim Jong Il's son, Kim Jong Un, who is 7 years younger than I am, will be taking over the nuclear-armed country of North Korea. This is gonna go well! [BBC]
• Eliot Spitzer has spent a lot of money on sex workers. [NY Times]
• Norm Coleman has spent a lot of money masturbating to his electoral fantasies in Minnesota courts. [NY Times]
• Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has finally learned how to relax and submit peacefully to our new Chinese overlords. [NY Times]
• You are correct: I have sex on the brain.

• Geithner's proposed new regulatory framework buoyed retail stocks by 4.4% yesterday. Saks' shares rose 15%, Ann Taylor was up 18%, Macy's climbed 10.2%, and Liz Claiborne rose 16.2%. Finally, some good fashion economic news! [WWD]

• But it isn't all rosy on the business side. H&M's profits have fallen for the first time in five years. Their first-quarter net profit was down by 12%, which was worse than analysts had expected. [WSJ]
• Marc Ecko Enterprises owes business partners $170 million. $100 million of that is due to Li & Fung, the global sourcing giants, who announced just yesterday that their net was down 21%. [NY Post]
• Hugo Boss lost $20.6 million in the fourth quarter of 08. That's a decline in net of 27%. for the year. [WWD]
• Thom Browne, whom the New York Post reported was close to bankruptcy yesterday, denies the charge in WWD. The men's wear designer says he is looking for a financial backer to grow his company — but has been slow in his search because the relationship is a crucial one and he doesn't want to sell a majority stake in his business. [WWD]
• The Telegraph takes a tour of the Chanel handbag factory outside Paris, and finds 340 people working very slowly and carefully to complete the 180 steps in the making of a 2.55 purse. [Telegraph]
• Simply Vera by Vera Wang's spring line is out at Kohl's. I agree with this reviewer that it looks basically cute — but one word of advice? Do not ever imitate a runway or lookbook outfit head-to-toe. It's snoozeville. [Fabsugar]
• Last winter, Peacock Holdings LLC — a men's shirt concern, apparently — bought the Bill Blass brand from NexCen, the company which fired Peter Som and 60 Bill Blass employees without severance. At the time, Peacock said it planned to revive the ready-to-wear division within the year; they are just now looking for a creative director. [WWD]
• Kérastase is discontinuing ten products, including their Bain Après-Soleil shampoo. You can mourn them by buying the last little pottles of goodness at 30% off online with the code VIP30. [Kérastase Paris]
• Jane Whitfield, a designer at Louis Vuitton who shares the distinction, with fellow Briton Peter Copping, of being commonly described as "Marc Jacobs Right-Hand [Pronoun]" (or who perhaps doesn't have to share it anymore, following Copping's departure to Nina Ricci), lives in a charming centuries-old cottage near Versailles with her husband and kids. This story is entirely about her apparent knack for interiors and contains no other insight into her design work or experience. [Telegraph]
• In China, Clinique and Sony banded together to create a 40-episode web series that just happens to feature an awful lot of Clinique and Sony products. [WSJ]
• If you want to buy a punk outfit from Bergdorf, it will cost you $3000. [Blogue]

• Barack Obama responded to Dick Cheney's criticism that Obama would cause the next terrorist attack by saying that, in fact, it was going to be Cheney's fault. [Politico]

• Obama also thinks we probably need an exit strategy from Afghanistan. What, we're not going to try a permanent occupation of it? [BBC]
• If you're worried that lobbyists are going to have too much influence as to how the stimulus money gets spent, don't. In the new Obama Administration, they're going to tell you exactly how much influence lobbyists are having. That's change. [Washington Post]
• Also, get your populist rage hats on now, as some foreign companies that have operations in the U.S. may get stimulus funds to hire Americans and then may make money! Foreigners! I mean, unless you're one of the 5.3 million Americans employed by foreign companies in the U.S., then you won't need your pitchfork. [Washington Post]
• Former Commerce Secretary nominee and Dick In Chief Judd Gregg says Obama's budget — not the bailout or the stimulus — will bankrupt the country and Johnny Mac agrees. [AP, Salon]
• Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's got a brand new plan to convince hedge funds to buy toxic assets that no one wants. Someone should tell him that Bernie Madoff ruined Ponzi schemes for at least a year. [BBC]
• Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded to Obama's overtures by farting in his general direction. [Huffington Post]
• Senator from Maine Olympia Snowe thinks some Dems need to sack up and and tell the Administration no sometimes. She's mostly missed, like Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, that Chris Dodd took out her bonus limitations at Geithner's request. [Huffington Post]

