That [porn star Sasha] Grey is not a fan of Mrs. Sanford, of course, is not shocking. What's shocking is that I even know her opinion on the woman, on the situation, on politicians and their wives, and that she thinks we should all openly have something extra on the side.

Why is that shocking, exactly, Kathryn? Ms. Grey is a famous person, and a wealthy entrepreneur who owns her own business. (Republicans should be proud!) She recently starred in a film by one of America's most critically acclaimed directors. And she is commenting not on politics but on sex, which is, arguably, her area of expertise.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, on the other hand—why the fuck do we know her opinion on anything?

K-Lo's excuse is that she is simple-minded. Former assistant US Attorney Andy McCarthy can say no such thing, as idiotic as the things he writes are.

At least K-Lo's apologia for Ensign succinctly exposes an important difference in how dumb conservatives and dumb liberals interpret the world: dumb liberals justify their mean-spirited glee at seeing a member of the other team brought down in shame by claiming it exposes hypocrisy; dumb conservatives don't understand that it's not a tragic tale of a moral man felled by temptation, it's just a holier-than-thou asshole getting his*.

All McCarthy's doing, though, is absentmindedly flinging shit at the wall in the hopes that something sticks.

So Andy McCarthy's piece is a helpful attempt to explain just why Barack Obama has not yet personally flown into Iran to assassinate Ayatollah Khamenei and grant free-market democracy to the grateful protesters. Some apologists have suggested that it would, in fact, strengthen the ruling regime for the American President to more actively take sides. Others have suggested that Obama might be better able to bargain with whomever eventually runs Iran if he hasn't pissed them off. You can fairly criticize the rationale behind both of those interpretations! Unless you are Andy McCarthy. In that case, this is your explanation.

The fact is that, as a man of the hard Left, Obama is more comfortable with a totalitarian Islamic regime than he would be with a free Iranian society.

Andy McCarthy is well-educated enough to know that a theocratic dictatorship is not compatible in any way with Leftism. He knows, when he writes that the "hard-Left... was more comfortable with the Soviets than the anti-Communists," that many of these anti-Communists were, in fact, fascists, theocratic totalitarians, and dictators. (Like the heroic Afghani freedom fighters who beat back the Russians! Now we call them "the Taliban.") He knows that a ridiculously inequitable oil state that throws occasional sops to its massive underclass is more or less the opposite of the Socialist ideal. And yes, of course he fucking knows that Barack Obama is not even close to being "a man of the hard Left." (Why did President Barack Castro over here appoint Geithner?) Any idiot knows that the President of the United States would obviously rather see a non-insane moderate in charge of Iran, because seriously, how does Obama benefit by having Ahmadinejad still in power, again? He just likes the dude because they both hate America so much? In fact not a single one of the sinister insinuations made in that one simple sentence should even require any sort of rebuttal, because it is all just half-assed trolling.

But it is all especially shameless because neo-conservatives—not the "hard Left"—were the only Americans publicly begging for an Ahmadinjead victory, so that they could—as they are now!—demand that Obama take a harder line against the Iranian regime. One guy said it right there on National Review Online! And look, they won, and they are doing exactly what they said they would!

Anyway. Andy McCarthy: what a prick.

*Seriously, her attempts to frame Ensign's Clinton-era harangues about the sanctity of marriage as a bold truth heroically stated, one that Ensign, tragically, could not live up himself, are mind-boggling, unless you are as dumb and conservative as she is. Like, if she believes that his moralistic pandering was actually an attempt to preach the gospel, then she will forgive him for not living up to those high standards (the high standards he demanded Bill Clinton live up to, but whatever!) himself, because we are sadly all too human, except for abortionists. "I confess that my first instinct was certainly not to praise Senator Ensign upon learning of his infidelity," K-Lo writes, but then she performed the mental jujitsu necessary to align the facts—a man on "her side" does not live up to her standards of morality—with her worldview—she and her friends, the Republicans, are Holy and Right. And so, John Ensign's affair with a married woman is the fault of "the left-wing blogosphere," and all is right with her world. If K-Lo's boyfriend Mitt Romney was caught on video nailing an underaged Thai sex slave she'd probably find a way to make it Keith Olbermann's fault. Ok we promised we wouldn't actually talk about this column so much but come on.

