The clip above is of Obama on the campaign trail nailing McCain for economic Pollyannaism. Here, according to the AP, is what he has to say about the economy today:

President Barack Obama said Monday the nation's economy is in good shape for the long term thanks to "core strengths" such as its universities, its innovation and a dynamic workforce.

[snip]

"There are core strengths to the American economy that will put us in good stead over the long term," Obama said. He said the key is bridging that gap toward a more prosperous time and promised the gathered reporters he won't let up "until businesses are investing again and businesses are hiring again."

You could make a case that McCain's "fundamentals" line is probably more responsible for Obama's victory than anything else either candidate said during the campaign. Candidate Obama's rhetorical response to McCain was, "Senator McCain, what economy are you talking about?" We're inclined to ask President Obama what "core strengths" he is talking about. The AP cites universities, innovation, and a dynamic work force—"fundamentals of the economy" that existed back when Obama was pillorying McCain for his misstep last year. In fact, the workforce considerably larger then. Today we're at 10.2 percent unemployment.

For Obama to utter a similarly thoughtless remark at a time when more people are out of work, and when the economy—as a function of how it's actually experienced by human beings, as opposed to a grab-bag of statistical indicators—is arguably worse than it was a year ago doesn't speak well for his ability to inspire confidence in the recovery. We'd be shocked if the Republicans, who have lately found traction in hitting Obama on the lack of job creation, don't attack him over the "core strengths" line with the same vigor that he directed at McCain for the "fundamentals" line. He deserves it. We just hope it doesn't resonate as strongly as it did last year.

Granted, McCain was clueless enough to make his comment on the day that Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and the fact that he could offer sunny, optimistic language in the midst of a financial panic that threatened to derail the global financial system spoke volumes about his comprehension of the problem. Obama is speaking at the beginning of an anemic recovery, when it makes sense for the president to adopt a boosterish stance. But Obama ought to know better than anyone exactly how disconsonant such happy-talk can sound when people are actually suffering, and living off food pantries, because they can't get jobs.

McCain was approached by at least three different "agents and publishers" about a behind-the-scenes, tell-all campaign book, PopEater hears, with at least one offering him $8 million. And people aren't asking about his Mavericky ideas to save the country from liberals and Islamic extremists, they just want to hear more about his inexplicable VP candidate, Sarah Palin:

"A juicy book by John where he finally addresses all the questions concerning his running mate would be the hottest book of the year. Even bigger than Sarah's book," one publisher says.

And of course, who's to say McCain won't, just to smack down Palin's already-discredited stories about him and his staff in her memoir Going Rogue, while topping her advance to boot?

Nice groundwork by whoever got these from the McCain campaign at the Huffington Post, where Sam Stein reports today on a few contradictions the emails make with portions of the book.

Granted, they have to do with Palin's Saturday Night Live appearance, a prank on Palin by a bunch of morning radio goons, and the precise level McCain's campaign manager had to be an asshole to Palin's staffers, but still: if she's lied about these things, what else?

The first email is about Sarah's trepidation regarding going on SNL. McCain's campaign was all for it. Sarah wasn't. She thought SNL was "whack." And she wasn't about to go on the show to yuk it up with those people.

"Not after seeing clips of what they've been playing re: my family," Palin writes to campaign manager Steve Schmidt..."I had no idea how gross 'celebrities' on that show and in other celebrity venues could get when it comes to family and other aspects of my life that have nothing to do with seeking the vp slot. These folks are whack - didn't know it was as bad as it is... what's the upside in giving them any celebrity venue a ratings boost? That's Todd's input also.."

Good thing she didn't see last night's episode.

Of course, Steve Schmidt basically told her "do it if you want, or don't." So, she doesn't want to go on SNL, McCain's manager basically says fine, fuckit, then don't. What does she run in the book?

The Sarah Palin Reality To Book Copy Alchemizer, everyone:

"Let's do this," I said. "Let's go on and neutralize some of this, and have some fun!" Of course, the idea was met with massive back-and-forth haggling.

Boom. Met with haggling by who? Herself? Next, the Canadian DJ prank, in which two morning DJs got Palin on the phone pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy. It was funny and awesome. And exposed a huge rift in the campaign.

[T]he McCain staffer also provided the email that Schmidt sent to Palin and her staff after she was prank[ed]..."Who set this up? Are you kidding me? Did it occur to anyone that the french president wouldn't be looking to have a conversation with the vicepresidential candidate 3 days before the election," Schmidt writes. "From this moment forward, no interview occurs without my direct signoff. Nothing. I want to know the exact details of this. I want to know who is responsible."

