The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen, everyone’s favorite old coot of a “moderate liberal,” has written a sort of hilarious rant against Sarah Palin today. He calls her a “sitcom of a vice presidential choice,” which is probably the most apt description yet. Then he gets sassy, MMHMM: “Still, you have to admit that in all that time, especially since Palin became governor about two years ago, no Russian invasion force has come across the strait, maybe because she was in charge of the Guard, maybe because she herself is a hunter and an athlete.” Cohen also writes about Julius Caesar because fuck all. [Washington Post]

Usually it’s not worth it to post about Maureen Dowd’s column. She just does her thing. Nicknames, gender stereotypes, alliteration, hackneyed jokes, hackneyed narratives, whatever, let her quill gush forth, just leave us out of it. But things have changed, and she needs an intervention after this shit. Wasn’t this column the first scene from one of the Harry Potter books, with Voldemort talking about evil? Also: we are not notable practitioners of the so-called “Journalistic Ethics,” but is it really worth a New York Times columnist’s time and writerly capital to make things up? Like, entire narratives and motives? This column wouldn’t make the cut at most high school newspapers. Because. The badness. [New York Times]

After Hillary Clinton lost, her annoying lawyer friend Lanny Davis had to find a new dumb job, even though he was never on staff to begin with. And so he became a columnist for where else, The Washington Times. Yesterday’s column did, in fact, have the comical headline quoted in this post’s headline. It’s some of that contrarian hot air you’d usually see nestled indiscreetly on the front page of Slate or TNR, linking to a boring article by some “legal correspondent” almost surely named “Jeffrey.” But this is different in some respects: it’s in the Moonie Times and it’s written by Lanny Davis, so somehow it manages to be even less edifying. MORE »