K-Lo Goes To Confession: Gaypocalypse Now

K-Lo: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been fifteen seconds since my last confession and I don't want to hear it, Father, desperate times call for desperate measures and maybe if I confess enough my soul will become flooded with grace and Jesus will see my pure heart and strike those gay-married activists dead. (Takes deep breath.) Oh my God I am heartily sorry for all I have done in the last ten seconds and all I failed to do. I should have put money in the poor box when I crossed the nave. God would like that, even though Jonah says helping the poor turns them into socialists. Maybe I should have crawled over on the floor. "Only a penitent man may pass." Oh, wait, that wasn't Jesus, that was Indiana Jones. Forget that, Father. Maybe---.

Father: Kathryn Jean!

K-Lo: Yes, Father? Is something wrong?

Father: That's what I was going to ask you.

K-Lo: Everything's just fine and dandy, Father. Now could we just get back to my confession? The gay marriage vote is about to come up and God needs my prayers to encourage His Mighty Wrath. We need Divine Intervention and it's either help or get out of the way. Oh, sorry Father. I don't mean to be rude, I'm just pressed for time.

Father: Very well, Kathryn Jean. Proceed.

K-Lo: Uh, these are my sins. Uh.... Pride. Sloth. That coveting thing. Both coveting things. I've been very, very bad and You need to take out your Terrible Swift Sword and slay everyone in Albany to punish me, just like You did to the Alchemists and the Canaanites. Oh my God I am heartily sorry for my sins and my past sins and my future sins although I'm not actually planning to sin because that would be a sin. Oh, wait. Yes I do plan to sin. (takes deep breath.)

Father:(hastily) You're forgiven, say two Hail Marys. Now will you slow down, young lady, and explain yourself?

K-Lo: Well, as you know, Father, Gay Marriage has attacked New York and put its Gay Agenda on our sacred Legislative Agenda and got it all dirty and maybe even touched it in a bad place. Any minute now Gay Marriage could strike a blow that would destroy our Democracy and go on to destroy all of Western Civilization, the source of all that is good in the world. We can't let this happen, Father! We have to save marriage for the children! What should I do?

Father: Kathryn Jean, I just can't say.

K-Lo: I know you can figure this out, Father. You have God on your side!

Father: No, it's not that. I'm not allowed. The Archbishop feels that at this delicate time we ought to refrain from giving an advice that might be, uh, misconstrued.

K-Lo: Oh. Oh, well, if Archbishop Dolan wants me to be Mary and not Martha, I will be glad to obey. He's a great man, isn't he, Father? I don't know why Sister Paul of Tarsus said he looks like a sack of pudding. Does that mean she's going to hell?

(A buzzing noise is heard.)

K-Lo: (shrieks)

Father: Kath--.

K-Lo: Ahhhhh! (shrieks again)

Father: Ka---

K-Lo: Death! Horror! The children! Dear God, what will we tell the children?

Father: Now, calm down Kathryn Jean! Take a deep breath and calm down!

K-Lo: (takes a deep breath and exhales slowly)

K-Lo: (shrieks)

Father: SILENCE!

K-Lo: (bursts into tears)

Father: That's, uh, better.

K-Lo: They'be be sorry, Father! It's tyranny of the state! We elect people to represent us and what do they do? Take over the government! Pass laws! Where did we go wrong? (whips head from side to side) Did you hear that, Father? The tramp, tramp, tramp of gay jackboots as they force their gayness in your face, forever? Tyrrany of the majority! Liberal Fascism! The arrogance of it, Father! (sobs) Jonah was so right!

Father: Kathryn Jean, while this is a most regrettable turn of events, it's not the end of the world. Right will triumph in the end, and how can we really lose when we have God on our side?

K-Lo: Thank you, Father, your words of encouragement are very comforting, but I want to win now. That would show the gay couple with the married daughter and grandson who live down the street from Mama and Daddy. They keep asking me when I'm getting married, as if I haven't tried! But how can a good girl find a man when they all marry each other instead? Do you know how hard it is to find a nice, Catholic man in DC, Father? It's just not fair! Why should gays be able to get married when I cant'? (sobs)

Father: Kathryn Jean, in times like these we must turn to prayer and God for solace. Perhaps you might want to rethink your position regarding taking vows to become a nun. I think you would be happier living closer to God.

K-Lo: We all have to make sacrifices for God, Father, and joining the Church is mine. It's a heavy burden to have money, independence, travel and the love and respect of my peers, but I bear it willingly for His sake.