Right? Because if you were a campaign manager, you'd be pretty fucking pissed, too. But Schmidt appears to handle it moderately well. Palin's version of the story's slightly different, though.

In Going Rogue, Palin recalls Schmidt screaming directly at her, so much so that it "blew my hair back."

Also, she noted that Schmidt called her. The aides are calling that bullshit, saying no call happened, that Schmidt's supposed wrath of fury was aimed at staff and not Palin, and that this was all done over email.

The best, though, is this: an email from Sarah Palin that appears to be her, apologizing for completely screwing the pooch on media appearances, and thanking the staff for their hard work in the face of her Rainman-like ability to completely Hindenburg every high-profile press opportunity given to her. So there is some self-awareness there! Damn.

"I am very sorry," Palin writes to Nicolle Wallace, Steve Schmidt, and Rick Davis, with her husband, Todd, cc:ed. "u guys are working double-triple time on this blundered-up stuff that they spin bc of my visits w press - while I apologize I say I love you guys!!!"

Naturally, the book reportedly has Palin painting the McCain campaign as overly controlling and temperamental. Maybe they were temperamental: I'd be fuckingmental if I had to work with Palin. Even so, though, her characterizations are appearing to be alternate realities, or—here's a good one I can't take credit for—"magical realism."

What else is happening with Going Rogue today? Michiko Kakutani savaged it the Times today, penning less a review than an curbside beating. Newly inducted N.W.A. member and Atlantic columnist Andrew Sullivan, now fully aware that Sarah's an avid Daily Dish reader, has basically turned his blog into the Suck It Sarah Palin Daily Digest. In one post, he organizes all of her lies. In another, he frisks the above HuffPo story, giving it his own nice twist:

Palin is a delusional fantasist, existing in a world of her own imagination, asserting fact after fact that are demonstrably untrue, and unable to adjust to the actual reality after it has been demonstrated beyond any empirical doubt....She is a deeply disturbed individual.

The doc-tah is in.

The release of Going Rogue is like that moment in dodgeball when there's only one kid left on the other side of the court, and the last ball has rolled away from them, and everyone's just standing around, waiting to see who's going to pick up the ball and really go for the killshot.

$50 on this guy.

[Photo via Getty Images]

The AP got a copy of Goin' Rogue, Also: Modern Warfare 2 and they totally read it even, which is probably more than Sarah can say.

"... [S]he says that most of her legal bills were generated defending what she called frivolous ethics complaints, but she reveals that about one-tenth of the $500,000 was a bill she received to pay for the McCain campaign vetting her for the VP nod.

She said when she asked the McCain campaign if it would help her financially, she was told McCain's camp would have paid all the bills if he'd won; since he lost, the vetting legal bills were her responsibility."

You may be shocked to learn that this is not a thing that happens, ever, "billing" someone for their own "vetting." The McCain campaign paid for its own vetting. Maybe Sarah Palin paid her own lawyer for lawyering work during that process? In that case, her lawyer would've been billing her for his services, to her, and that is not a thing John McCain made her pay for.

And the other thing, where the McCain campaign did not pay her legal bills for her own legal problems related to Troopergate and other ethics investigations? In addition to not being his responsibility, the McCain campaign thought it would probably violate the law to pay her legal bills with campaign money.

(Oh, Sarah Palin Facebooked about this:

As you probably have heard, the AP snagged a copy of my memoir, 'Going Rogue,' before its Tuesday release. And as is expected, the AP and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book.

To be fair, the AP originally reported that McCain handed her a $500,000 bill. The real price on the imaginary bill that Palin made up for her book of lies and hate was $50,000. So she is totally right.)

The Daily Beast has an excerpt from Sarah from Alaska, a new Palin bio, with the speeches writer Matt Scully wrote for her on election night: A concession speech in which she lauded "black citizen" Barack Obama for winning, and a victory speech in which she announces that her husband will thenceforth be known as "the First Dude." Reading the victory speech is chilling in a Man in the High Castle sort of way—what if McCain/Palin really did win the election, and we're all just characters in a blog or something? Trippy.

The speeches were never delivered because a) Palin lost, and b) vice presidential candidates don't deliver election night concession speeches in America, a tradition with which Palin was unfamiliar because she's from Alaska. McCain had to personally intervene to tell her she couldn't have the podium, and his staffers brought the house lights down when Palin stayed on the stage to take photos with her family for fear she'd grab the mic.

