HARDBALL AND SPITBALL. Rightbloggers are still pumping that Blagojevich thing for all it's worth and then some. Jennifer Rubin at Commentary:

Really, it’s fascinating how one crooked state pol can ensnare both the new presidential administration and Congress. The Obama team is lawyering up, the Senate will be sued, and the grand jury in Illinois will spend months reeling in more witnesses who, in turn, may implicate still more politicians. It’s hard to recall a single figure who has caused as much consternation and litigation.

If you were to take this version of events seriously, you might imagine Obama on the verge of pre-impeachment. For those readers who might actually have followed the story and question its impact on the incoming Administration, Rubin sprinkles some more fairy dust:

The lesson here? Don’t associate with corrupt pols, don’t take their calls or make deals with them (even without an explicit quid pro quo)...

[E.J.] Dionne is wrong to praise “Obama’s patented approach to problems -- wait and think to see what develops before acting.” It is precisely the benign toleration of Blago and the unwillingness to move swiftly to cut off his power of appointment that created this mess. It is a warning for the President-elect and his party: cut off corruption before it devours you.

It's like Watergate all over again, if Nixon had been pressured to resign in January of 1969.

Meanwhile there's another tsimmis over the seating of a maybe-Senator, Al Franken in this case. You can observe the Republican message discipline at work in TPM's analysis: the Franken team's expression of confidence ("I think we're on track to win"), which is the default attitude of any political contender, is described as "falsely declaring victory," as if it were a form of perjury, and the prospect of Franken's seating is described as "unprecedented," which is not true.

This is the sort of thing that sufficiently muddies the water that allegedly nonpartisan or even Democrat-friendly outlets buy into the spin. The About.com correspondent on liberal politics, California Democrat Deborah White, says, "If Franken prevails, as seems the likeliest outcome, he will start with a tarnished image. And Democrats will be embarrassed by association." Apparently Democrats are supposed to lose close elections or rule with heads hung in shame.

Presumably Coleman should be equally ashamed to win, but you know he wouldn't be, just as Bush wasn't in 2000. The consensus is that rules are for pussies and Democrats.

In related news: "Some Conservatives Fear Obama Advisers Lean Too Far Left."

SCIENCE FICTION. Erstwhile Conservative candidate for New York Mayor George Marlin has found a heretofore unrevealed agenda of the Obama Administration. He cites a New York Times article about behavioral economists interested in the "underlying consumer psychology" behind phenomena like the mortgage bubble. "In this year’s campaign, Mr. Obama signaled an interest in the field by surrounding himself with advisers who were quite sympathetic to [behavioral economics]," said the Times. "Of course, this was before the financial crisis became so serious that it overwhelmed everything else. Today, it’s reasonable to ask whether the Obama administration will still have time for behavioral economics."

Here's what Marlin makes of that:

It should come as no surprise that the 1970s radicals taking over the Federal Government in January are promoting this brand of economics because the hero of their youth was the leader of America’s behavioral revolution, B.F. Skinner. Skinner, who, in the early 1970s, made the cover of Time magazine and whose book Beyond Freedom and Dignity hit the Times bestseller list, proudly proclaimed to his adoring public, “We not only can control human behavior, we must!”

Marlin then goes on to detail the philosophical crimes of Skinner ("Accordingly, there is then no essential difference between modern 'objective' psychology and rodentology, or between man and rat") and warns that these as-yet unhired social scientists will put us all in Skinner boxes: "If behaviorists have their way, man will be dehumanized by the planning and redevelopment of the cultural, economic and social system by government overseers. What a scary intellectual basis for Washington’s forthcoming managerial revolution."

Dad29 boils it down for the folks in the cheap seats: "But now, ALL of us can be rodentologized under the Great Obama." (Later, in comments: "No, I don't claim that O has 'embraced' Skinner's theory of behavior modification. But practitioners bear watching.")

Let's hope that no prospective Obama economic advisors have been associated, either through thesis papers or book club memberships, with the work of H.G. Wells, or it will be suggested that he wants to feed us all growth serum.