Father: Yes, yes. Just thought I'd give it a mention. You never know. Well, it was nice seeing you again, Kathryn Jean, and I hope you feel better soon.

K-Lo: Thank you, Father, and I know that one day God will prevail and He'll tell gays to go back into their closets where we don't have to see them anymore. Except in New York, our closets are all too small for gays to live in them. Father, where do gays live in New York if their closets are too small to live in?

Father: It's a metaphor, Kathryn Jean. Now off you go, people are waiting to confess.

K-Lo: How I envy them. Say, Father, would you mind if I did just one more--Father? Are you there?

Time To Dust Off That Romney Body Pillow

When you lose K-Lo, who never met a baseless, illogical belief that she didn't embrace from the bottom of her gullible heart, you know you're no longer considered serious candidate material.

As buzz reignites that Sarah Palin might enter the race, it’s worth listening to what the former vice presidential candidate has said repeatedly: It’s still relatively early. She may simply be discerning her most constructive role in politics and culture as we move toward 2012 and beyond. She’s a woman of talent and experience, with a following and the ability to get people talking. She has a power. Her key question is how to use it for the most good.

Her latest book, "America By Heart, got less attention than her first one," "Going Rogue," because it didn’t have the benefit of being a much-anticipated insider look at a guarded public figure. But it was a bestseller and she used it to shine a light on good people doing good things. Maybe she will do that as a candidate. Maybe she will continue to do that on Fox News or maybe she transitions into a different kind of Oprah.

Stick a knife in her. Palin's done.

K-Lo Goes To Confession: Don't Go Through The Green Door

K-Lo: (briskly) Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been five minutes since my last confession. Oh my Heavenly Father, I am heartily sorry for offending Thee. In Your Holy Omni--omminip--All-Knowingness I'm sure You know that it was all a great big misunderstanding, the kind that anyone could have had. Even really good people who never, ever do anything wrong like a priest or a nun or Daddy and Mama.

(pause)

Father: Kathryn Jean, did you just say it has been five minutes since your last confession?

K-Lo: Yes, Father. I confessed to Father John--the Father John from Canada, not the other Father John--but I think I left a few things out. He said he was late for a meeting when I approached him but I needed to confess really bad so I just kept asking until he gave in. That's how I got Mama to let me get my ears pierced. But I was in such a hurry that I left a few things out and so now I have to confess again. I'll start from the beginning.

Father: That's not necessary, Kathryn Jean, you can just--

K-Lo: It was a dark and stormy night, and I was on a secret mission for Miss Lila Rose's Live Action team of baby rescuers and fornicator punishers, God bless them.

Father: Kathryn Jean, I'm not sure you should become involved with strangers on the internet. You don't know anything about them and they could be harmful to an impressionable young woman. You should stick to the list of sites that the judge said you could visit.

K-Lo: Oh no, Father, Miss Lila Rose is a wonderful person and so pretty and brave and she's doing God's Work. She was so happy that I wanted to work with them to save babies that she couldn't stop giggling the entire time we talked. Miss Lila said that they were going to film another secret Planned Parenthood video and they wanted me to go undercover as an underage Catholic schoolgirl who got pregnant by Al Gore. He wanted her to have an abortion because it would conserve energy! That is so wrong!

Father: Kathryn Jean, you are a kind-hearted young lady and perhaps you did not detect---. Perhaps she was not entirely serious about---.

K-Lo: Father, I know what you're trying to say. By dressing up in one of my old school uniforms and going into a Planned Parenthood Pit I would be endangering my immortal soul. But the babies, Father! Think of the snowflakes! Jesus is in my heart and I knew I could be strong for Him.

Father: Kathryn Jean, I'm sure we don't need to go over the details. You are absolved, say---.

K-Lo: Father, I'm not done! You don't want me to have to come back again, do you?

Father: No, no, by all means, proceed.

K-Lo: So I told Nanny I was going to a costume party at Mr. John Derbyshire's house and put on my coat over my disguise and then I took a taxi to the address that Miss Lila gave me. I was sure it was the right place because there was a big sign with girls in school uniforms on the building. Sister Mary Grace told us that abortion clinics are always trying to lure in Catholic schoolgirls because every time a Catholic schoolgirl gets an abortion, a devil gets his horns.

Father: (dryly) Sister Mary Grace retired none too soon. What happened when you went into the clinic?