• Barack Obama on Leno last night claimed to bowl like a Special Olympian. I once bowled a zero (true story). Special Olympians bowl better than I do, and I know it. Obama should, too. [Politico]

• He's sorry about saying that, by the way. [Huffington Post]
• He's taking a slightly different message to the Iranian streets, telling them that he seeks engagement and mutual respect. The Iranian government politely told him to piss off. [BBC]
• Speaking of excretory functions, Congressman Steve LaTourette spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about what Obama's and Geithner's sphincters sound like. Eproctophiliac at ten o'clock! [Huffington Post]
• LaTourette is, naturally, all juiced about the AIG bonuses, which the House voted yesterday to tax at 90 percent. For a $1 million dollar bonus, that would mean they'd keep $100,000 — which is still more than most Americans made last year. [NY Times]
• Remember how Ron Wyden wanted to know who stripped his bonus-reduction legislation from the bailout package in conference committee? Yeah, well, it turns out it was Democratic Senator Chris Dodd. [NY Times]
• And while they're all carping and moaning about the bonuses, AIG quietly filed a lawsuit for get $306 million in tax payments back from the U.S. Treasury (and spending taxpayer money to do so!). [NY Times]
• But we could probably shoot down a North Korean missile if we wanted, so, neener neener neener. [Washington Post]

• Everyone's still wondering who is to blame for nobody knowing everyone at AIG was about to get big fat bonus retention payments this week. Today's culprit? The Fed, which Geithner once ran. [Washington Post]

• Current AIG CEO Ed Liddy thinks it's mean that Senator Chuck Grassley wants him to off himself. [Politico]
• Oh, hey, more retention payments during the biggest recession in decades and increasing unemployment! This time, they're going to Fannie Mae, which had to be taken over by the government too. [Washington Post]
• Republicans don't want to pass legislation to tax AIG's bonuses because they're Republicans, only they do because Americans like the idea, only they don't because they want to have more time to embarrass the Democrats. Stalling: your tax dollars at work. [Politico]
• The Governor of Illinois, however, has no problem increasing taxes to pay for things. Remember, Rod Blagojevich was taking bribes to stop these kinds of shenanigans! [NY Times]
• New York Governor David Paterson, however, isn't so keen to raise taxes on rich people, fearing they would all flee New York City. Where are they gonna go, Des Moines? Not bloody likely. [NY Times, NY Times]
• Defense Secretary Robert Gates will put an end to stop-loss by 2011, just in time for the 2012 Presidential campaign. [NY Times]
• Attorney General Eric Holder is going to stop raids on medical marijuana providers, so get your prescription ready. [NY Times]
• California Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher confirmed that she's giving up her House seat for a hot seat at State with Hillary. [Washington Independent]
• One of the assholes responsible for creating the clusterfuck that is the TSA really doesn't like being subjected to its clusterfuckery. [Washington Post]
• And Colin Powell's former chief of staff thinks Cheney is Satan incarnate, too. Actually, not Satan, just a puppet of Osama bin Laden. [ThinkProgress]

That is, of course, much shorter than the time it took Barack Obama or Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to explain why they knew about the bonuses and had hoped no one would notice but, now that we have, they're totally going to raise a huge stink about it before capitulating as they had previously done when they thought we weren't looking.

Former House Speaker and Congressional-staff-boinker Newt Gingrich is still running for President, which is why he took to the airwaves cable wires yesterday to blast Rush Limbaugh without apology, hoping his surprising display of testicular fortitude will be able to net him the nom in 2012. Plus, Rush Limbaugh is a jerk and the GOP actually doesn't seem to know what the fuck it is doing, which is why they plan on escalating their attacks on Obama and crowing about how well they're going to do during the midterm elections. But at least they won't be doing it via Michael Steele's blog, which he's totally taken down now that the GOP is all about Twitter. Though at the point at which John McCain is twittering about how to manage beaver, Twitter might really be over.

In the meantime, pretty much every member of the new Administration was the subject of a long profile, interview or OpEd piece this weekend, including senior adviser David Axelrod, speechwriter Jon Favreau (Axelrod calls him "Mozart"!), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (it was International Women's Day and women's rights are important!), Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (needs a bigger staff!) and the Big Guy himself, who finally sat down for an interview with the New York Times after they kept whining about how it was a tradition that the Presidents give them the first interview. Oh, and let's not forget Michelle Obama's prom date who got interviewed about the blessed event.