Lopez, who thought An American Carol was a "revolutionary" film, lashed out against Obama for using the word "folks" to describe terrorists, thinks George W. Bush would make an excellent high school civics teacher, and generally perfected the art of outraged persecution, is moving to Washington, D.C., according to an announcement on the Corner. She doesn't say what her new job is, so it's not clear that her decision was entirely voluntary.

Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review's print edition, will take over Lopez's duties, which is sad, because he's generally less bonkers than Lopez and more beholden to the WASP-y lineage of William F. Buckley, and will probably therefore attempt to impose some sort of intellectual coherence on the magazine's web site.

The fact that Lowry doesn't appear to be hiring a replacement—it seems pretty clear from Lopez' post that his new duties will not be temporary—is a further indication that the National Review is hurting for cash in the wake of Buckley's death. They won't stop begging for money. It makes sense that they'd be hurting because (a) Buckley, the magazine's chief fundraising personality, is gone, and (b) absent a Daddy figure, the kids at the Corner have essentially been smearing their own shit all over the walls for the past year.

We called Lopez to find out where she will be applying her considerable talents next, but she hasn't called back. Which is just as well, because it would have been awkward.

Whelan, a serious and respected legal mind, has been on a tear against Sonia Sotomayor, because at the end of the day, he is just a partisan hack who blogs for the National Review.

So this blogger named publius approvingly linked to some other blogs that criticized a dumb argument Whelan made, and then publius called Whelan "a smart guy with outstanding legal credentials" who "enjoys playing the role of know-nothing demagogue." Beyond the pale!

Whelan's thoughtful response to that unconscionably vile rhetoric was to respond with a post outing publius as John Blevins from the South Texas College of Law. Publius had been blogging for years under the pseudonym in order to protect his job (he is pre-tenure) and so as not to upset the more conservative members of his family, but when you are mean to Ed Whelan, you pay the price, Blevins.

Because Whelan is a very mature and reasonable person, as his emails to Blevins demonstrate.

Three cheers for Ed Whelan, Protector of the People's Right to know! (Specifically, the people's right to know the identities of random liberal bloggers, not so much the people's right to know what he, as a member of Bush's OLC, advised the president regarding the legality of torture.)

Dear internet: to say something or someone is "racist" is not saying "it or he or she would like to round up every Hispanic person and shoot them" or "it or he or she is just as bad at Hitler." But it reliably enrages at least one dumb commenter every time we suggest that a white person did or said or drew something racist. So hey, we will just keep it up! All the weird resentments are just floating to the surface, these days! If everyone is so mad at the Political Correctness for not allowing them to mock a Puerto Rican woman with pinatas and sombreros then they will surely appreciate it if we just give up on the friendly polite euphemisms and say "oh hey that is racist."

But is this racist? Sure, probably. Who knows what the fuck is going on here, besides the magazine equivalent of a group of children acting out to get a rise out of grown-ups.

The National Review's Mark Krikorian—who is, as you can tell by the unusual arrangement of consonants in his surname, himself a foreigner or maybe a Jew—writes that "putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English...and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to."

More:

This may seem like carping, but it's not. Part of our success in assimilation has been to leave whole areas of culture up to the individual, so that newcomers have whatever cuisine or religion or so on they want, limiting the demand for conformity to a smaller field than most other places would. But one of the areas where conformity is appropriate is how your new countrymen say your name, since that's not something the rest of us can just ignore, unlike what church you go to or what you eat for lunch. And there are basically two options - the newcomer adapts to us, or we adapt to him. And multiculturalism means there's a lot more of the latter going on than there should be.