WAS EVER WOMAN IN THIS HUMOUR WON? It's amazing that Dennis Prager wrote "When a Woman Isn't In the Mood: Part I." It's astounding that he published it. It's mind-blowing that, having published it, he didn't hop a tramp steamer to Vera Cruz and try to make a new life for himself. But reenforce your skulls with duct tape, because Prager's back with "When a Woman Isn't In the Mood: Part II."

His argument is that, to preserve the marital bliss of their households, women should have sex with their husbands whether they feel like it or not. We might call this the nut graf, were not all the grafs nuts:

The baby boom generation elevated feelings to a status higher than codes of behavior. In determining how one ought to act, feelings, not some code higher than one’s feelings, became decisive: “No shoulds, no oughts.” In the case of sex, therefore, the only right time for a wife to have sex with her husband is when she feels like having it.

And here's an analogy that should really win the ladies over: "Why do we assume that it is terribly irresponsible for a man to refuse to go to work because he is not in the mood, but a woman can -- indeed, ought to -- refuse sex because she is not in the mood?" That's why it's called a blow job, girls.

Even more disturbing than his argument is his sheer doggedness in pursuing it. I can understand begging, pleading, emotionally manipulating, and even dressing up nice, buying dinner, and pretending to be a nice guy to obtain sex, but writing two columns for Town Hall is where I draw the line. They're both as repetitive and incantatory as a bad 18th Century religious tract. It's as if Prager had heard the famously ugly womanizer John Wilkes' explanation of his romantic success -- "Give me half an hour and I can talk my face away" -- and decided: give me two essays and I can talk my penis into her vagina.

Someone should send him a bottle of Astrolube with a note explaining that it's not just for women.

LISTOMANIA. At the Voice I succumb to the classic end-of-year syndrome with a Top-10 list of stupid rightblogger tricks. Since you're the late-show real people, you get bonuses:

#15: Jonah Goldberg Handles Criticism. National Review's Jonah Goldberg kept close watch on the reviews for his book Liberal Fascism, and when he was not praised leapt to his own defense. "I knew I was in trouble when the interview just wouldn't end," he observed of his Jon Stewart appearance, "and I got the sense it wasn't ending because Stewart didn't feel like he 'won' so he had to keep going." Then he whipped out reader e-mails to prove he had actually triumphed over Stewart. Goldberg collegially called the Economist's dis "craptacularly lame," and responded to Newsweek's by quoting in his defense other bad reviews ("even The New York Times and Slate's Tim Noah conceded it's not what they consider an 'Ann Coulter book'"). He kept this up through Christmas Eve, denouncing an old New Republic pan of which its editors happened to remind him. We imagine in April he'll hold a little awards ceremony for himself using statuettes from Happy Meals.

#14: Striking a Blow against Political Correctness. "You're cowards. Not because you fear and condemn a single word. But because you feel that condemnation, all by itself, constitutes some kind of winning argument." The word is "niggers," which Old Punk did not use in a Huckleberry Finn context, but in reference to black people he didn't like. Memories of this brave resistance to the forces of liberal brainwashing may give comfort to its authors in these, er, dark days.

#13: Sarah Palin's Last, Best Hope. When questions of Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin's experience came up, The American Scene's Noah Millman admitted "that she's totally unqualified to be President at this point in time," but proposed a possible future-retroactive solution: "If McCain were to die in February 2009, I hope Palin would have the good sense to appoint someone who is more ready to be President to be her Vice President, on the understanding that she would then resign and be appointed Vice President by her successor." The plan might have worked were it offered in the form of a tile puzzle and omitted both Palin's and McCain's names.

#12: Prop 8 Explained. An author at Ace of Spades relates his trouble with gay-rights protesters in Los Angeles: "The group attempted to block an intersection just as I was entering it. They ran in front of my car when they saw that I was almost past them. When I stopped, a couple of them ducked down behind my car out of my view. They were hoping that I would put my car in reverse so they would get bumped and become 'justified' in focusing their rage against me and my vehicle." We understand the Chinese government had a similar explanation for the unpleasantness at Tiananmen Square in 1989, with the significant exception that the Tiananmen Square incident actually happened.