Anyway, they're both horrible speeches with the maverick-y touches we've come to know and love from Palin, like a reference to an immigrant from a South American nation called "Columbia" (maybe it's spelled phonetically) and a lack of clarity as to whether it had been 68 or 69 days since she joined the campaign (both speeches mention both figures).

From the concession speech:

If he governs America with the skill and grace we have often seen in him, and the greatness of which he is capable, we're gonna be just fine. And when a black citizen prepares to fill the office of Washington and Lincoln, that is a shining moment in our history that can be lost on no one. Barack Obama has achieved a great thing, for himself and for our country, and I congratulate him. God bless you and your beautiful family, President-Elect Obama.

From the victory speech:

It's not always easy in politics to see the best in our opponents. But we have seen the grace and skill of Barack Obama, and the grit and determination of Joe Biden. By his nomination and extraordinary campaign, Barack Obama has achieved a great thing, for himself and for our country, and for that America will always honor him. I say God bless you, Senator Obama, and your beautiful family.

Of course, these days Republicans pay her cash money to talk ahistorical counterfactual nonsense, so who's laughing now, Johnny Mac?

McCain, the Senatorial daughter who managed to become a media sensation by bucking conservative idiocy, used her ever-important Twitter today to raise hell against director Breck Eisner's remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon:

Is there a remake of "Creature From The Black Lagoon" coming out?!? Tell me hollywood isn't ruining my all time favorite movie...

Sorry to break it to you, Ms. McCain, but Hollywood has indeed honed its sights on your favorite movie. And it's coming out in 2011. Our condolences.

But, while McCain's all revved up and looking for celluloid blood, can we please direct her to Day of the Day of the Triffids? If there's one movie that should remain untouched, it's that. Oh, Triffids and The Tingler. Unless someone can exhume and reanimate Vincent Price, we're not interested.

MSNBC is carrying the live feed of the funeral. [Top photo credit: CJ Gunther/Getty Images]

The nice thing about this photo? Ted Kennedy would've made a great joke about it. [Nice work, Brian Snyder of Getty Images]

Widow Victoria Kennedy, mourning. [Photo credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images]

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, married to Kennedy's niece, Maria Shriver. He used the same face at the end of Junior. [Photo credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images]

Jack Nicholson doesn't need your stinkin' fashionably late arrival. He's pictured here wondering if this is as good as it gets. [Photo credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images]

Nancy Pelosi continues the Democratic powerhouse parade through the funeral. She's pictured here hugging Angela Menino, the wife of Boston's mayor, Thomas Menino. [Photo Credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images.]

Obama just eulogized Kennedy as the "soul of the democratic party." His complete remarks can be read at Daily Kos. A highlight, after Obama called him the "Greatest Legislator Of Our Time":

Teddy walked into a meeting with a plain manila envelope, and showed only the Chairman that it was filled with the Texan's favorite cigars. When the negotiations were going well, he would inch the envelope closer to the Chairman. When they weren't, he would pull it back. Before long, the deal was done.

Ted Kennedy Jr. spoke about sailing with his father. "My father taught me that even our profound losses are survivable," is going to be the pullquote line from his eulogy. [Photo Credit Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty]

The classy commenters are Free Republic are comparing the Kennedys to the Ku Klux Klan, naturally.

John McCain doesn't seem too upset to be at a funeral. It's his birthday! [Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]

Speaking of which, "Columnist for TheDailyBeast.com/Writer," one Meghan McCain, is in a celebratory mood.

Mediaite noted that coverage is dominating the airwaves. Well, yes.

This is the face of a man who has nothing better to do these days than suppress farts, as he's pictured doing now. [Credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images]

Good thing there's someone to scold him. [Credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images]

Kennedy was described as a lover of music. Yo Yo Ma performed, CNN has video.

Oh, and here is the Tom Coburn Town Hall, where a weeping woman asks a Republican Senator for government help because her husband suffered a brain injury and then his insurance was canceled, and Coburn suggests that she should ask her neighbors for help, because Government Is Never The Answer, even though in any other industrialized democracy in the goddamn world this woman would not need to beg her Senator for basic medical care for her sick husband.

[Update: That's a new clip above of mashed crazy by our own Mike Byhoff and intern Sergio Hernandez.]

He lied, of course, about health care, a topic he's never ever pretended to care about before in his zillion-year political career, but it was way more entertaining when he spilled water all over himself, made the famous crazy McCain face, and then tacitly acknowledged that he'd ignored a heartfelt question about how the two-party system has failed Americans.