No, it doesn't seem like "carping" so much as white rage. Sotomayor was indeed a "newcomer" to this country when she was born, in the Bronx, in New York City, in 1954. Her parents (pictured here with their daughter) were also "newcomers"—in the sense that Krikiorian intends—when they moved to New York from Puerto Rico before Sotomayor was born, which they were entitled to do as American citizens, which all Puerto Ricans have been since 1917.

Still, even if there is nothing foreign about Sotomayor herself, her name is still foreign, and must be assimilated. The audacity with which she insists on pronouncing it like it is actually pronounced, instead of the way Krikorian would like to pronounce it, is troubling and different and noncomformist. We feel the same way about Rush Limbogg and the states of Arkansas, Illinois, and Connecticut.

UPDATE: A commenter notes that Antonin Scalia's first name is unacceptably foreign, but more to the point: How should red-blooded American's pronounce Scalia's last name? The emphasis on the second syllable—Sca-LEE-uh—is just about as "unnatural in English" as SotomayOR. I trust Krikorian pronounces it as a two-syllable SCAL-ia—sort of rhymes with "dahlia"—when he repeats it to himself as he masturbates.

UPDATE: Another commenter wonders how Krikorian would pronounce John Boehner's name.

Here is a lie, from Jake Tapper:

He's also keenly aware that there's a problem when the reporter becomes too much a part of the story. While his exchange with Robert Gibbs elevated his profile, that was not his objective. "The YouTubed exchange with Gibbs is a perfect example of something I didn't care for, not because I think I was wrong, but because the tone of that conversation took focus away from the more important issue - transparency - and put it where I don't particularly care for it, into a debate about me and Gibbs and who was right and who got the better of whom. Which serves no one," Tapper says.

Yes, the point of on-camera arguments between White House correspondents and press secretaries is always the noble pursuit of the truth, right? It's never just about setting yourself up as "tough" enough to eventually host a Sunday show or anything.

The thing is, Rush Limbaugh and National Review are jumping on the Tapper wagon for the same reason that idiot liberals all decided they loved David Gregory back in the say: because he was good at beating up on Scott McClellan. Good for him, he made a dumb guy look dumb.

Arguing with the press secretary is not actually a good way to get useful information for your audience. In fact, it is never a way of getting useful information for your audience. The secretary's job is to stonewall and lie. He will not eventually concede the argument and be like "ok, Tapper, you win, here are those lobbyist recusal documents!" Your job, correspondent, is to actually get the damn documents yourself, through reporting maybe! Unless of course you are too busy reporting important news on how the president lied to you about the smoking!

I think a little more distance can help everybody do a better job of keeping their temper... I am really and truly frightened by the collapse of support for the Republican Party by the young and the educated.

Frum has his fans outside of conservative circles — Slate's Jacob Weisberg told the Times he was "the most interesting writer they have" — but editor Rich Lowry professes not to be worried about his or Buckley's departure, or all the online infighting, because the Obama administration will turn feuding conservatives into anti-Obama cranks who subscribe to his magazine. Which is basically the same thing Fox News says, and reflects the prevailing conventional wisdom.

And yet Obama's election only seems to have accelerated blame and recriminations within the right wing over why Republicans lost; what aspects, exactly, of an Obama administration are objectionable; and where the conservative movement goes from here. Conservatives may still have intact alliances, but that doesn't mean they're out of the wilderness. Or more appropriately the jungle.

The guest list for the cruise was announced as: Mitt Romney, Victor Davis Hanson, Bernard Lewis, Mark Steyn, Christopher Buckley, William McGurn, Jonah Goldberg, Brent Bozell, Pat Toomey, Andy McCarthy, Rob Long, Deroy Murdoch, Byron York, Kathryn Lopez, Kate O’Beirne, Ramesh Ponnuru, Jay Nordlinger, John J. Miller, Darcy Olsen, and Fr. Robert Sirico.