#11: "B" is for Bullshit. When Pittsburgher Ashley Todd claimed that a mugger, enraged by her McCain bumper sticker, carved the letter "B" for Barack into her face, rightbloggers rushed to defend her story even when they weren't sure it was true. One said he deleted his "earlier notes of skepticism" because he was afraid "CNN will quote me when they say 'Even conservatives smell a hoax...'" Others just broke out the champagne over the "potential Pennsylvania Willie Horton game-changer." When it fell apart they drank the champagne anyway, but in a less celebratory, more unconsciousness-seeking spirit.

THE TORTURE GARDEN. More tee-hee over torture from the Ole Perfesser:

“DON’T MAKE THEM LISTEN TO OUR STUFF — IT’S INHUMAN!” Rockers to Press Obama on Music Torture. Best bit: “And the BBC has reported on a particularly insidious practice: using the theme songs from Sesame Street and Barney to break the will of prisoners.” Okay, that is inhuman. At any rate, whatever limits on volume and duration are applied to Guantanamo should also be applied to public concerts...

Ha ha! Silly detainees tortured by rock and rap -- it's like a Dave Berg cartoon come to life!

The linked article refers to "hours of music played at deafening volume -- sometime for days or even weeks on end." Also, from the Transcultural Music Review:

A long New York Times story on March 19, 2006, described in detail “Camp Nama”, the headquarters of a multiple-agency interrogation unit at Baghdad International Airport; there, “high-value detainees”... were sent first to the so-called “Black Room," a garage-sized, windowless space painted black where “rap music or rock’n’roll blared at deafening decibels over a loudspeaker”... Read together, these reports suggest that the “deafening music” is usually delivered to a detainee who has been chained into a “stress position”, in a pitch-black space made uncomfortably hot or cold.

The article also discusses the usefulness of allowing soldiers to pick the music, not only because the Western sounds they favor will disorient the prisoner, but also because it helps the soldiers identify with the instrument of torture and thus feel righteous about applying it.

Making a joke out of torture is standard operating procedure for dehumanizers. It's the old Abu Ghraib thumbs-up all over again, revived by internet tough guy who are depraved enough to express pleasure at human suffering and wimps enough to pretend it isn't really suffering.

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF ANN ALTHOUSE. "Oh, why give out prizes for art anyway? If you're at the level of handing out prizes, why not stiff the jerks? Even for decisions that matter, like voting for President, we stiff the jerks, don't you think? The nicer person wins. Why pretend otherwise?"

Also:

"I followed my 2 sons into B-Side Records, which was full of shoppers. I counted 15, all men. When did music shopping become such a heavily male activity?"

Next week: "Why shouldn't the rich get lighter prison sentences? Why should that be any different from the rich getting a nicer car or house than the rest of us?" and "Nobody wears ties to faculty meetings anymore. Why is that?"

PUTTING THE "X" BACK IN XMAS. Christmas always makes me think of my old Church, and lately also of Rod Dreher, for whom Roman Catholicism was one of the religions he went through on his way to wherever it is he's going. Like me, he retains a soft spot for Catholicism, and today he defends the Pope, who lately made some unfortunate remarks about gay people (he appeared to compare them to a blight on the rainforest):

It is a central paradox of our culture war that American liberals, as a general rule, judge most everything by whether or not it advances the sexual revolution -- yet accuse the Catholic Church (and more broadly, religious conservatives) of being obsessed with sex. You've probably read this week that Pope Benedict trashed homosexuals in a speech. Well, guess what? He restated the constant, entirely familiar teaching of the Roman Catholic church on homosexuality, but devoted only a couple of lines in his long speech to the subject. That's not how our media reported it.

It was just a couple of lines. If only Reverend Wright could have availed such an excuse! Brother Rod may also recall that only a few minutes of each Mass is devoted to the solicitation of funds -- just like in carneys -- but that doesn't reflect their true value, either.

Tomorrow is Jesus' birthday. I think he would want you good people to give each other the love and respect he's not around to enjoy. God rest ye merry!