K-Lo: Okay, so I went in the building and I said that I was an underage prostitute and this big guy said okay, go to the room at the end of the hallway and I did and then I left. (pause) The End.

Father: Kathryn Jean, I know you meant well but you should have not joined this group without discussing it with your parents first. And your parole officer. You must pick your friends more carefully, young lady. Now, say the Hail Mary five---.

K-Lo: Wait, Father, there's more. It kind of turned out that it wasn't exactly an abortion clinic for Catholic schoolgirls.

Father: As evil as they are, I'm sure that there was no Catholic schoolgirl conspiracy. Say five---.

K-Lo: Ah---.

Father: There's more?

K-Lo: It wasn't exactly an abortion clinic.

Father: It was a regular medical clinic? Well, that would be rather embarrassing, but not sinful in and of itself. Say---

K-Lo: Itwasastripclub.

Father: I'm sorry, what?

K-Lo: (reluctantly) It was a strip club.

Father: Are you sure? You have never been in one, perhaps you were mistaken?

K-Lo: Well, I have now. They had a stage and a woman dancing with nothing on, just like Jonah said. I thought she was undressed because she was about to have an abortion but looking back, maybe not. So I went down the hallway and when I went into the room the man in there said I could just march right back around and send in another girl.

Father: I must say, Kathryn Jean, you are taking this very calmly. It is a very promising sign. Say five Hail Marys and stay away from LiveAction, okay?

K-Lo: But Father, I haven't confessed any sins yet!

Father: Under certain emergency circumstances it is permissible to give a blanket pardon for all sins. I'm sure God would agree that this constitutes an emergency.

K-Lo: But---.

Father: Too late, you're forgiven. Be sure to tell your mother hello for me. Bye-bye.

K-Lo: (Doubtfully) Okay, Father. Gosh, that was easy. But I don't feel very forgiven. Maybe if I told you about the part where I felt lust in my heart....

Father: Dear heaven, look at the time! I really must run, so nice to see you again, we must do this again soon. But not too soon. Off you go. (confessional door clicks open and shut.

K-Lo: (Sigh) Confession hasn't been the same since Vatican II.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, Power Broker

The Christian fundamentalists always intended to go after birth control. It frees a woman's sex life from male control; she can make the same choices a man can make about sex partners and career. If you control someone's sex life you control them, which is why the right wants to deny civil rights to gays as well. You can banish gays from sight and keep women legally and emotionally submissive if you have enough power.

We do not make decisions based on facts or logic, we base them on emotions. Power is wielded by people affected, and often controlled, by their needs and wants. And powerful people know how to manipulate emotions to keep their power and deny power to anyone else. One of the easier methods of controlling others is to convince them to control themselves, with the powerful setting the parameters of their lives and continuously making little demonstrations of power and strength to keep them in line. The obedient, the authoritarians, want to be good, to be accepted and praised. They will both control themselves and monitor everyone else in their class. The authoritarian leaders will control the followers and monitor their own class, using different standards than the followers, of course. The truly powerful will control everyone else and are not accountable to anyone.

The idea of Miss Kathryn Jean Lopez, authoritarian follower par excellence, wielding power over anyone, male, female, child or animal, is the single most ludicrous proof of how unequal the balance of power has become in the US. The woman has the brains of a potted plant. Her religious monomania drives her to ludicrous extremes of self-abasement and weepy sentimentality. She can't think, write, or relate to anyone who hasn't been nailed on a cross. Yet she seems to think that she and all the other small-minded, badly educated, empathy-impaired conspirators in a War Against Freedom If Freedom Has Boobs actually have the power to control all American women.

Why are Republicans waging war on contraception?

Further proof that Lopez isn't very smart. Republicans don't admit this if they want to stay in office.

It's not the first time the question has been asked, and it won't be the last. Truth be told, Republicans aren't engaging in battle on that front -- but the phrase gets close to a legitimate fight.

Congress, for its part, held an unprecedented vote in the House in February to end funding of Planned Parenthood. It's not a permanent or final vote; it was attached to a short-term move to keep the government funded. The debate in Congress was given momentum by the Live Action investigatory videos, which raised significant questions about what exactly Planned Parenthood is doing; but the rest of us need to discuss why we've let Planned Parenthood step in as a mainstream Band-Aid, throwing contraception and even abortion at problems that have much more fundamental solutions.

We need to discuss why Lopez is getting away with passing off the Live Action videos as proof of wrong-doing. Nobody wants to get near enough to Lopez to ask her questions and pin her down but if they don't, she'll continue to peddle this line and repetition creates belief.

