Death, it has been omnipresent this annum. Most humans have expired. This datum is known by Mme. Peggington Noonington, a prosemonger famous to children, and regal oligarch wordsmith for the Wall Street Journal banking pamphlet. Peggington did not faceth the Grim Reaper this year. For someone who was born in 1820’s London, in the actual Buckingham Palace, this is rare. It is rare for a human to survive into her ninth score. We know this, we feel this. Peggington: cognizant of this. Now it is Thanks-Giving time. Her Thanks are simple. Puritan. Nay. Catholic. Ahh, Catholicism. To be alive, imbibing the firewater of Bean Extract, moving one’s digits swiftly across the input buttons of a Robot: “I am grateful for a great deal, especially: I’m here. I’m drinking coffee as I write, and the sun is so bright, I had to close the blinds to keep the glare from the computer.” MORE »

• IT’S NOT OBAMA’S FAULT THAT HE WAS BORN A SAVAGE AFRICAN LION, OKAY? The Washington Times could shut down any day, so its columnists have precious little time to liquidate their massive inventories of Insane Racism! In his column today, editor emeritus Wesley Pruden writes THIS about the current Lion King, Barack Obama: “It’s no fault of the president that he has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what the America of ‘the 57 states’ is about. He was sired by a Kenyan father, born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World and reared by grandparents in Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream.” See, as long as you spare Obama the blame for being a black savage, then it fits the Moonie definition of “nuance.” [Washington Times]

The Washington Post’s “Dean of Sociopaths,” David Broder, wore his finest slacks to write this paragraph: “It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision — whether or not it is right.” PSST… $50 if you choose the wrong one, so I can have things to criticize? Trick question, I will criticize any of them. Can I still have $50? Where did I put those slacks… [Washington Post via Spencer Ackerman]

We’ve read these ten columns from the Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive Kaplan Test Prep Daily’s Actual Sex Contest, and not a single one pissed us off as much as an average column by George Will, Richard Cohen, Charles Krauthammer, David Ignatius, Bill Kristol, Fred Hiatt, Jackson Diehl, Ruth Marcus, Michael Gerson, David Broder, etc. But maybe we just don’t know them yet? MORE »

No one was more excited about the Controversial Major News Story earlier this week, involving Barack Obama and his sexist athletic proclivities, than Maureen Dowd, the popular newspaper sex columnist from 1998. The story provided her with at least three columns worth of unclear wordplay about gender and politics and homos. Check out this peculiar bit: “Besides, if Obama starts using a quota system for recreation, it will give fuel to the Republican campaign to paint him as a hand-wringing, Mom-jeans-wearing girly-boy.” Note the way she fully outsources this superficial “campaign” to the Republicans, but doesn’t acknowledge the weekly leadership role a liberal female New York Times columnist has been playing in it for the last decade. [NYT via Gawker]

New York Times “Not lightning-rod conservative, but the lightning-rod conservatives may have a point” columnist Ross Douthat was taken to task by a New Yorker fact-checker and some libtards at an n+1 panel last night when the topic came to gay marriage: “At first Mr. Douthat seemed unable to get a sentence out without interrupting himself and starting over. Then he explained: ‘I am someone opposed to gay marriage who is deeply uncomfortable arguing the issue in public.’ …At one point he said that, sometimes, he feels like he should either change his mind, or simply resolve never to address the question in public.” These are dark times for Ross Douthat. [NY Observer]

Oh god, thank you to this commenter for directing us to a mole’s account of Peggy Noonan’s class at Harvard. These Noonanisms speak to the heart and soul of a nation: “I wasn’t sure I could wear mascara every day. One should dress. One should wear mascara when one can.” One should. It is Proper. But hey HARVARD MOLES? HELLO? Don’t send this stuff to Gawker. Be a friend to your Wonkette: tips@wonkette.com. We have more “iPhones” to give out to our best operatives. [Gawker]

It is Hell-o-ween come early, children. Gather ’round, for Dame Peggington Noonington, chief word-writer for the notable Wall Street Journal banking pamphlet, hath composed a Second Weekly Article, doubleth her normal output. She worketh harder than most humans. It is her Duty and she shall performeth it, in times of national crisis, such as it was Friday. That was when disastrous monster Barack Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize, from the communists! Peggington heard this news item on her radio machine, Ate nine pills, and typed — for Madame was furious at this, “this wicked and ignorant award, this mischievous honor.” MORE »

Now New York Times conservo-bot Ross Douthat DOESN’T THINK it was the worst thing ever for Obama to accept that Nobel Peace Prize, like those ideological conservatives do — those conservatives are so crazy and nuts;, he’s not like them! — but he does think, you know, maybe they have a point?? Maybe they’re on to something? It’s another Monday with Ross Douthat! MORE »

TODAY’S OFFERING FROM… A CERTAIN “COHEN, RICHARD”: Celebrated Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wants Obama to GET REAL now. You’re President, for the love of fuck — bomb Iran already! etc. etc. And it really was just a matter of time before Richard Cohen used this line, wasn’t it: “These Persians lie like a rug.” Amazing. [Washington Post]

Soulless demented fish-carcass David Broder has recently discovered why Obama is awful and will fail: “But Obama has made it even more explicit, regularly proclaiming his determination to rely on rational analysis, rather than narrow decisions, on everything from missile defense to Afghanistan — and all the big issues at home.” How calculating that Obama is. This is not the proper way to govern! What he should do instead of “rely[ing] on rational analysis” is take a poop and see which direction it spins, in the toilet. Counter-clockwise would tell him, “build insane untested missile-krusher dongle in Poland.” [Washington Post]