A VERY JONAH CHRISTMAS. At The Corner on Christmas Eve, not a creature was stirring. Then Jonah Goldberg stumbles in and, after knocking over a garbage can and eating Santa's cookies, gives readers this Yuletide greeting:

Michael Tomasky reviewed my book for The New Republic. I say this with all sincerity: I thought his review was shameful, dishonest and just plain stupid. I used to think highly of Tomasky, but I thought his review (with the help of Leon Wieseltier's obvious meddling) spoke terribly of him and the publication. I haven't brought any of this up much because I assumed my friends at The New Republic were simply, and justifiably, embarrassed by it — and I had my say. But now they seem to think it was the "best of 2008."* So, for those who care, here's my response.

The latter link brings us back to Golberg's 3,547-word March bitchfest, containing such classic lines as, "This is the whole point of the smiley face with the Hitler mustache on the cover; fascism was popular, fascism is popular," and "As for Dachau’s organic honey, Tomasky is once again -- willfully -- obtuse."

Everyone else at National Review has long since knocked off and gone to the Opus Dei scourging party, but Goldberg burns the mid-evening oil to complain for the second time about an unfavorable review he received three trimesters ago.

However you're celebrating your Christmas Eve, be thankful that you aren't having whatever it is he's having.

*UPDATE. (My asterisk, not Goldberg's) Apparently the original link was defective and led to a spam site. It has been replaced -- let me know if there's still trouble.
UPDATE 2. Hmm. People are still getting jacked. Well, then just leave that link alone. I think you can tell without proof that even Tomasky trumps Jonah Goldberg.

A CRY FOR HELP. Despite reversals, the brethren are still looking for some way to blame Blagojevich on Obama. Ace O'Spades grows wistful:

Nothing legal will come of this. However, there might just be grist for the political mill. Not sure if I want to relive the endless scandals and endless farcical denials of the Clinton administration, but we may be on that track -- a long period of time when Obama is plausibly accused of lying and obstructing justice and yet there's never any resolution.

What Ace has described is pretty much all he ever does (except give odds on football games and moralize about his own pornography). Yet he sounds so gloomy about it that I actually feel bad for him. (Victory has given me the strength to be gentle thus.) We all get tired of our jobs sometimes, of course, but should he decide he really can no longer stand his, what else is he fitted to do?
.

MORE QUINTESSENTIAL JONAH GOLDBERG.

It's funny you mention it. I've heard several (liberal) pundits say much the same thing now, and I had no idea what they were talking about. I've been busy with some other stuff, so I haven't followed the Warren debate too closely, but I assumed I missed some griping. And maybe I have. But to date, I haven't gotten a single angry email from a reader about this, and usually when conservatives are enraged by something, somebody emails me about it.

I should really put out a book of these, with pictures of puppies.

THEY TRY -- OH, HOW THEY TRY. And I was just talking about irrational exuberance -- Peter Kirsanow at The Corner:

Rod Blagojevich, $1 trillion "fiscal stimulus", Harry Reid, expiring tax cuts, Nancy Pelosi, socialized health care, Charlie Rangel, reinstitution of the oil drilling ban, Joe Biden, liberal judicial nominees, Al Franken (maybe), nuclear Iran, John Murtha, car czars, Dennis Kucinich, PC culture, Chris Dodd, entitlement explosion, Barney Frank, entitlement implosion, Barbara Boxer, card check, the Clintons, Russian adventurism.

If Republicans can't come back in 2010 they should be sued for political malpractice.

For those who are tallying scores in that alternative universe known as Planet Earth, Kirsanow's bill of particulars includes:

• 13 people who actually exist, but whose negative campaign potential is about as well-established as, oh, say, Ed Meese's in 1988 (and one of whom, Al Franken, is presumed a liability merely because he may commit the crime of winning a close election) ;
• Several things that were either done by the Bush Administration or have not, in point of fact, happened;
• Culture war armament that died with Lee Atwater.

Why didn't he include Iraqi children giving flowers to soldiers? Seriously, it would have fit. And what about Ollie North's clean-cut good looks? He had everyone swooning that last time he was on national TV, which I think was on an episode of "Wings."