While women may want love and marriage, they don't expect it. Justice Sandra O'Connor wrote in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey opinion that women had "organized intimate relationships, and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail." And why wouldn't they? Who, nowadays, encourages them to want more?

Roger Ailes (the one not about to be indicted), already covered this bizarre tidbit. Hollywood makes an endless stream of popular movies about women falling in love and getting married, yet nobody wants marriage?

We've come to expect less for and from ourselves, and for and from one another. In part, it's the fruit of the contraceptive pill. New York magazine recently observed in a cover feature: "The pill is so ingrained in our culture today that girls go on it in college, even high school, and stay on it for five, 10, 15, even 20 years." That, of course, has had all kinds of fallout: a false sense of freedom, security. And it has ravaged women's fertility, as it seeks to mute exactly what women's reproductive power is all about.

And now we come to what this is really all about: power. Women think they're free if they control their reproductive system but they are not free and should not be allowed to think they are. Why are they not free? God created their "reproductive power" so only he can control it, and since God doesn't show up personally when some slut needs shaming, men will just have to do it for them, with a few women as humble helpmeets.

That's why I want to turn back the clock -- to a time when we valued love and marriage and didn't expect, support and even encourage promiscuity. Life and history don't work that way, obviously, there is no actual rewind. But we do have opportunities to learn from our mistakes.

Sex outside the parameters set by Miss Kathryn Jean Lopez is promiscuity.

The spending fight over Planned Parenthood in Congress is about a number of things. It's primarily about good stewardship, as so much of the spending debate is. But beyond legislation, beyond anything Congress can or should do, it is a call to arms for a new sexual revolution. It's about wanting more for ourselves and for those whom we love. It's about ending the surrender to a contraceptive mentality that treats human sexuality as just another commercial transaction.

Either you obey Miss Lopez's religious dogma or you are nothing but a prostitute.

Perhaps nothing better illustrates that than a recent commercial for a contraceptive called Beyaz. Women walk into a store and literally shop for men. "It's good to have choices." A woman happily shakes her head at the stork and its offerings in a sassy "we girls can do anything" kind of way, promenading through an adult Barbie commercial complete with Ken, a dream house and a trip to Paris.

Women should never have choices. They should willingly submit to those with power.

That commercial does not, needless to say, do justice to the pain and desperation many women suffer when they find themselves thinking about an abortion, or popping pills in pursuit of something that masks itself as satisfaction but is really just a bad substitute, oftentimes making true happiness all the more illusory.

True happiness is submission to God and men. Any personal satisfaction is wrong and will destroy your chance to have a family.

As evidence of the reckless and dangerous callousness at institutions supposedly dedicated to women's health -- failure to report the sex trafficking of minors, failure to report child abuse -- continues to emerge, we can't afford to lose sight of another, more fundamental conversation that we've got to have, among friends, in our homes and churches -- a talk about what it means to be human.

Humans were created to worship and obey God, as interpreted by Miss Lopez. And anyone woman who thinks that she is free and can make choices about her life must be disabused of that notion, through the use of political power if necessary.

This is what happens when you are polite to religious fanatics, when you let them manipulate your emotions. They go fucking nuts. They should never, ever be let near the slightest amount of power, and the very idea of submitting to and obeying these idiots is absolutely ludicrous. If they really want this war then we can start trying to pass laws that hand out The Pill like candy. Free condoms! Unisex bathrooms! Public nudity! If they want a fight let's give them one. Idle hands are the devil's playground and these fools have way too much time on their hands.

K-Lo Goes To Confession: K-Lo Go Boom!

Father: Kathryn Jean, what's the emergency? Is it another one of your little abortion protests? Do you need bail money?

K-Lo: No, no, Father. Mama said if I got arrested and shamed her before that Gay-American couple who live down the street just one more time she would refuse to pay for my wedding. She's been in a snit ever since their daughter got married and had a baby. She just doesn't think it's fair that---.

Father: Kathryn Jean, what is the problem?

K-Lo: Sorry, Father, but this is an emergency confession. If I don't confess right away I just know I'll get hit by a bus before I have the chance and then God will send me to Hell because He loves me so much and wants me to be good. Bless me Father for I have sinned. Oh, Father! (breaks down into sobs)

Father: Kathryn Jean, you're starting to alarm me.

