Rich Lowry vs. Matt Latimer, this is so on! The ONE TIME Rich Lowry goes to work and puts on his bowler hat and three piece suit and pretends to be a newspaper-man, Matt Latimer, former Bush speechwriter/social chair of Mars’ douchiest fraternity, refuses to answer any of Lowry’s broadsheet journalism media questions! “Matt Latimer, isn’t the fact that you’re in a pederastic relationship with Donald Rumsfeld—and the fact that you’re currently helping him write his own memoir—call into question your favorable characterization of said human?” Lowry asked within the pages of his forgotten reactionary quarto, “Corner.” Now watch Matt Latimer defer to a mid-range Roomba named “Kevin Kellems.” MORE »

National Review is so fucking weird, Jesus Christ. Here’s their new thing, “National Review Calls Home,” which is like a giant hideous conference call between Jonah Goldberg and rented auxiliary humans Rich Lowry and Mark Steyn—and of course all the National Review subscribers, whom Jonah Goldberg will personally be calling from some sticky-buttoned corded phone somewhere. “During the call Rich, Jonah, and Mark will discuss the hottest issues of the day. You’ll get the opportunity to ask questions, answer surveys, or you can just sit back and enjoy hearing these great pundits and observers make sense of the current political scene.” Jonah Goldberg will actually illegally stalk his readers until they sign up for his fake open-source wingnut radio. [NRO]

‘STARBURST’ LOWRY COINS GREATEST SARAH PALIN ANALOGY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE: “Juneau had become to Palin almost what the Tower was to Anne Boleyn. ” Except that Anne Boleyn had one child and eleven fingers, while Palin has eleven children and one finger. TRUE FACT. [National Review Online]

Very smart ex-prosecutor person Andrew C. “Andy” McCarthy knows most things about Barack Obama, including all of his secrets. McCarthy’s top achievement in life has been proving that Bill Ayers ghostwrote Obama’s memoir Dreams Of My Father. Not many people knew about this, and it was a journalistic scoop, and so is this: “The fact is that, as a man of the hard Left, Obama is more comfortable with a totalitarian Islamic regime than he would be with a free Iranian society.” That’s the fact, okay? MORE »

BIG NEWS 2DAY, from Kathryn Jean “Jonah Goldberg” Lopez: “I will soon be stepping aside as editor of National Review Online. I’m not going too far. I’ll still be contributing to NRO with ideas and content, and if you are an author or reader you might not notice much of a change. I’ll probably still be bugging you for pieces if you’re an author and I’ll still be traffic-copping the Corner. But I will be moving my primary base of operation in the fall from New York to D.C., and will no longer honcho NRO on a day-by-day basis.” Oh, we will notice the shit out of this. Starburst will replace her. [National Review]

There was nothing good about Sarah Palin’s debate performance last night, at all. But! Some party hacks are pretending to like it, or say she won, because of how well she avoided saying anything of substance. The “buzz word” regarding the key to her success (among no one) is that she spoke in very “folksy” tones, and they appeal to the Heartland. For the first time ever, our punditry is being lazy! “Folksy” is more of an Ann Richards thing. What Sarah Palin did was called “flirting.” And so far, at least one pundit on National Review’s The Corner blog has disclosed how much of a boner he got, in potentially the greatest Corner post of all time. MORE »

As we previously mentioned, last night Team Wonkette attended the annual CEI Dinner. We’ve already given you some great photos from the event. Now we provide you with this more detailed write-up of the proceedings, as promised.

All in all, it was an excellent evening. P.J. O’Rourke was in funny, fine form. The liquor flowed liberally, and the after-party featured free cigars and cigarettes (plus scrumptious chocolate eclairs).

And did we mention the dancing libertarians? What more can one ask for?

Our full take on the evening, including more excellent pictures by Liz Gorman, appears after the jump.

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