Well, why not? As long as it's only make-believe.

THE GRINCH THAT STOLE FITZMAS. I have a new Voice column up, looking at the sad holidays on the right. Most of it follows up on the latest Blagojevich news, in which conservative hopes for getting a nice Obama scandal out of it appear to be cruelly dashed. Now, for all I know the upcoming report could yet show Obama leaving the cell phone on his pillow so he and the Governor can talk each other to sleep, but so far the connection appears thin. Yet even with the phone records fading as a causus bullshit, they're still keeping hope alive ("Obama Not Releasing Some Emails Between Him and Blagojevich: Breaks Transparency Promise"). They think every Democrat is Al Capone, and tax evasion will do if nothing else sticks. And if nothing at all sticks, they can still tell each other the bastard's guilty.

A nice little thumbnail version is provided by the Ole Perfesser, who promotes a story about Andrew Sullivan's failure to contribute to the defeat of Prop 8, then acknowledges that Sullivan couldn't legally contribute because he's not an American, then links to a guy who says, well, if he's a foreigner then what right does he have to complain about this country anyway? The pursuit of enemies may sometimes take the form of the pursuit of justice, but the difference will be clear to most normal observers.

CULTURE WAR PORNOCOPIA! Christmas comes early at National Review, with a series of stories on what we might can cultural matters. The themes are largely familiar. Mark Goldblatt is outraged that some kids still wear Che shirts. He informs whomever among them may be within reach of his voice that Guevara killed people and didn't show any contrition or discrimination about it. Sensing perhaps that he is not breaking new ground, Goldblatt throws in a challenge. "Why does an obsessive Nazi-hunter like Simon Wiesenthal get positive press," he asks, "while an obssessive Communist-hunter like Joe McCarthy is vilified?" Maybe because Wiesenthal hunted actual Nazis, while McCarthy was happy to tar citizens ranging from Owen Lattimore to Adlai Stevenson. But, as Goldblatt's subject might agree, when the cause is just contrition and discrimination must go by the board.

Dear, dotty Jay Nordlinger contributes one of his rambling columns about nothing much. He thinks reporters are not hard enough on Obama; hears that "During the campaign, you were a hateful, racist monster if you spoke Barack Obama’s middle name. But now it’s cool," referring maybe to an old Facebook stunt; denounces the free-market malfeasance of George Bush, which he thinks the liberal media is trying to cover up ("You sometimes have to wonder whether reporters are ignorant or malicious or what"); and reports that some people have, for reasons unknown, a low opinion of conservative thinkers. Also, some grammar notes.

Jonah Goldberg offers some Caroline Kennedy gotchas: how is this "Cinderella" more qualified than Sarah Palin for high office? He might have noticed that support for Kennedy is hardly universal among liberals, or even among New York State voters, but that would have deprived him of the chance to refer to the "self-indulgence of elite liberalism" as "bowel-stewing," an adjective Goldberg was born to invent. Predictably, he actually injures his case in referring to Palin as "designed by God for a Hallmark movie of the week" and rising "by dint of her dedication and almost naive fearlessness" -- an unconscious avowal that, as most American voters quickly grasped, Palin's nomination was an exercise in rightwing wish-fulfillment and that she was desperately out of her depth on a national ticket. He also offers some lovely examples of the baroque Goldbergian style ("There were valid criticisms to make. But that is quite a different thing than saying all of the criticism was valid"), as well as a breathtaking lack of awareness that, as one of American conservatism's most famous legacy pledges, he hardly has room to talk.

