Bringing up the Falwell case takes me back to my Journalism Law class several years ago. The professor passed the offending Hustler document around the table for everyone (about a dozen students at a round table) to read while he spoke about it. I was the first to look at it. I couldn't believe what I was reading, it was so over-the-top offensive. My unfortunate reaction to sitting at a grad school round table and reading about Jerry Falwell buggering his own mother in an outhouse was to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all.

The professor stopped what he was saying, gave me a withering glare, and hissed, "it's not supposed to be funny!"

I tried to stammer out that I wasn't laughing because it was funny, but because it was so shocking (this was before the days of the internets, where such things are de rigueur in some corners). Still, as the next three students (all women, FWIW) read it to themselves, the disgust for me in that room only continued to grow.

Finally, a guy halfway around the table got his hands on it, and laughed so hard he had to put his head in his hands. He looked over at me and I gave him a silent "I know, right?!" gesture.

After class, he came up to me and said the tension had gotten so thick by the time it came around to him that he knew before he even started reading that he was going to lose it. I thanked him for saving me just a little bit, we agreed that the professor hung me out to dry, and I went on to a career in something else entirely....

Maybe she should have used McCain's staff make-up artist to make the whole thing more realistic.

I don't think that would have worked. She just wanted to look like she'd been beaten, not like she was dead.

Line of the day! clap clap clap

God Bless America is the lion out of the cage, and it's going to be tough to put it back in. I went to a Braves game last year, and was in conversation with a friend when GBA came on (Ethel Merman over the loudspeaker) during the stretch. We remained seated and continued to talk quietly, only to be informed by the people behind us that we "needed to stand for God Bless America".

I told them I stood for the anthem, but GBA has no official standing -- it's just an old pop song. Well, that just didn't fly with them -- nor, I imagine, would it have flown with the 97% of the crowd who also stood.

I used to enjoy the seventh inning stretch -- it was a goofy, low-key, communal thing, and the best kind of reminder that you were at the ballgame to relax and have a good time. Now it's an intrusive reminder that we must not be merely Americans, but self-serious exceptionalists waging perpetual war.

Yeah, I'm sure you're right that it was Kate Smith. In my defense, I wasn't really paying attention. :)

I saw it as Betty's attempt to re-enter her relationship with Don on superior footing -- as George Costanza would say, she has so much hand now she's coming out of her gloves. The fact that she was already pregnant removed a serious obstacle.

I had a similar experience when my old company transitioned from offline accounting software to Oracle. Press TAB, wait 5 seconds, press TAB, wait 5 seconds. Five seconds doesn't seem like much, but it adds up and it's not enough time to work on something else. Infuriating and counter-productive.

Obama's very private trip to Hawaii last week cost well over $100,000 and was paid for out of campaign funds.

There's a corollary to the old political maxim of "important if true". It's called "unimportant even if true". If I could have earmarked my most recent $100 contribution to Obama's campaign for him to visit his dying grandmother, I would gladly have done so. I'm sure we can find 999 other small donors who would say the same thing.

that the DNC chair is a fund-raising position, it can be said that Dean struggled. But then, the RNC has always had more money.

But the mere fact that Dean was not an insider, a longtime functionary, was a signal that the party as a whole had new energy, and the 50-state strategy has been a PR success. For the first time in memory, it was clear that Dems were taking the fight to the Republicans on a fundamental level. If you truly believe your ideas are better, you will of course fight for them everywhere. Dean has exhibited that kind of commitment.

He was in my Spanish class at UGA many years ago. I only remember him being called on once. I don't remember what he was supposed to say, but he ended up going with something that translated to "I dress myself" ("Yo me visto" as I now discover). Needless to say, we were all very impressed, and it's good to see he's done well for himself.

To paraphrase Roger Ebert, a piece of writing isn't about what it's about, it's about how it's about it. This was joyous, celebratory, and funny. God forbid such attitudes would perish from Salon in the service of such self-serious offense by proxy.

And by that I mean, from what is known about the Obamas, what do you think their reaction to this would be? If you answered anything but "a good laugh", I submit you haven't been paying enough attention to their self-possession.

Here's another paraphrase -- as Rob Halford would say, I'm offended by your offendability.

They hate him because he beat them. He beat the "get Clinton" cottage industry, the permanently installed special prosecutor, the salivating over sexual peccadilloes, the public "shaming" of the toothless impeachment, all of it.

The collateral damage from their efforts has been massive and enduring, of course. But that's on them.