K-Lo: Father, I'm having a "crises of faith" just like they talked about in my confirmation classes. (blows nose) Sorry, Father, but I never thought it would happen to me. Mary Catherine Lombardi got to third base with half the boys in the class and I just knew she would turn her back on Jesus, but me? Never!

Father: What happened?

K-Lo: It was the pope, Father. You know, Pope Benedict.

Father: (dryly) Yes, I remember his name, Kathryn Jean.

K-Lo: I read today that he said all countries should have universal health care. He chose Obamacare over the Free Market and Democracy, Father! How could that be? How could the pope choose Obama over us real Americans, Father? How? (sobs) Doesn't he love us anymore?

Father: Now, Kath---.

K-Lo: We're on the same side, Father! We're the good people! Obama is the bad people! He wants to destroy America with his elitist socialism! Mrs. Governor Sarah Palin said that he wanted to kill my grandmother! My grandmother loves the pope! Why does the scary Black man want to hurt my Nana? (starts to hyperventilate)

Father: Kathryn Jean, are you alright? Breathe! Do you have a paper bag?

Kathryn Jean shakes her head and breathes into her purse.

K-Lo: (muffled) I'll be okay Father if you just tell me that this is one of the those horrible "lamestream" media lies. It's all a lie, right?

Father: Kath--

K-lo: Oh, God, will this nightmare never end?

Father: Kathryn Jean, what did the pope say?

k-Lo: He said health care was a fundamental right and the government should provide it. It has to be a lie, Father. Where could the pope have gotten that idea? What's next, give the rich's money to the poor? Feed the poor?

Father: Now that you mention it, Kathryn Jean, yes. Remember that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven. Jesus wants us to help and take care of each other, and that includes health care.

k-Lo: I--I feel dizzy, Father. Obama--the pope--Obama--the pope---. (begins rocking)

Father: Poor thing. Well, it was only a matter of time. (briskly) They say God works in mysterious ways, Kathryn Jean. Perhaps a little rest in a Catholic institution will do you a world of good. The hurly-burly of politics is such a bad influence on a sensitive soul.

k-Lo: They need me, Father! The boys at work need a member of the gentler sex to support them and take care of them and remind them of their moral responsibilities and be a civilizing influence!

Father: Yes, yes, Kathryn Jean. But a little vacation would do you a world of good. Ah, I hear your mother's voice. Why don't you go with her like a good girl?

K-Lo: Yes, Father. I--I just need to sleep. That's it. Some rest. And then I'll wake up and this will all be a bad, bad dream and I'll laugh and Fluffy will jump up and beg me to take him for a walk, just like every other morning. Good bye, Father! I mean good night!

K-Lo Goes To Confession: Another Brick In The Wall (Between Church And State)

Father: Welcome, Kathryn Jean. It's wonderful to see you again. It's been such a long time.

K-Lo: I'm sorry, Father, I've been busy protected Washington, District of Columbia, from the cloud of sin that hangs over it, sending down lighting bolts of Heavenly Disapproval whenever "President" Obama is in the White House. I just can't believe it, Father.

Father: Believe what, Kathryn Jean?

K-Lo: I can't believe Obama doesn't even care that he shouldn't be president. Why does he think it's called the White House? Huh? Has he even thought about that? It's not called the Kenyan House or the Chicago Gangsta House or the---.

Father: Kathryn Jean, you seem to be a little more upset than usual. What's wrong?

K-Lo: Father, I'm so discouraged. If it weren't a sin to think about myself instead of Jesus I might even become depressed. It seems that every day we get farther and farther away from Jesus and nearer and nearer to secular humanism, the Religion of the Damned.

Father: I agree but---.

K-Lo: I interviewed Former Pennsylvania Senator the Honorable Mr. "Rick" Santorum, and he said that Mr. JFK Kennedy ushered in an era of separation of church and state and now Christians are being hunted down like second-class citizens! Hunted! With laws and speeches and the (whispering) ACLU.(makes the sign of the cross rapidly) And Mr. Romney said---.

Father: Wait--you didn't talk to him, did you?

K-Lo: No, Father, of course not. Not after I promised. I would never break my vow to Jesus and Mrs. Romney. Plus the Romney boys said they'd toilet paper my parents' apartment if I did and I would just die of shame if someone saw toilet paper on our house. Because when you see toilet paper you think of toilets and then you think of your body and then you start to feel really really bad and you're not allowed to wear hair shirt anymore because Mama said the maid was complaining because I was shedding all over the floor and---.