Oh, and also: do you remember ACORN? Back when that was something conservatives thought would help them rile up some old-fashioned resentments and base-rousing fear, we used to hear about ACORN all the time! They were going to steal the election and then they were going to steal all your census information, or something. Who knows. That was so long ago, and no one cares anymore, now that we have The Death Panels.

But this lady remembers ACORN!

And John McCain is like oh god they are just community organizers and no one took them seriously but I guess I have to pretend that they are still scary, or something, because I wouldn't shut up about them last year, ugghh I want to go back home to Arlington.

See, when you throw that little bit of conspiratorial nonsense out there because it's useful for you in the short term, politically, it just festers and grows until it becomes part of the mythology of an entire subculture of people. And then they start to wonder why no one is doing anything about this grave threat to democracy that you told them all about!

Well, some people wonder. Other people, mostly old people, just nap. Can you stop the two sleepy old men in this picture?

In an effort to test the waters, Giuliani has been meeting with Republican leaders and even convinced the state's Republican Party chairman Joseph N. Mondello to resign so that his friend, Henry F. Wojtaszek, can take the position. In addition, Giuliani held a meeting with leaders in Buffalo and told them that he will decide his fate over the course of the next 30-60 days. It shouldn't take that long.

There's very little chance that current Governor David Paterson will run, because only 32% of New York voters view him in a favorable light. And, more importantly, he's trailing 65-23% when pitted against his most-likely challenger, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. It's unlikely the state's Democratic party would pick Paterson over Cuomo. It's just common sense. So, let's assume Cuomo runs... Giuliani's people insist he's not thinking about the competition, but you know that's just talk. How could he not be eyeing Cuomo, who's approval ratings are sky high: 67% of Empire State residents gave him the thumbs up at the end of June, only a slight dip from his personal high of 71% in March.

Even if Giuliani's not worried about current polls, he should remember the presidential primary. In January of last year, about 40% of New Yorkers said they would likely vote for John McCain, Giuliani's then-rival. That's not very inspiring for Giuliani, who liked to highlight his post-9/11 leadership abilities, which inspired his ridiculous "America's Mayor" projection.

As if that's not enough, there's another Cuomo-related hurdle: the Clintons. Cuomo worked as President Bill Clinton's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Then, during last year's primaries, Cuomo was a voracious Hillary Clinton supporter.

The Clintons remember their friends (and their enemies), so we're assuming the power couple would throw their weight behind Cuomo. Yes, Giuliani has become tight with Sarah Palin, but even the former Alaska Governor is no match for the Clinton machine. And that machine which will no doubt be handy when it comes to raising campaign for Cuomo, who as of last month had $5.1 million on hand.

Giuliani would be much better off remaining in the private sector, where he can lord over his two companies — both of which he would have to abandon should he choose to run — and make thousands giving motivational and policy speeches. Of course, this is politics and things could change at any moment, especially if Giuliani asks current NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg to be his running mate, as many believe he will.

Still, we're not convinced Giuliani should run. But he probably will, because he's a cocky kind of guy and if he's delusional enough to think he could be president, he's absolutely convinced the Governor's mansion has his name on it.

Well it turns out that was all just election talk. The GOP settled for an undisclosed sum of money (not that Jackson Browne cares about the money!) and Senator McCain apologized, profusely.

This might bode well for Don Henley's lawsuit against failed Senate Candidate Charles DeVore! (Not making that up! Republicans: steal music from less litigious aging boomer MOR musicians!)

McCain was a guest on Meet the Press today and was quizzed on the whole Palin resignation fiasco by David Gregory. He smiled and oh-goshed Grandfatherly and acted like all of this was just dandy and that he has no regrets about plucking little ole simple Sarah from the wilds of the Klondyke to run the country in the event that he, a 72 year-old man with a history of cancer, had to step down for, like, dying or whatever. No, McCain can find no fault with any of what she did and he doesn't regret picking her and she's still a hope for the future of the party blah, blah, blah.

Poor John McCain—The old "maverick" doesn't have the sack to say what you just know he really feels and believes deep down—That he toiled away for years as a prisoner of war, refusing to bend to the demands of his captors all the while, and for decades as an able public servant, only to see his shot at the presidency, not to mention a historical legacy looked upon with almost universal esteem by future generations, destroyed by one horrendously God-awful decision. Congratulations John McCain—Sarah Palin, the complete antithesis of you, is your legacy.