We doubt Christopher Buckley made it after his excommunication, but that's still a formidable lineup. Breadsticks and gambling money wasn't the only thing that got swapped, and I guarantee Victor Davis Hanson's wine selection was stellar and Rob Long spent most of the trip in a codpiece. Back in New York, the remaining crew put together the 'Renewal' issue. The mag starts off with a nice shot at the new chief of staff — "You just knew His right hand man would be called "Emanuel." In a way, I'm sure the National Review crew has to be happy: instead of defending George W. Bush's weekly bout of idiocy, they're now on the attack again. It's been so long, do they even remember how? (Yes they do!)

One pol they won't be sinking their viperous teeth into is Sarah Palin. Where McCain gets a half-page sendoff from Jonah Goldberg on how bad his campaign was, Palin gets the full treatment from the publication's Catholic film critic and Dartmouth conservative wonderboy Ross Douthat. The co-author of the not-so-revolutionary conservative handbook Grand New Party has a tenuous grip on the reality of the election, opening his piece "Sarah Resartus" (shudder) with this gem:

These are the things that can be said with some degree of certainty about the candidacy of Sarah Palin for vice president of the United States. First, that picking her as his running mate was the only thing John McCain did all year that shifted, however temporarily, an unfavorable electoral landscape in his favor.

Are we already on the alternate history beat, Ross? In the old old days, William F. Buckley would be around to laugh in young Douthat's face and make him do pushups, ever so gentlemanly, in front of the staff. Now? All the Palin fannishness isn't going anywhere, and if you're not with the program, you can just go write for The Daily Beast.

If you're not familiar with Nordlinger's usual anti-liberal ravings, you're missing the writings of an insane genius. Nordlinger believes liberals are something akin to the devil, and usually accuses them of being in league with Castro, Stalin or worse. And if you don't condemn atrocities constantly years after the fact like he does, you just don't care enough. (By the way, this is the guy who spends most of his time reviewing classical music for NR and other publications.)

In this winning harangue against the liberal practice of hissing while in an audience, he fires one shell, over and over again:

For example, it is common on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where I live, and where I saw the preview for W. Hissing, wherever it takes place, is always, or almost always, hateful. It is sinister, menacing, sneaky, insidious. (Note how those words sound like hissing itself.) It is sort of anonymous, hiding itself, rather than being out in the open. I like what another reader — not from Gilbert — wrote me: “Hissing is underhanded, and it expresses disapproval without accountability. People can hiss with their lips and jaws in a neutral position — and they can drown out that which is disapproved while obscuring the source."

This cultural note is finely constructed — it cannot possibly be refuted, as anecdotal as it is, and it is the perfect brush with which he can paint different types of people. Nordlinger goes on to employ his favorite practice: he attributes acts to people who never committed them:

One time, on the Upper West Side, there was no hissing — like the dog not barking. And it was so remarkable, I wrote about it in my NRO column, on June 24, 2002. An ad for the Marines came on before a movie. My stomach tightened: Uh-oh. And no one hissed. There was not so much as the beginning of an ess. I wrote that this showed something different about the culture, for surely they would have hissed pre-9/11. The non-hissing took place more than six years ago, of course. What would the Marines bring today?

You see? Liberals hate the military, and worse, they've won't even own up to their hatred.. They just sit, sniveling onlookers. Considering that's what Nordlinger and his magazine are about to be, it's a little ironic. Don't you think? I apologize for subjecting you to more of this, but someone once hissed Jay Nordlinger:

I myself have been hissed a number of times — and not just when speaking about politics. I was hissed at the Salzburg Festival once! What happened was this: I was conducting a public interview of a famous singer, and I mentioned what had happened to song recitals: Everyone had to have a “theme” now, rather than a mixed program. “You know, you have songs to texts of Rilke, or songs about water, or songs by left-handed Hispanics.” Most people laughed or chuckled — including the interviewee — but one woman (I think it was a woman, somehow) hissed. I have never forgotten that hiss: It cut through the general appreciation and good feeling like a knife.

Everyone thought it was hilarious, Jay. Everyone.