Father: Kathryn Jean, perhaps you would like to confess something now? The First Confession class is going to be here any minute.

K-Lo: Oh, Father, how exciting! I remember my First Confession. I wore a black dress to symbolize how sorry I was for my sins and Mama gave me my own little black veil to wear, just like hers. Only Patrick O'Bannon stole it and threw it up in the organ loft, the little creep. God will get him one day!

Father: So you were saying?

K-Lo: Sorry, Father. Bless me Father for I have sinned. It's been one week since my last confession. Oh my God I am heartily sorry for--oh, wait. I already confessed about that. I know--I took the name of the Lord in vain when I read that people were saying mean things about Mr. Santorum. Mr. Santorum said that people were accusing him of wanting a theocracy, which is so mean and also not true!

Father: Of course not. I absolve--.

K-Lo: Just because he says that Catholic political leaders should always obey their priests when they vote, that doesn't mean that they believe in a theocracy! All people have to do is obey God and the pope and bishops and priests (but not nuns) and their senators and representatives and the police and their parents and then everyone will be free! Instead of persecuted which is what we are now, when a decent real American can't even tell other people to obey the pope! How wrong is that? He's the pope! Of course we all have to do what he says! God says so!

Father: Kathryn Jean, breathe! That's better young lady. I absolve you of all your sins. Say ten Hail Marys and remember that the Truth cannot be denied; it always wins in the end.

K-Lo: Thanks, Father. I feel better now.

Father: That's why I'm here, Kathryn Jean. Now why don't you run home to your mother and help her make supper. That will give you time to rest your brain a little.

K-Lo: Oh, my brain's not tired at all, Father. But I will do what you say. Mama did mention something about needing a little help around the house, but I thought she was just talking to the maid. How can a person think of chores when Christians are being hunted down in the streets?

Father: Remember Martha, Kathryn Jean, and go with God.

K-Lo: Yes, Father.

(pause)

Father: Kathryn Jean, you can't go with God unless you actually go.

K-Lo: Right, Father. (sigh) Onward, Christian Soldiers! Father, if I am a Christian soldier does that mean I can buy---.

Father: No.

K-Lo: Just a little--

Father: No, Kathryn Jean. No guns.

K-Lo: Yes, Father. Oh, Father, I think you better talk to that little girl outside the door. She's telling her Mama that I have a gun and I'm threatening to use it.

Father: Oh dear God. (exits rapidly)

K-Lo: Why does this kind of thing always happen to me?

K-Lo Tweets: The Elmer Gantry Edition

Kathryn Jean Lopez is twittering the Glenn Beck rally, and evidently hasn't felt so...uplifted since Miss Carrie Prejean publicly declared her support for denying Americans their civil right to wed.

beck: "we must not get lost in politics"
2 minutes ago via web .

beck embraces churches, temples, mosques "not preaching hate or division"
2 minutes ago via web .

"we learn from the past and ask for redemption... we have today to make a difference"
5 minutes ago via web .

glenn beck looks to inspire an eight year old in the crowd to be the new george washington or martin luther king jr.
5 minutes ago via web .

while rallying people on politics -- real threats to freedom and founding principles -- beck focuses on the fact politics ain't everything
6 minutes ago via web .

"we can disagree on politics. we can disagree on so much ... what we do agree on is God is the answer"
7 minutes ago via web .

beck rally is a mixture of religious revival, campaign rally, & 4th of july country music concert. it's pretty american, in other words.
12 minutes ago via web .

beck rally is exactly the mood americans need to be in approaching nov. well, and right now, the next minute, and the morning after ED too.
13 minutes ago via web .

"the storm that is coming is not just an american storm but a human storm." america "must be prepared" to be the shelter in the storm again
15 minutes ago via web .

beck: the truth will make you miserable first, but then it will set you free.
16 minutes ago via web .

beck on "our sacred honor": "it means there are no lies in your life ..."
16 minutes ago via web ...."

In America, we demonstrate for LESS."
18 minutes ago via web .

reader quotes ralphreed on this rally from tv: "In Greece, they take to the streets and demonstrate for MORE Government handouts..."
18 minutes ago via web .