And speaking of Palin, a report in Monday's Times suggests that stress was causing her to lose her hair.

Friends worried that she appeared anxious and underweight. Her hair had thinned to the point where she needed emergency help from her hairdresser and close friend, Jessica Steele.

"Honestly, I think all of it just broke her heart," Ms. Steele said in an interview at her beauty parlor in Wasilla, the Beehive.

Perhaps now we're getting to the real motivation behind Palin's decision to step down—Pageant girl vanity?

Beck's penchant for hysterical tears makes the pairing obvious—why not ask a photographer famous for taking pictures of crybabies to shoot a blubbering TV personality? But Greenberg is an officially designated public enemy of the right wing: Last year, when she was hired by the Atlantic to shoot John McCain, she boasted of taking extra shots of McCain deliberately lit to make him look old and leaving "his eyes red and his skin looking bad." Also, she posted photoshopped outtakes on her web site featuring a monkey shitting on McCain's head. Republicans didn't like that. Beck got angry and called her a "nut job" on his show and said the Atlantic should sue her:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser."The Atlantic" is sending a letter of apology to McCain. They will not be paying her, and they're considering a lawsuit. Good, they should. Greenberg said that, since some of her artwork was anti-Bush, quote, "Maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for them to hire me." Wait a minute. Let me see if I have this right. She does a horrible job and then she blames her employer? That's right, I forgot. She's a liberal.

By the way, this isn't the first time this photographer has been in the middle of controversy. In 2004, to describe her political helplessness, she took a series of supposedly artsy photos of toddlers crying. How did she get this shot? Well, she gave the kids candy, and then she snatched it away from them. They'd cry uncontrollably, and she'd just click away. Isn't it just fantastic art? Nothing more beautiful than a child being terrorized.

Whatever, evil liberal lady. As long as you take one of my chins off, just do what you do. We asked Greenberg if Beck had any idea who she was when she took his picture—and if she has any outtakes with animals shitting on his head—but haven't heard back. How exactly did she get those realistic tears when her subject is an adult? Did she start talking about the Fed or something? To judge by Beck's sympathy for the children Greenberg "terrorized" in her crying toddler series, her strategy probably didn't change much: "And, as a guy that would kill you if you take away my candy, I feel their pain."

The interview itself has Beck saying crazy things like how Jon Stewart is his biggest influence and he's taking up painting, because he contains multitudes.

Despite her stature in the tech industry, Whitman is "little recognized" statewide, as the Associated Press puts it. Her speech at the Republican National Convention bombed; she's not much of a voter; and then there's the issue of her seeming flip-flop on gay rights.

But she went to bat for two Republican presidential candidates in the last election, raising money for Mitt Romney and then co-chairing McCain's campaign. Both failed Republican presidential candidates have now endorsed her in the governor's race, as has former California Gov. Pete Wilson, lending her the support of party heavy hitters her opponents lack.

McCain, who touted Whitman as a potential Treasury Secretary during his presidential campaign, is a natural supporter of her campaign. But his support for her has the side effect of creating a new name to rival Sarah Palin, the former running mate McCain's has noticeably snubbed on recent occasions. Palin might not be on McCain's list of Republican "rising stars," but it's a safe bet that Whitman now is — much to her own good fortune.

For a while now we've been mildly fascinated by Meghan McCain. When she first popped up in the public consciousness through her "work" on her father's failed presidential campaign, there was something sort of endearing about her. We wanted to like her. But as we've become more and more exposed to her with the passage of time we've come to find her, well, pretty fucking grating, intolerably insufferable, the complete and total embodiment of everything wrong with a whiny-ass generation of privilege that wants, no expects, everything to just fall right into their precious little laps without having to do shit to earn whatever it is they desire.

So Meghan's out there calling bitches out in her Daily Beast column, painfully attempting to enter into the punditry, signing "high six figure" book deals, dropping F-bombs on Twitter, and acting like a cunt-y diva at gala events, all on the back of her father's name. So what's the deal with Meghan McCain? What is it that she's angling for here. Does she truly hope to become a "voice" for a new generation of progressive Republicans, a genuine agent of change, or is she just another fame-whore high on life in the public eye.