In other news, Obama is all up in ur stemcells, overturning your research restrictions while Attorney General Eric Holder promises that the Civil Rights division of the department he now heads will finally get around to doing stuff on civil rights. Ted Kennedy had his big birthday party at the Kennedy Center (it's good to be a Kennedy), Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi cursed one another out and Eliot Spitzer probably choked a prostitute. Oh, and Sanjay Gupta will not be the next Surgeon General of General Hotness which means people are floating Howard Dean's name yet again even though he's apparently really, really not getting an Administration appointment, people, geez. For the millions and millions the health care industry has donated to politicians over the years, they get to decide.

Barack Obama's poll numbers are still sky-high, despite his potential nominees' tax issues, Commerce withdrawals and Republican carping about the stimulus plan, which, by the way, passed on Friday night. In the end, the Senate got a little tougher on executive pay packages than even Obama wanted, limiting bonuses to one-third of their capped salaries and requiring that the bonuses be given in stock that can't be sold until the government's investment has been repaid. Obama's planning on signing the thing tomorrow, so lots of people are readying their shovels even on a holiday when most people get the day off, even as David Axelrod is saying that the administration going to look for ways around the caps the Senate stuck in, despite the fact that most people think they sound pretty reasonable. Might as well test the firmness of those poll numbers, eh, David?

Axelrod was also dispatched to defend Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, whose unveiling of the new bank bailout plan caused stock markets worldwide to tumble, traders to hurl themselves from their multi-million dollar penthouse apartments and bankers to speculate about Geithner's parentage. Axelrod said: "They would have preferred that Secretary Geithner wheel a wheelbarrow down the center of that room with cash in it and say, ‘We're going to take care of all your problems.' That wasn't a practical answer." The worldwide financial community agreed that it had visions of restriction-less cash, but had pictured Geithner at the wheel of a cash-filled Hummer, not pushing a wheelbarrow like one of their lesser household staff. So they're basically going to lobby the fuck out of the Administration, raise the interest rates on your credit cards, and hope to dear God that whatever they do, no one lets Lindsey Graham nationalize them.

And while Obama was back in Chicago for Valentine's Day and looking forward to chilling with Stevie Wonder this week, his replacement, Roland Burris, was quite busy noisily digging himself a new hole to climb out of. Despite his earlier testimony, Governor Rod Blagojevich's people totally did hit him up for cash in exchange for the appointment but he totally didn't give them any, so it's supposed to be cool but it's not. Mostly because his defense is that his first answers were answers to questions he thought he was being asked, so if the questions had been what he thought they were, his answers were, like, totally honest.

In the meantime, Hugo Chavez has set the stage handily for his own re-election in Venezuela, we're not getting a freaking Car Czar because y'all wouldn't stop calling the position a Czar despite repeated entreaties, Axelrod thinks Dick Cheney can go fuck himself, and Hillary Clinton's off to do a series of official state visits in Asia and will be pressing China on human rights more than the valuation of their currency. That's some change we can believe in.

While the Washington elite gathered this weekend to eat, drink and crack the occasional bad joke at the Alfalfa Club, House Republicans — once on the top of the D.C. food chain — were retreating at a West Virginia resort and bemoaning the fact that Sarah Palin lied to them. Apparently, when they invited the Alaska governor to speak, she said she had too much going on in Juneau (Alaska lawmakers sort of wish she actually felt that way), but then found the time to come hear President Obama speak. I mean, when your potential 2012 Presidential candidate thinks you're less cool than Obama, you've gone from jock clique to chess club president without even knowing it.

In the meantime, former Senator Tom Daschle became the second member of the Obama Cabinet to head into his confirmation hearings with some pretty gnarly tax issues (not to mention the free trips he probably ought to have known better than to take). And while that was all going on, House Democratic staffers crunched the numbers on the GOP's supposed stimulus plan and found that it would drive up taxes for many middle class Americans, to which the GOP responded, of course, that they just planned on passing a bill later to drive them back down so that the American people would never know the true cost of their plan. With all the tax cheats in the Obama Administration and tax-raisers in the GOP, it is enough to make a tax policy wonk's head spin. Or that might have been all the booze I drank last night, who knows.

Speaking of spinning, Obama is getting rid of the overused phrase "war on terror" (drink!), but keeping renditions and talking to the Chinese to make up for his Treasury Secretary being less-than-diplomatic. Jill Biden's back to teaching while the DOJ is trying to teach its employees a lesson about phishing. And, while it turns out that we sold Israelis the white phosphorus shells they used on civilians in Gaza in violation of international law, Aretha Franklin isn't all all sure that she's ready to part with her inaugural hat for the sake of other people's history. I wouldn't, either.