(sounds like rep jim jordan & others wanting to do crazy things like balance the budget.)
19 minutes ago via web .beck on this moment, now:

"one generation must sacrifice for the next"
20 minutes ago via web .

beck's all about sacrifice.
20 minutes ago via web .

beck's all about reliance on divine providence.
20 minutes ago via web .

beck on "we the people": " do you think they were using the wrong side font? That was code! They knew we would forget!"
22 minutes ago via web .

find out what you really truly believe. it's the only way you can have firm reliance on it.
24 minutes ago via web .

never let your prayin' knees get lazy
25 minutes ago via web .

he sounds like a brice lee song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TyRjYBC5BU
26 minutes ago via web .

beck talks about the importance of prayer... and adults letting children see its importance in their modelling
27 minutes ago via web .

repchaffetz was on fnc talking faith, hope and charity a few ago. seem to be beck talking points for the day. he got them from another Guy.
27 minutes ago via web .

likens americans to apostles asleep at gethsemane
30 minutes ago via web .

glenn beck likens himself to the guy on the titanic who saw the iceberg and pointed it out to the ship
31 minutes ago via web .

"the poorest among us are some of the richest in the world" glenn beck, sounding like robert recter
36 minutes ago via web .

cnn views this as a foxnews rally on the mall, doesn't it?

I very seriously doubt that K-Lo knows Beck's Mormonism doesn't believe in the Holy Trinity. They believe that Jesus actually was a separate and distinct person. That is not Christian theology, of course. Not that she will care.

K-Lo Tweets

Kathryn Jean Lopez, that endless source of entertainment:

was it something i said? after coming on to shania twain, my lead out on www.bennettmornings right now was gregorian chant
about 1 hour ago via web

Oh, K-Lo. First comes the sinning, then the praying. But don't keep us in suspense; did Twain turn you down?

K-Lo Tweets

Why do I hear f-u within seconds of stepping onto nyc ground nearly everytime? It's not the welcome home I yearn for.
about 1 hour ago via mobile web

Because New Yorkers don't like it when you hold them up so you can bless the turnstile.

The League Of Extraordinary Bloggers: The Replacement

Cross-Posted at TBogg's place.
This is part six of a continuing series about the famous Bloggers who fight for truth, justice, and American Exceptionalism.–the Author

In a Secret Location, a Meeting of Diabolical Minds takes place. It is the League of Extraordinary Bloggers, each a hero (or a heroine or a Coulter) in his (or hers, or Coulter’s) own sphere. They are:

Col. Glenn Reynolds—famous defender of guns, wherever they are needed to fight the Brown Menace.

Michelle Malkin—a creature of the night, with an insatiable thirst for blood under her modest, cheerleader-clad façade.

Jonah Goldberg—A barefoot man-boy with cheek, famous for being so lazy he got his research assistant to paint his fence.

Megan McArdle–a woman of mystery, of disguise, of charm, which hides an unscrupulous and greedy heart.

Ann Althouse—A respectable professor who digs deep into the evil aspects of her psyche when she drink an experimental potion know as “Merlot.”

Part I: The Adventure Begins
Part II: A Fresh Face
Part III: And The Band Played On
Part IV: Strange Bedfellows
Part V: The NRO Cruise: Voyage To Nowhere

Part VI: The Replacement

Reynolds: Okay, bloggers, pull yourselves together. Ann, stop playing with your lei. Goldberg, stop touching the waitress’s skirt.

Goldberg: I’d mow her grass anytime.

Reynolds: Don’t piss me off, Goldberg. Malkin, sit down. When I said fly to Hawaii, I meant take a plane.

Malkin: I have a lot of expenses, Glenn. Fresh blood isn’t cheap. God, are my arms tired. Why did we have to meet in here?

Reynolds: McArdle’s here on her honeymoon and I was under strict orders to include her in the meeting.

Althouse: We have a new leader! What a relief! Karl’s been gone so long and I don’t like that black man at all. He’s so vague and grandiose and socialist. Who’s giving us instructions now, Glenn?

Reynolds: I can’t tell you. (Reynolds giggles but pulls himself together.) Karl wants you to meet his replacement at the Big Island restaurant at 8 p.m.

Goldberg: Waitress!

Reynolds: Goldberg, you haven’t touched your drink. Leave her alone. What’s keeping McArdle?

Goldberg: Duh. She’s on her honeymoon. She’s watching cartoons and drinking everything in the mini-bar.

Malkin: Remind me to send Jessica a condolence card. You’re awfully nervous, Glenn.

Reynolds: No I’m not. I’m sitting her very casually, waiting for the new boss to arrive. Where the hell is McArdle, dammit?

McArdle: Is somebody talking about me?