As you'll recall, McCain aides leaked to Fox News' Carl Cameron that Palin didn't know Africa was a continent, not a country, and that she couldn't name any of the countries in NAFTA. Palin has only expressed indignation at the idea she's none too bright, and now we can at least be consoled by the fact that Palin learned about the conflict in Darfur while she was in church according to Lowry:

He says there's no way she didn't know Africa was a continent, and whoever is saying she didn't must be distorting "a fumble of words." He talked to her about all manner of issues relating to Africa, from failed states to the Sudan. She was aware from the beginning of the conflict in Darfur, which is followed closely in evangelical churches, and was aware of Clinton's AIDS initiative. That basically makes it impossible that she thought all of Africa was a country.

On not knowing what countries are in NAFTA, Biegun was part of the conversation that led to that accusation and it convinces him "somebody is acting with a high degree of maliciousness." He was briefing Palin before a Univision interview, and talking to her about trade issues. He rolled through NAFTA, CAFTA, and the Colombia FTA. As he talked, people were coming in and out of the room, handing Palin things, etc. She was distracted from what Biegun was saying, and said, roughly, "Ok, who's in NAFTA, what's the deal with CAFTA, what's up the FTA?"—her way, Biegun says, of saying "rack them and stack them," begin again from the start. "Somebody is taking a conversation and twisting it maliciously," he says.

Palin was prepping for a Univision interview! Maybe that time could have been spent preparing for targeted Katie Couric attacks like "What magazines do you read?" Lowry goes on to report that:

According to Beigun (right), Palin had a steep learning curve on foreign issues, about what you would expect from a governor. But she has "great instincts and great core values," and is "an instinctive internationalist." The stories against her are being "fed by an unnamed source who is allowed by the press to make ad hominem attacks on background." Biegun, who spent dozens and dozens of hours briefing Palin on these issues, is happy to defend her, on the record, under his own name.

The guy who briefed Palin is publicly admitting that the result was a product of hours and hours of work? Maybe leave that off your resume and keep "unquestioning Bush lackey" on there, big guy. Seriously, though, this can only be the work of a Republican faction that wants Palin never to speak on behalf of their party again.

See, they figure it like this: LAT is owned by Tribune, which is $14.7 billion in debt, and the incoming Obama administration is gonna have $500 billion of government bailout funds to dole out, and $14.7 billion is "a very small proportion" of $500 billion (this is actually included in the reasoning) and if you keep Hussein Obama happy now then, hey, who's to say he won't give Tribune Co. $14.7 billion when he gets on the inside? Read the signs, people, they're all around you. The Corner also points out:

Item: The Tribune Co. is based in Chicago.

No need to say any more. They're always listening. [The Corner; pic via]

Stanley Kurtz is upset that his allegation that Obama was a member of the left-wing New Party isn't being taken more seriously, and he lashes out at the enemy in a post at The Corner:

Before responding to this claim, let me explain why I'm bothering to pay attention to the "Fight the Smears" website at all. Ordinarily, a site that spewed this sort of odious and insulting nonsense would merit no reply. Given that it's being run in the name of the possible next president of the United States, however, it may make sense to respond. Fighting "Fight the Smears" may even provide an opportunity to teach a valuable lesson. Obama has been mightily helped during this campaign by his calm and apparently reasonable demeanor in debate. It's tough to believe a man this cool could be a supporter or practitioner of Saul Alinsky's militant intimidation tactics. Yet Alinskyite "direct action" is alive and well at Obama's "Fight the Smears" website. This site still seems committed to the proposition that I should be barred from radio, television, and media generally-or at the very least barred without direct supervision from an Obama campaign representative. The thugocracy lives at "Fight the Smears." This is the real Obama, even if most voters know nothing about it. Certainly, Obama himself bears chief responsibility for this site. Yet I challenge the people who wrote the post about Stanley Kurtz and the New Party to show themselves. Why cower behind a rock (named Barack)? Why not give your names and post pictures of yourselves? I'd like a word with you. So if you have the courage to cast aside the anonymity behind which you so conveniently hide, I call on the author or authors of this and other posts at "Fight the Smears" to go public and defend yourselves by placing your own names and reputations behind your egregious accusations. It's time to strip away the mask, not only from Barack Obama, but from his cowardly minions at Fight the Smears. As to the substantive issue, have a look at pages 292-293 of a 2002 book by David B. Reynolds called Taking the High Road (no wonder "Fight the Smears" hasn't run into this book before). ...

