it's not even worth it anymore.

okay: when we stumble upon this (which is actually worth a look), and think for a moment that it's an official site, something's terribly wrong. the fact remains, however, that the briefing room in crawford has a "western white house" sign hanging in it.

either way, shouldn't the american people own some sort of trademark on the white house? or at least FDR should own one on alterna-white houses.

the Gavin Stevenses have disappeared and the Snopeses have won.

clay risen has a nice article in the new republic about being a southern liberal, in which he nails the nostalgia of the southern expatriate:

On the one hand, you love your region in a way that other Americans can't understand. But you are also deeply shamed by its unwillingness to move forward on social issues. Such shame is a big reason why I don't move back and why thousands of other Southern liberals decamp annually for more enlightened locales. But my disaffection is different from the disdain for the South felt by, say, New York liberals. As the journalist W.J. Cash wrote in 1941, it is "the exasperated hate of a lover who cannot persuade the object of his affections to his desire."

it especially sucks when your powers of persuasion are usually so effective.

consider yourself disclaimed

we're going to attempt some real analysis here. or at least some semi-real, semi-snide analysis. instapundit (he's a blogger too) passes along his two cents about david brooks' column in the NYT this morning. DAVID BROOKS WONDERS WHY THE PROSPECTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST LOOK SO MUCH BETTER THAN PEOPLE EXPECTED.

brooks, you see, is very excited about the recent egypt-israel free trade agreement. it's like the world has tipped over or something, for those arabs and jews to play nice. egyptians are arabs, right?

as exciting is the "odd unity" being shown in israel. we assume he means the recent reshuffling of alliances between the likud and labor parties, and not the call made by settlers in gaza to boycott the upcoming pullout. because that wasn't very unifying at all. it's that crazy sharon:

it is common to run across Israelis who once reviled Sharon as a bully but who now find themselves supporting him as an agent of peace

if by 'agent of peace' you mean 'wily bastard,' i think we're on the same page here.

these things, brooks argues, came from a confluence of what were then felt to be unfortunate events: sharon rises to power, bush gets elected, bush appoints likudist hawks, palestinians get it into their head that they can fight for their freedom, and so on. and yet--good things are happening.

brooks postulates that it wasn't an accident, but rather another example of our fair president being a true cowboy, bucking conventional wisdom:

It almost makes you think that Bush understands the situation better than the lot of them.

if by 'you' he means 'crazy people,' we're on the same page.

brooks is wrong. it isn't the result of bush turning a deaf ear to the conventional wisdom; that, if anything, only made things worse.

here's what has happened: the intifada has exhausted everyone involved. sharon, constantly on the brink of being ousted, becomes consummate politician. arafat dies. sharon thanks lucky stars, continues with unilateral plans to create a pseudo-palestinian state. abbas wants to be a statesman, recognizes the current path isn't going to bring that, begins working toward non-pseudo-palestinian state. mubarak, meanwhile, sees his days are numbered, wants to be remembered for something other than completely devaluing the egyptian pound, becomes jimmy carter of the middle east.

what part of this did the president of the united states play? only one: destabilizing the area to the east.

god, this is tiring.

it's all (or it all would've been) powell's fault! look! safire says so.

why're you retiring, mr. safire? you just nailed it again! what savvy, what an ability to see through the muck!:

In "The Plot Against America," the novelist Philip Roth imagined what might have befallen this nation if the appeasing Charles A. Lindbergh had defeated the anti-Hitler F.D.R. in the 1940 election.

Here's my idea for the sequel:

Opening scene in the Oval Office in winter 2001, after U.S. and allied forces crushed the Taliban in retaliation for their part in 9/11, with bin Laden not yet found in Afghanistan.

President Bush tells his national security aides he wants to continue to wage war against the web of terrorists, lest America be attacked again with nukes or germs...