After nearly twenty-four hours of speculation that Caroline Kennedy dropped out of the running for Hillary Clinton's seat because she knew she wouldn't get it, one of the crack reporters at the New York Times who Kennedy recently insulted as being better for the ladymag beat, Nicholas Confessore, reported yesterday that it's actually because she's got some nanny and tax issues. Whoops. Although, given Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's recent approval by the Senate Finance Committee despite his tax and nanny issues — let alone her time vetting folks as part of Obama's VP search team — you might understand why she thought it might not be a big deal. Hmm, different rules for men and women? How progressive.

But Kennedy is out and, reportedly, upstate New York Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand is in. She's actually somewhat of a strange choice, since the Democrats will have some trouble holding her district in a special election — and since New York is likely to lose two seats (probably from upstate) in the next redistricting, it'll be even harder to keep it Democratic in 2012. But she's also facing opposition because she's a rather conservative Democrat on issues from guns to LGBT equality — and a conservative Dem when Paterson had Carolyn Maloney waiting in the wings. Strange choice for his part — but at least you can't say that it's because she's easier on the eyes.

In other news, Barack Obama is set to lift the global gag rule "soon," though, for political reasons and so as not to piss of the fundies, he didn't do it on yesterday's Roe anniversary as Bill Clinton did. Of course, every extra day he waits is another day it stays in effect, so... um, let's get on that, mm-kay? I mean, he'll have at least until next week to sign the Ledbetter Act into law (it passed the Senate yesterday, but they changed some wording so it'll have to pass the House again) and you know he's not going to do two big feminist agenda items in a week, so this seems like a good week to get the gag rule done. Unless he's too busy "fisting" Michelle, as a Fox News body language expert who apparently had Monty Python-esque sex education called the Obama's fist-bumping habit:




But it's probably the Fox News viewers who make up the 25% of Americans that thought Obama was a Muslim on Election Day, so we probably shouldn't tell them was fisting really is lest we lose yet another reason to laugh at them.

Besides bringing fisting to the American conversation, Obama is bringing daily economic briefings to the White House to reassure everyone that he's on top of the issue, since surely he knows that the only thing that changes faster than the economy are tectonic plates. But when you heard it, you felt reassured, right? Hang a "Mission Accomplished" banner on Wall Street, then, the good times, they are a-comin'.

The good times are also coming for everyone but Hilda Solis, who's nomination to the Department of Labor is being stalled by Republicans over fears she'll make it easier for workers to unionize (hint: she will, that's part of why Obama got elected), and Lisa Jackson, whose nomination Senator John Barrasso is totally not anonymously holding up, that's someone else. Well, and the guy in New York who makes the "Drunken Negro Face" cookies and predicts Obama and Lincoln will soon have a lot in common. We're guessing he's gonna have some words with some big dudes in suits with earpieces. We're just sad it's not Hugo Weaving and his bug.

Oh, Timmy Geithner. I liked him — really I did — when Barack Obama tapped him instead of Larry Summers. He was young! He was fun! And then he suggested Obama should fire Sheila Bair from the FDIC and a little of the luster wore off. And now with the taxes thing. Leaving aside the nanny issue — did the Obama vetters really forgot Zoe Baird? or did he hire the people that vetted Palin? — having a man astride the Treasury Department (which is, of course, atop the IRS) who managed to fuck up his taxes to the tune of $42,000 this decade and didn't even finish paying them off until November of this year isn't a good plan even if he does snowboard. And don't even get me started on the Obama team passing out Bush-esque talking points to make us all think it's ok — it's not like we're talking about someone headed up transportation had a little tax error. This would be like the Transportation Secretary having an drunk driving accident last year while not wearing a seatbelt, or the Secretary of Labor hiring an illegal nanny (cough, Zoe Baird, cough) or Obama's Car Czar driving a Lexus or the head of Health and Human Services illegally getting his scrips filled in Canada. Bad call, Obama dudes. Obama needs to get himself some new vetters and a new Treasury nominee.

Other nominations, though, seem to be pretty well on track, like Clinton's, whose confirmation hearings yesterday went pretty well, and, rumor has it, Janet Napolitano who will likely coast through even easier than Clinton did. Clinton, in fact, has a 65 percent positive rating among Americans these days, something she might want to keep in mind as she considers Senator Lugar's (and the Washington Post's, and the New York Times') advice to reconsider the disclosures about Bill Clinton's foundations that she's agreed to but that no one is quite sure are adequate.

In other tales of inadequacy, a former Gitmo prosecutor is coming forward to say that pretty much everything related to prosecuting Gitmo detainees in inadequate, from evidence collection to missing evidence to torturiffic confessions, which surprises no one but his bosses who, like, totally swear he's just a disgruntled former employee — except this country is now filled with disgruntled former employees, most of whom don't like aspersions cast on their characters. And, in fact, the top Bushie in charge of the prosecutions agrees that there was a little too much torture going on down there to be able to move forward with some prosecutions, which should be a blow for the other Bushies but they're all too busy looking for new jobs and protecting their legacies to give any more of a shit than they did when they were authorizing torture. I mean, Bush's priority is protecting an attack, not the Constitution, despite that whole swearing-in thing that he did twice where he promised the latter and not the former.