Tonight she was on the Colbert Report droning on and on and on about how much the Republican party needs to change its stance on just about everything, from gay marriage to sex education (Meghan is very, VERY "pro-sex") to how it markets itself to younger voters, but then she turned around and talked about how totally AWESOME the Republican party is, except for, you know, all of the batshit crazy wingnuts who're provided political shelter within it (Speaking of batshit crazy wingnuts, McCain declined to offer any comments on Sarah Palin). All in all McCain was, well, sort of likeable in that "oh you poor, confused little girl" sort of way, definitely stricken by a deeply-rooted identity crisis, and, oh yeah, did we mention that she loves to fuck?! And that's pretty much it.

The interview closed with Colbert landing the line of night, delivered just after McCain had launched into another one of her many "pro-sex" diatribes: "When you say 'pro-sex woman' I think the Republican's numbers go north."

Zing.





Meghan McCain on The Colbert Report [Colbert Nation]

Also, hey, guess who doesn't understand any of the politics of the things she is writing about? Meghan McCain, that's who!

In 2000, a reporter asked John McCain what he'd do if his daughter got pregnant. He said he would allow her to make her own choice. That is called being pro-choice. Meghan McCain admires her dad for his courage to be pro-choice despite his party's position on the matter.

But seriously, here was a father, delicately navigating a question about his teenage daughter and being true to the kind of father he had always been, and the Republican Party was outraged. It didn't matter that my parents raised me to know that, regardless of the mistakes I might make, they would allow me the dignity and courage to make my own choices. That's the kind of trust my parents have always placed in their children-yet the GOP still needed to get involved and have a say in what I did with my body.

Here's what I've never understood about the party: its resistance to discussing better access to birth control. As a Republican, I am pro-life.

Wait, what? You're... but... you just said... GODDAMMIT MEGHAN READ A BOOK.

Drug-addled Demagogues

Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the popular entertainment wing of the new conservative tabloid leadership. We all know he's a thrice-married former junkie, but he's mostly a harmless, unlikable slimeball, these days. A rich unlikable slimeball who is currently working as hard as anyone to destroy the Republican party for a generation, but he finished his worst work twenty years ago, when he invented the Fox model of radicalizing the cantankerous old white men who make up the natural audience for conservative media. His audience is still huge, but they're a minority now.

It's hard to tell whether borderline case Glenn Beck actually knows what he's doing. His transition from standard-issue talk radio jerkoff to evangelical Bircher stoking violent rage was obviously a calculated decision that's reaping financial rewards, but one still gets the impression that he's too dumb to actually realize what he's playing with (like Charles Johnson but with an audience of millions, basically). He, of course, is a recovering alcoholic and probably worse who "found God."

The Tabloid Families

For a look at how well John McCain's pick for running mate turned out for the Republican party, just have a gander at Us Weekly's Levi Johnston tag page. In a different era, this sort of sordid family drama would not be playing out in the glossies. Of course, even in this era this sort of sordid family drama doesn't play out in the glossies if the family is halfway decent at managing the press.

But McCain's own family wasn't immune from hilarious tabloid coverage during the election.

The Plain Morons

For some reason, supposedly smart conservatives think most "regular Americans" are unlikable idiots, and so they prop up unlikable idiots as party spokespeople.

Like Joe the Plumber! He, like all regular blue-collar guys, is a lazy moron who is oddly obsessed with a fantasy about Barack Obama hating Israel. His name is not Joe and he is not a plumber. He is proudly misinformed and works as a perfect representative of what rich conservatives think of the working classes.

And now, there is Carrie Prejean. She is a beauty pageant loser who coined the term "opposite marriage." Conservatives apparently decided everyone was infringing on her First Amendment Rights when they roundly mocked her for being inarticulate and dumb in addition to bigoted. Now anti-gay activist Maggie Gallagher basically wants to adopt her and Tony Perkins' Family Research Council is praising her "fortitude." Go ahead, anoint Miss California your new traditional family values mascot! Because Americans have a great deal of respect for the intellect and opinions of losing beauty pageant contestants

That snub, alone, was widely noted, at especially on Twitter, where McCain is very proud to be in the "top twits" list.

But if you listened right, it was easy to hear the former Republican presidential candidate compounding the insult when he added, "I've left out somebody's name and I'm going to hear about it."

You can read that at least two ways, perhaps by design: "I've left out someone in particular's name, on purpose" or "I've inevitably on accident left out someone's name, lord knows who, probably someone in a desolate flyover state, but please don't make a joke about my age and fading memory capacity, thanks."

Assuming that McCain hates his former running mate is actually the charitable answer that gives him the benefit of the doubt. That alternative is that he's already forgotten about the woman who ran at the bottom of his ticket like six months ago, poised to someday inherit the presidency.

Ya, he hates her.