The jewel of the bunch, though, is Mona Charen's article on pornography, festively titled "'Tis the Season for Porn," which made me hope for a moment it would be a holiday shopper's guide. Charen begins by announcing her own martyrdom, predicting "I will be called names for writing this column," confidently stating that such taunts come from porn's "fanatical devotees," which suggests that more casual users will find nothing risible in her linkage of Zack and Miri Make a Porno to hardcore S&M websites. Her scientific explanation is that "pornography use breeds tolerance and the need for more intensity to get the desired result," which may be read as a convincing argument for increased participation in fetish sex to obviate the need for pornography. Alas, Charen goes another way, holding up Hugh Hefner as a poster boy for the Wages of Skin:

Hugh Hefner, the godfather of mainstream porn, apparently does not have normal sex with his many girlfriends. Despite the presence of up to seven comely young women in his bed at a time, he uses porn for sexual satisfaction. Think about that.

Maybe it owes to my constant, desensitizing exposure to culture-warnography, but I don't consider consider Hef an object of pity. Of course, I'm not as inclined as Charen is to believe a story clearly invented and spread by him to sell more copies of Playboy. As censors in any age could tell you, prudes are porn's best advance men.

MORE CONSERVATIVE IDENTITY POLITICS. The L.A. Times has an article about Team Sarah, a web entity which the Times portrays as a rallying point for "women who had never followed political affairs" who are attracted to Palin as "a conservative mother trying to balance family and career." Co-founder Majorie Dannenfelser lets us know early that this isn't just an anti-abortion front group, and rather seeks to "bring together a coalition of women who support Sarah Palin on a range of issues, not just the Life issue." The other co-founder is Jane Abraham, who is also General Chairman of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List.

The American Spectator calls Team Sarah "the sort of spontaneous Tocquevillean activism that the conservative movement has been woefully lacking lately, and there is no other candidate for 2012 who has anything like it." (Dannenfeiser has written -- glowingly! -- about Palin at the Standard.)

There is a new wrinkle to this, though I wouldn't call it Tocquevillean. National women-centric political operations are usually focused on electing politically-appropriate female candidates, not on one person in particular. The two best-known such entities I can think of are both pro-choice: Emily's List (Democratic) and the WISH List (Republican). In the last election cycle Emily's List netted $33,401,859. WISH List took in $587,880. Abraham's Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund drew $690,165.

Speaking very broadly, it seems a gender-specific political appeal is more effective if your candidates are Democratic and favor abortion rights. Team Sarah is clearly hoping that Palin's popularity, such as it is, will change that. But thus far Team Sarah looks like a pink, candy-coated shell for hardcore anti-abortion politics, with the Team sending out alerts like "Stop the Abortion Bailout," and updating us on "Team Sarah at March for Life." Even if they admire Palin's Governor Mom routine, will women who are not already pro-life single-issue voters go for this?

As I've noted before, the rise of Palin has got some conservatives excited at the prospect of peeling off some of that hot identity-politics action from the left. About the most flattering thing I can say about it is that it's transparently insincere.

THE SAME OLD TIRED EXCUSES. I know I sound like an abusive drunk (and I am), but please accept my apologies again for not posting more. Duty calls, while holding my ear and beating me with a rolling pin. I'll try to jackpot some stuff this weekend, when I'll be snowed in. Meantime please enjoy this variation on an old alicublog theme, "The Five Most Miserable Christmas Songs."

SAY ANYTHING, INDEED. In recent days rightbloggers have been anticipating with relish that the Blagojevich scandal would take down some of their enemies in Illinois. Obama being a bridge too far, some of them focused on Jesse Jackson Jr. Say Anything declared on December 10:

[Jackson] is reported to be candidate #5. He will be outed at the guy who was willing to pay a million dollars to be appointed by the governaor to be the new Senator from Illinois. Senate Seat for Sale, and he was ready to buy. What level of corruption has the Democrat machine descended to?

If it’s true, and I believe it is THEN:. The Jacksons are shakedown artists and know how to be shaken down, Jesse Jackson Jr’s career is over. He will avoid Jail but you know full well that whomever runs against him next time will put up a picture of Jackson and Blago with a Million Dollar check between them.

Turns out Jackson has been working as an informant on Blagojevich for the Feds. In a better world, we might expect Say Anything to apologize. As it is, we just get a gearshift:

Did Jesse Jackson Jr. Help The Feds Bag Blago? If So, That’s Bad For Obama...