Who runs this site and to what degree has Barack Obama been apprised of its content? Many of the claims posted at "Fight the Smears" would seem to have positively required close consultation with Obama himself. And Senator Obama, will you publicly state that you agree with your own campaign's efforts to prevent David Freddoso and me from appearing on Milt Rosenberg's radio show?

I'm not a fan of the campaign's denying these guys every forum because in the end I don't think it helps Obama, but you can certainly see where they are coming from after the impact Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had four years ago. Still, Kurtz is currently reporting that Bill Ayers once recommended Obama's book like it's going to sway voters. Good lord. It's not.

The Continuing Conservative Crack-Up [Gawker]

“You are for the first time, I think, fully your own man,” he added. “It’s also awful. I miss him every day. But I can now write about things I was not terribly comfortable writing about.”

And as for that asshole father:

As to his own father, it was “a complicated relationship,” he said. Early on, the elder Mr. Buckley was enthusiastic about his son’s writing. But as the son racked up one best seller after another, the father grew deeply critical. Mr. Buckley can quote word for word: “Sorry, this one didn’t work for me,” or, “As regards your new book, my views are negative.” When his father inscribed books to him, he signed them, “Bill.”

So. Buckley's going to be on The Daily Show this week, and oh, hey, he's written a memoir about his parents that's due out next year. He's also selling an apartment, and, according to Stolberg, he lives just outside Washington with "his wife, Lucy." That would be Lucy Gregg Buckley, with whom he has two in-wedlock children.

But, you know, in New York, Buckley's lady of interest has been, for some time, Ms. Jolie Hunt. She has rather openly been his girlfriend for more than a year now!

Honestly we don't know what's up with Chris Buckley but his life seems complicated.

New York magazine's daily online chats about the election are usually just mildly interesting, since the journalists involved tend to be overly polite to one another, because who knows who you're going to be sending a job application to someday? Even Gawker Media veterans and that Daily Kos maniac act all pleasant. But Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has never been one for such fraternal niceties, and when nymag.com threw him a sparring partner from National Review, the predictably caustic lefty went to work with his fangs, at one point typing, "tell me you're not ashamed." It was awesome and just really uncomfortable at the same time. Highlights:

It started out pleasantly enough:

M.T.: So how are you feeling about McCain's chances today?

B.Y.: I've just finished an article for National Review... about the headwinds McCain faces. I was going to look at three, and then I started to list them. I stopped at ten...

M.T.: Yeah, that's a damned shame, too. I feel really badly for the guy.

Feigning sympathy for the other side — very civil, Matt. Let's start to smack the guy around a little bit in the next question though, OK?

M.T.: ...There is absolute justice in his facing a "headwind" from the financial meltdown, from the unpopularity of the Iraq war, and so on. How is that a "headwind"? That's just self-created unpopularity...

B.Y.: Did I suggest that headwinds are unfair?

The vicious part of the debate then followed, consisting of Taibbi and the National Review guy, Byron York, trading partisan, grossly oversimplified accounts of the Wall Street meltdown.

Taibbi argued the Wall Street meltdown didn't arise because of homeowner mortgage defaults but "because of... myriad derivatives trades" like credit default swaps, financial instruments investment banks and others used to hedge risky mortgage holdings and keep potential mortgage losses off their books, and which speculators used to effectively short-sell certain bonds, thus amplifying the woes of banks.

In fact, buying the swaps was just one way financial firms threw caution to the wind risk.They also recklessly rated and bought dodgy mortgages, which are in fact defaulting to a disastrous extent, which is why many swaps were exercised and discovered to be worthless.