State's Powell counsels relaxing U.N. pressure on Iraq by calling them "smart sanctions," hoping this will persuade Saddam to permit inspections. Bush glumly agrees.

and then, guess what? the world goes to shit! not only that, but bush KEEPS listening to powell, and things get even worse. powell apparently wanted to cuddle with saddam, and that wouldn't have solved anything.

thanks for this enlightening bit, bill. and everyone else: remember--war should be made hastily or not at all.

google rep endorses overeating, anorexia

we're trying to learn how to run a good blog here at the regular staple, so we do our research. what should we write about? how often should we post? these are difficult questions. thankfully the washington post ran a piece this week that answered just these questions. it endorsed writing about "something that wasn't being said." that's helpful! thanks. nobody else is writing about stalking spike jonze, so we're on the right track.

and we are admonished, according to google senior blogging specialist (senior blogging specialist? i'd hate to meet the junior specialist), biz stone (hello, stage name!) to "post at least as much as you eat." trying to follow biz's advice, we've only had five meals so far this week. getting a little lightheaded...

apparently december 2004 is national coming-out month for politicos past and present.

the practice of taking venerated historial figures (Socrates, Shakespeare, Freddy Mercury) and outing them after their death has become old hat. but good old abe? the savior of the union? wha?!? a new book argues just that:

[Scholars] cite his troubled marriage to Mary Todd and his youthful friendship with Joshua Speed, who shared his bed for four years. Now, in a new book, C. A. Tripp also asserts that Lincoln had a homosexual relationship with the captain of his bodyguards, David V. Derickson, who shared his bed whenever Mary Todd was away.

you mean it's not normal to have sex with your bodyguards? well, somebody'd better tell that to whitney and kevin! but it continues...

Billy Greene, with whom Lincoln supposedly shared a bed in New Salem, Ill. ... [said] that Lincoln's thighs "were as perfect as a human being Could be."

first, apparently abe was a slut. and second, his thighs were as perfect as a human being could be? those are some wicked thighs. and here we were thinking beyonce's were nice...

newsflash! bushism! tenet associated with longshoremen in drag!

here he went again, folks! george w. bush, the president of the united states, with a presidential gaffe! he was talking about how george tenet is from Queens, the borough of New York, when he says...

There's still a lot of Queens in George Tenet. (Laughter.)

yes, that's a double entendre if we've ever seen one. but the masochistic speechwriter doesn't stop there:

A colleague once said that "George has the intellect of a scholar and the demeanor of a longshoreman." (Laughter.)

the transcript fails to include "(Long, confused and uncomfortable pause)" before "(Laughter)." hoo-wee! Anderson Cooper and George Tenet, outed in the same week!

why'd you have to go, bernie?

the washington post has a eulogy of sorts for the washington outsider that almost made it inside, bernie kerik. he was thiiiiis close to being a cabinet member, for god's sake!

Come back, Bernie Kerik. We need you. We want you. We love you. We don't care if your nanny was an illegal immigrant. We don't care if you didn't pay income taxes for her. We forgive you, Bernie, because you allegedly have what Washington desperately needs in this era of tepid, tedious bureaucrats -- multiple mistresses, mob ties, $6 million in dubious stock profits on stun guns, an arrest warrant that was never served and, best of all, a "secret love nest" that the New York Daily News reports you used for "passionate liaisons." ...

...We love the delicious details of the story. We love the fact that your brother's job was "to run a dirt and stone transfer station." We also love the fact that the company hired a friend of yours after you recommended him as a "top-shelf guy."

In Washington, we need more guys who use the phrase "top-shelf guy" instead of the phrase "my distinguished colleague, the senator from the great state of North Dakota."

