IF BILL CLINTON WAS BLACK, THEN HOW IS OBAMA NOT MUSLIM? A real winner in the Moonie Times op-ed section today. We reach Absolute Zero by only the end of the second paragraph: “The man now happy to have his Islamic-rooted middle name featured prominently has engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich.” Swish. [Washington Times]

America’s worst writer, Richard Cohen, strings together the saddest tale of all today in his important Washington Post newspaper column. Overarching topic: the Supreme Court. Pertinent issue: Affirmative Action. Protagonist: hard-working white firefighter. Antagonist: Negro race. “Punished” victim: all white people. Unimportant litmus tests: abortions, “unions.” Only important litmus test: getting hard-working white firefighter’s job back from Negroes. Person whose fault all of this is: Barack Obama. “Supremely irrelevant” factor in American society: race. Bittersweet music to play in background: “Colour My World.” Policy that Richard Cohen does not understand: Affirmative Action. [Washington Post]

Watch out, America, because David Brooks has written another one of his famous “theme” columns, in which he takes on a gimmick — like pretending to be Kierkegaard, or a doctor researching some new Obama disease, or a cartoon Asian Buddhist Negro being attacked by the Internet — and proceeds to embarrass himself for hundreds of words. Today he pretends to be a historian, or maybe just a Wikipedia writer, composing a brief summary of how during the Obama years, the majority party took a so-so economy, ran up the budget and made so many bad decisions that the American people started distrusting the government and other institutions of power completely. Just to repeat, he says this is what the future will look like. MORE »

Oh goodness we spent all day yesterday saluting Bill Kristol, who had to leave the New York Times because he was TOO PERFECT TO GO ON, without noticing a gem of a column by his fellow token conservative David Brooks. He wrote about the profound reverence with which we should approach our professions because they are sacred “institutions.” David Brooks comes from a magical time when people could have a single profession or employer for their entire working life, and might feel like their personal sense of self-worth was related to how well they did their jobs. (This was long before the invention of men’s room attendants, debt collectors, and fryolater de-greasers.) MORE »

• BONO’S SOLILOQUY: Bono’s first NYT column. First. Kill the limeys. Now we’re in my house, Dublin. MURDER. Miles Davis. I knew Frank Sinatra, modernista, Palm Spring. Painting colors Vinegar. The year changes another year — calendars. If. Also. Also. Shhh. I knew Frank Sinatra and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. (9/11 reagan beer cunt.) [NYT]

David Brooks is an actual MAD MAN! This is what he wrote last Friday in his farty little column: “Palin held up her end of an energetic debate that gave voters a direct look at two competing philosophies. She established debating parity with Joe Biden. And in a country that is furious with Washington, she presented herself as a radical alternative.” So in love! But now he’s 180ed again after realizing that the “radical alternative” she presented herself as was just a filthy malignant tumor — he called her “cancer,” ha ha ha, WHAT? MORE »