York, though more balanced, tries to pin some blame on "Democrats' desire to give mortgages to people, particularly minorities, who could not afford them," which is also a nasty distortion. In fact, the private sector was eager to issue and securitize subprime mortgages by lending to people of all income levels on terms they really couldn't afford — no money down, no documentation, teaser rates, etc. The returns were just to good. This is why many subprime loans were pushed on people who could qualify for regular loans.

Anyway, reality need not intrude on a nice ideological catfight! Emphasis added:

M.T.: You don't think the unregulated CDS market was a major factor in the current crisis?

B.Y.: ...I believe that many of the problems in the mortgage area can be attributed to the confluence of Democratic and Republican priorities: the Democrats' desire to give mortgages to people, particularly minorities, who could not afford them, and the Republicans' desire to achieve an "ownership society," in part by giving mortgages to people who could not afford them...

M.T.: Oh, come on. Tell me you're not ashamed to put this gigantic international financial Krakatoa at the feet of a bunch of poor black people who missed their mortgage payments... The effort of people like you to pin this whole thing on minorities, when in fact this whole thing has been caused by greedy traders dealing in unregulated markets, is despicable.

B.Y.: ... Fannie became more reckless in 2006 and 2007 than they had been in the scandal-ridden tenure of Franklin Raines (who departed in 2004)... [Decent point!]

M.T.: What a surprise that you mention Franklin Raines [really??]. Do you even know how a CDS works? Can you explain your conception of how these derivatives work? Because I get the feeling you don't understand.

B.Y.: ...When you refer to "Phil Gramm's Commodities Future Modernization Act," are you referring to S.3283, co-sponsored by Gramm, along with Senators Tom Harkin and Tim Johnson?

M.T.: In point of fact I'm talking about the 262-page amendment Gramm tacked on to that bill that deregulated the trade of credit default swaps.

Tick tick tick. Hilarious sitting here while you frantically search the Internet to learn about the cause of the financial crisis — in the middle of a live chat interview.

B.Y.: ...We've gone on for fifteen minutes longer than scheduled, and that's enough. Thanks.

M.T.: Thanks. Note, folks, that the esteemed representative of the New Republic has no idea what the hell a credit default swap is. But he sure knows what a minority homeowner looks like.

B.Y.: It's National Review.

OK then!

More like this, please, if only because it makes the comments section a lot more interesting.

Buckley's hate mail column, though, has the advantage of quoting an unnamed editor from the magazine his father founded! "One editor at National Review—a friend of 30 years—emailed me that he thought my opinions 'cretinous.'" Ha, ha, that is probably from Rich Lowry? Buckley continues:

Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.

Is it perhaps too cynical of us to assume that this was all orchestrated as a PR stunt for Tina Brown's crazy new Internet Thing?

I am—drum roll, please, cue trumpets—making this announcement in the cyberpages of The Daily Beast (what joy to be writing for a publication so named!) rather than in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column. For a reason: My colleague, the superb and very dishy Kathleen Parker, recently wrote in National Review Online a column stating what John Cleese as Basil Fawlty would call “the bleeding obvious”: namely, that Sarah Palin is an embarrassment, and a dangerous one at that. She’s not exactly alone. New York Times columnist David Brooks, who began his career at NR, just called Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.”

As for Kathleen, she has to date received 12,000 (quite literally) foam-at-the-mouth hate-emails. One correspondent, if that’s quite the right word, suggested that Kathleen’s mother should have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a Dumpster. There’s Socratic dialogue for you. Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” Well, the dear man did his best. At any rate, I don’t have the kidney at the moment for 12,000 emails saying how good it is he’s no longer alive to see his Judas of a son endorse for the presidency a covert Muslim who pals around with the Weather Underground. So, you’re reading it here first.

Amusingly, over at NRO's The Corner, they've been running fawning friendly interviews with Chris all week. A vague request for comment on this column by Mark Steyn has not yet been answered. Presumably K-Lo and Jonah are wating for the "grownups" to weigh in seriously, or alternatively for a particularly insane email they can quote in lieu of coming up with a rosy response to this rather ominous column from a current high-profile National Review contributor.