And, frankly, Bernie, we don't care that the guy you called a "top-shelf guy" later pleaded guilty to a felony conspiracy charge. Hey, as we say in Washington, "mistakes were made."

full story [WP]

a new, and very important, feature

certain companies and individuals, looking to make a quick buck, send unwanted bulk emails (known as SPAM)--we here at RS get upwards of 100 per day! some of these people have interesting names, and we thought we'd share a few:

Scuppered A. Com

Rumped A. Ampere

Personage R. Desserts

Sophy Fupu

Lewie Qthqlio

Tyler

hey wonkette! what gives?!

what, are our famous-for-dc sightings not good enough for you? huh? huh? we see how it is. i mean, we can understand including two tucker sightings, but two joe lockharts? come on. let us play.

put your money down: '05 predictions!

we're going out on limbs, here, and doing what lots of other people (some who are amazingly wrong about everything) apparently do: predicting what is to come in 2005. print it out, fold it up, keep it in your winter coat, find it next year and check to see how eerily prophetic we are.* here goes:

1. this f*ing cold will not go away until april.
2. conservative radio hosts, unsure of how to deal with their new status as part of the media establishment, will act like they are not part of the media establishment. they will rail against other things like how bill clinton kept diddling the interns.
3. blogging will become lame again, much like it was before we started.
4. keiths around the world will succumb to the rules of grammar and change the spelling of their names to kieth.
5. that girl we met at that party will still not return our calls.
6. the democratic party will appoint an inept head of its national committee, who will assure the rest of the country that jesus likes democrats. the rest of the country will not believe that person.
7. the newest generation of that very important technological device will be released.
8. naked women and sporting events will be associated with each other; outrage will ensue. oh, wait.
9. has anyone noticed that usher bears a resemblance to stefon urquell, steven urkel's suave alter-ego from family matters? we're just saying.
10. the hoodie will be replaced by the seasonal sweater as the ironic clothing layer of choice.

we'll meet back here next december to talk about payment.

*we reserve the right to change these as time passes.

beltway boy indeed (zing!)

item! weekly standard executive editor and beltway boys co-host, fred barnes, was spotted by the regular staple on an airtran flight from atlanta to DCA monday night. flew coach. 23 people on board. fred sat across the aisle from RS in the exit row, and it's 99% positive that he was reading jenna jameson's bestseller How To Make Love Like A Porn Star, in hardcover.

when the quacks go legit/delicious logical fallacy glory

okay. i've seen it happen with geraldo (from daytime talkshow quack to primetime news), with bill o'reilly (from inside edition quack to fox news)... but jerry fallwell? why is this man everywhere? did the entire news community get a memo, or something, "MORE FALLWELL, PEOPLE!"? is he a real pundit now, and not just a religious fanatic? he sputters something about strict constructionism every once in a while, but the rest of it is just standard fare.

yesterday he hosted crossfire with james carville, who during an argument about sex education kept screaming you're telling kids they can get pregnant by masturbation? i know that's not true. i KNOW that's not true! carville made eye contact with fallwell for all of eight tenths of a second throughout the half-hour show.

then he goes on chris matthews last night, talking about homosexuality (isn't it kinda creepy how these people only want to talk about sex?), when this nature/nurture exchange took place:

MATTHEWS: Did you choose to be heterosexual?
FALWELL: I did.
MATTHEWS: You chose it? You thought about it and you came up with that solution? That lifestyle?
FALWELL: Put it this way. I was taught as a child that's the right way to...
MATTHEWS: But did you feel an attraction toward women?
FALWELL: Oh, of course.
MATTHEWS: When people are born and they find themselves having an attraction to somebody from the same sex, do you think that's a choice?
FALWELL: I think you can experiment with any kind of perversity and develop an appetite for it, just like you can food.
MATTHEWS: You don't think it's nature? You think it's nurture.
FALWELL: I don't think any -- I don't think anybody is born a bank robber or born a hostile left-winger or a hostile right-winger or gay or a promiscuous heterosexual. I think there comes a time in childhood where environment may be a part of it, whatever, teaching, instruction, one chooses, I will do this or that. And that's why good, godly parenting...
MATTHEWS: How old were you when you chose to be heterosexual?
FALWELL: Oh, I don't remember that.
MATTHEWS: Well, you must, because you say it's a big decision.
FALWELL: Well, I started dating when I was about 13.
MATTHEWS: And you had to decide between boys and girls. And you chose girls.
FALWELL: I never had to decide. I never thought about it.
MATTHEWS: I think it's a ridiculous proposition that you actually sit down and decide. Let me see, boy or girl this week. Anyway...
FALWELL: I don't think anybody does that.