Bush's ideological brothers-in-arms broke bread with Obama last night at George Will's house at a dinner party that including Will, Bill Kristol, David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer. I can only imagine the hangover he has this morning — between that and his first veto threat yesterday (it's his bail-out money and he wants it now!), it was definitely a drinking kind of evening. But at least the Fed has his back that Congress needs to release the rest of the bailout money, not that anyone cares because they're all flexing their muscles and trying to improve the relative power of the legislative branch after 8 years of getting buried by Bushies.

The real headache for Obama (or extra savvy PR move by David Axelrod, which is more likely) is that it's just now that Obama unequivocally backed gay marriage in 1996 before he had to flip-flop and say that he didn't in order to win the Presidential election. Unlike Barack Obama's wishy-washyness on gay marriage, Al Sharpton may have melted my cold, cold heart of disdain for him by what he said to California churches this weekend about their support for the discriminatory Prop 8:

"There is something immoral and sick about using all of that power to not end brutality and poverty, but to break into people's bedrooms and claim that God sent you."

Oh, and there is more, and it's even fucking hotter.

"It amazes me," he said, "when I looked at California and saw churches that had nothing to say about police brutality, nothing to say when a young black boy was shot while he was wearing police handcuffs, nothing to say when they overturned affirmative action, nothing to say when people were being [relegated] into poverty, yet they were organizing and mobilizing to stop consenting adults from choosing their life partners."

"I am tired," he went on, "of seeing ministers who will preach homophobia by day, and then after they're preaching, when the lights are off they go cruising for trade...We know you're not preaching the Bible, because if you were preaching the Bible we would have heard from you.

I hate myself for loving you, Al Sharpton.

In the latest clusterfuckery that has become the race to convince David Paterson who he should appoint to fill the remainder of Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, New York Republicans are trying to force a special election based on Blagojevich and Burris, not that they'll succeed, Bloomberg is trying to be governor before he's even challenged Paterson in 2010and send La Kennedy to the Senate and Paterson is still quietly conducting his secret interviews and application-reading. So it's going well and won't be a giant mess no matter what happens.

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

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

LATOYA: Oh, I forgot to tell you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MEGAN: But Republican money never ends!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MEGAN: Then, yeah, fuck that guy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MEGAN: This part is kind of awesome.

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

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

LATOYA: She even used the term Oogedy-Boodgey.

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

And, you betcha, oogedy-boogedy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LATOYA: He gets full applause.

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

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

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

LATOYA: And your verdict is?

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

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

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

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

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

MEGAN: Sigh.

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

MEGAN:

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

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

• Barack Obama made it official with Tim Geithner today, announcing that he will nominate Geither to the Treasury Department. Former Treasury Secretary Larry "Math Is Hard For Girls" Summers is headed to the top of the White House Economic Council and Berkeley economics professor Christina Romer will head the Council of Economic Advisers. Betcha she does math pretty well. [NY Times]
• Former Joe Biden aide Ted Kaufman has been appointed to fill Biden's Senate seat for two years, at which point everyone in the state assumes he'll quietly step down and let the currently-deployed Beau Biden run for it. [Associated Press]
• Susan Rice, who most people thought was about to get dicked over when it leaked that Jim Jones will head the National Security Council, is actually in the running to be our Ambassador to the U.N. [Washington Independent]
• Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack swears he's not in the running to be Secretary of Agriculture. [Washington Post]

• Obama aide and transition co-chair Valerie Jarrett has her first graduation speech almost totally written, but it still makes her sound kind of like a cool woman to know. [NY Times]
• Speaking of cool women, Moe Tkacik fucking breaks down the financial and auto industry crises, and you'll be smarter for reading it. [New York Magazine]
• And now that she might not be running against one of them anymore, Republicans all just love Hillary Clinton. [The Daily Beast]
• Alan Colmes is leaving Hannity and Colmes but not Fox News. Yeah, Hannity's feet really do smell that bad, but he's got a contract through 2012 so somebody is buying stock in Odor Eaters. [USA Today, Politico]
• In the mean time, we're rescuing Citibank, and the Dow is going up but it's all only temporary because it's not the end of the financial fall-out anymore than today is the end of Alan Colmes. However, if you're a Citibank stockholder, it is the end of your dividends for three years. [NY Times, NY Times]