If Jesse Jackson Jr. reported Blago to the feds and Obama didn’t that essentially leaves Obama and his people knowing about Blago’s attempts to sell a seat in the Senate and not doing anything about it. Per the federal affidavit released with the complaint against Blago that led to his arrest we know that Blago apparently asked OBama’s people for favors and that Obama’s people apparently turned him down. From that we can conclude that Obama knew full well what Blago was doing.

And if neither Obama nor any of his people went to the feds...well...they’re essentially complicit in a cover up.

And other of the brethren flock to the talking point. Life as a unreflective political shark probably has the advantage of simplicity, but chasing every spot of light in the water with one's jaws open must get pretty exhausting after a while.

GREETED AS LIBERATORS, PART 34,889. I see the guy who threw his shoes at Bush got his hand and ribs broken, along with other injuries, while in U.S. custody. Let's see what the rightbloggers who lately celebrated the dawn of due process in Iraq think about that:

"15 years and some broken ribs. Sounds about right to me." -- Flopping Aces.

"Cry me a river. Hey, you attempt an assault on the leader of the free world, don't be surprised if you get roughed up." -- Jammie Wearing Fool.

"Of course, this could have happened when he was dragged fighting, screaming and kicking from the press conference, too." -- Gateway Pundit. (Resisting arrest? I've heard that one before. Later GP praises Cheney's defense of waterboarding.)

"I, for one, hope that nobody did anything worse than, say, the Chicago cops would have done circa 1968. That might sound shocking, but you have to be realistic about these things... it is certainly a sign that Iraqis have greatly expanded their sense of personal freedom." -- TigerHawk.

"STFU, you retarded land ape." -- Blackfive.

I always suspected that when they were denouncing Saddam's torture chambers, they were just angry that they didn't get to say who got tortured.

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP about the hopeful coverage by some of our usual suspects of the Blagojevich scandal and Bush's trip to Iraq. I think Media Matters is clearly right: the attempted tarring of Obama with Blagojevich shows that the Clinton playbook is already back in use, and the go-to play involves many dotted lines leading to Obama from whatever malfeasance may have happened nearby. I just wonder whether the nation's collective memory retains a strong enough impression of this schtick that people may begin to resist it. Maybe this sort of thing only works when the nation is fat and happy, as in the Clinton years, and in our current turmoil citizens will be more attentive to the prospect of ruin than to the President's near occasion of sin.

WHY MEGAN GETS BLU-RAY AND YOU GET A DOLL MADE OF STRAW. "The only good thing that I can possibly think of about this financial crisis is that it may break the rat race of constantly ratcheting consumption, which has surrounded most Americans with nice things that don't really make them happy." -- Megan McArdle, November 21, 2008.

This weekend Eloise at the Atlantic follows up with a "Holiday Video game guide" (Mario Kart for Wii is "like the distilled spirit of Christmas") and a "Holiday Gift Guide: Electronics edition" that includes Wii, the iPhone, a 50-inch television, Tivo HD, the Sony Blu-Ray Player, and several other top-shelf items. She does start by describing her list as "a nostalgic symbol of better times," but her recommendations are sufficiently effusive ("And the balance work [on Wii Fit] is good for nearly everyone, because unless you're a dancer or a gymnast, that's a skill most Americans never work on") that I'm sure her advertisers don't mind a bit.

I guess that bit about breaking out of the rat race of consumption was just meant for the littlebrains; presumably part of what makes alphas superior is their ability to engage consumer culture full-on without being spiritually damaged by it.

ICHTHYS IN A BARREL. The Mexican edition of Playboy has a cover depicting the Virgin Mary in a state of deshabille. The Anchoress says she is undistrubed:

Is it vulgar and insulting? Sure is. Is it worth my ire? No. And I’ll tell you why.

Thereupon follow 595 words of her ire, including attacks on Madonna and Christopher Hitchens and a link to a Vatican document.

I wonder how they got through childhood without realizing that, the more they protest, the more they're going to get teased.

UPDATE. Commenter Dave puts it best: "When a wingnut sticks their finger in your face and says: 'And I'll tell you why.' bring a lunch. You'll be a while."