that is solid gold. can i nominate chris matthews to take over for dan rather? he's every bit as bonkers, but without the cringing parts. full bit at wonkette.

how to stalk spike jonze: a primer

if, as is probably the case, you have wanted to stalk a particular celebrity and some point in your life, you probably got frustrated. "where do i begin," you asked yourself. "do i just take a bus to beverly hills and start hopping fences?" no, silly. it's much easier.

preface 1: celebrities do not talk on telephones. they have people that do this for them. this is important to remember.

preface 2: those people are called agents.

so here's what you do.

1. get a job at a movie studio, or TV network, or whatever medium your chosen celebrity delivers their magic through. it doesn't have to be a great job. just so long as you have access to a computer.

2. find the person who knows the telephone numbers of lots of agents.

3. be a woman.

4. select an appropriately stalkable celebrity, like, say, spike jonze.

5. send the following email:

From: You [mailto:you@televisionormoviestudio.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 3:11 PM
To: [Assistant With Access to Lots of Telephone Numbers]
Subject: SPIKE

Dear [Assistant With Access to Lots of Telephone Numbers],

Have you ever been told that you bear a striking resemblance to Spike Jonze? Are you him? If so, please impregnate my unfertilized eggs. If you are not him, please find out who his agent is so I can stalk him.He's single now, after all.

Signed,

You

6. that's all you have to do. now just wait.

7. this will be the email you receive back:

From: [Assistant With Access to Lots of Telephone Numbers]
To: You
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 4:12 PM
Subject: RE: SPIKE

I've never been told that, but I'd have to agree that I do look like him. His agent is [Agenty Name], [Agenty Number]. But I should tell you, I'm probably the next best thing.

8. and there you go! now remember--you might need jeremy pivin's agent somewhere down the line, so make sure you don't blow off this person.

9. hellooooo, spike!

[thanks to RAG]

this sucks.

bye amy.

an email we wrote in response to an email we made up from a person from whom we haven't heard in a long while, a fact that is making us frustrated.

From: [schtaple]
To: [female name]
Date: 1 December 2004, 12:30pm EST
Subject: That last email you wrote was a HOOT!


dear [name of female who is delinquent in her correspondence],

you're too funny! i don't even know where to start, so i'll just respond to your email.

>i hate politics! it totally sucks!

i know, right? me too. all those old guys! hey, old guys! give us young guys a chance!

>so the girl in the cubicle next to me totally just flirted with the boss. it's like she thinks
>she's going to sleep her way to the top of this dump. i say more power to ya, sister!

ha, ha! that glass ceiling is looking pretty grimy, huh?

>how was your thanksgiving? wait, don't answer that. i think i know the answer. you
>were with your family, right? not many options there!

you're so insightful. why am i even responding? you already know what i'm going to say!

>i hit the malls the day after thanksgiving. now i know why they call it "black friday." i
>didn't see the light of day for 8 hours! the sale at Nordstrom's was worth it, though. i
>got a pair of slingbacks that are to DIE for.

yeah, they're to DIE for. as in i'd DIE if i had to wait in those lines. but i have to admit that i didn't see the sun that day either. too much football. and turkey sandwiches, yumm!!

>oh well, i guess i'd better get back to work. i've got to get ready so i can bat my
>eyelashes at the boss when he comes by, NOT!

girl, you're too much. thanks for the laughs. talk to you soon,

-[schtaple]

you go, mike lester of the rome news tribune!

this is the face of a 'cold-blooded game show assassin.'

seriously, it is. no, seriously. we will await the conspiracy theories telling us how alex trebek threatened his family, how he threw the match to settle scores with his vegas bookies, etc., etc. [NYT]

ooh! ooh! i know! he can take safire's place on the NYT editorial page. he's mormon, so he's probably conservative, and he's proven that he knows plenty of facts.