Reynolds: Hurry up and get over here before the big boss arrives. I want to make a good impression. Oh, and congratulations.

McArdle: Thank you, Glenn. It’s nice to see somebody cares about my Big Event. It’s not like my wedding party did. They spent the entire wedding Twittering each other instead of looking at me.

Reynolds: McArdle–.

McArdle: This is my day, not theirs. I didn’t pay the caterer $100 a head so they could have twitter-fights and throw dinner rolls from one table to another. Plus I had to sneak away from my beloved husband who I miss so much.

Reynolds: Shut up! She’s here! I can’t believe it!

Reynolds giggles and squirms in his seat but quickly recovers. He smooths down his hair and brushes a speck of dirt off his browncoat. A woman slips through the crowded bar and into a seat next to Reynolds. She takes off her wig and glasses and tosses them to the floor. It is Sarah Palin!

Reynolds: Oh, Miss Palin, this is such an honor! We can’t wait to follow your every command. I promise we are well trained and know how to please a woman. A boss woman. A woman who is our boss, and a woman. And a boss.

Althouse: Mrs. Palin, I’m Ann Althouse. I’m a law professor.

Palin: Can you practice law in Alaska? I can always use a good lawyer.

Althouse: Uh, no. I teach.

Palin: Hate teachers. Teachers have unions and want to destroy young minds and call the police on young people who are just high-spirited and didn’t mean to do so much damage. Alleged damage. (To Malkin) Waitress!

Malkin: Mrs. Palin, I’m–

Palin: That’s nice honey. You can get my autograph some other time. Now run over to that bar and get me a little drinkie.

Malkin:—Michelle Malkin, Extraordinary Blogger and Fox News contributor, and not your waitress. And it seems you’ve already had a few drinks.

Goldberg: She has heightened senses. It’s so cool. I’m Jonah Goldberg. I wrote a New York Times best-selling book that was nominated for a Pulitzer.

Palin: Books are for sissies. Col. Reynolds, your orders are to use the British Petroleum oil spill to prove Barack Hussein Obama is a loser. Reynolds, you have the hardest job. I need you to take out one of Obama’s goons. Do you have a gun?

Reynolds: I have many guns, Mrs. Palin and I’m honored to shoot someone for you. I could use my big gun or my really big gun or my special Sunday gun with the mother-of-pearl stock. I have knives too if you want me to kill the Brown Menace with a knife. Also, my boot is very heavy and if you want I can–

Palin: Just shoot him, okey-dokey? Here’s his picture.

Reynolds and Malkin look at the picture.

Malkin: The Brown Menace looks exactly like that guy who moved in next door to you, the writer, what’s his name?

Reynolds: Shut up, Malkin. He’s a dead man, Mrs. Palin, you can count on me.

McArdle: Since Glenn has totally forgotten his manners, let me introduce myself. I am Mrs. Peter Suderman and I write for the famous magazine The Atlantic on economic issues. I’m on my honeymoon but we Extraordinary Bloggers are always ready to serve in a time of need.

Palin: Your honeymoon? That sure as shootin’ brings back memories. And congratulations about the baby. Better late than never, huh?

McArdle: (huffily) I’m not pregnant. What kind of person do you think I am?

Palin: Now, don’t get up on your high horse, missy. It’s no shame for people like us.

McArdle: I am not pregnant! I’m an economics blogger!

Palin: Great, than you can examine these BP spreadsheets and fill out this paperwork. It’s research for our mission. Mail it to this address by the end of the day. (She hands an envelope to McArdle.)

McArdle: Very well. Wait a second. This isn’t figures from British Petroleum. Travel and clothing expenses, W4 forms–these are your taxes!

Palin: Nonsense. Get crackin’, honey, those forms aren’t going to fill themselves out. And make sure you postmark it by midnight.

McArdle: Now just a damn minute. I’m on my honeymoon!

Palin: We all have to make sacrifice for our country. Do you think it was easy quitting my governor job? Where’s your patriotism? Your stick-to-it-tiveness? Your country needs you!

Malkin: Mrs. Palin–

Palin: You still here? Lord, these little Hawaiian people give me the creeps. Hardly a white face from one part of the country to another. Okay, hon, you can write our press release on Obama’s socialist plot to take over BP and redistribute its money to the poor.

Malkin: Fine, just give me the outline. (Malkin scans it quickly and then looks up at Palin.)

Malkin: You want me to update your Facebook page? I don’t ghost-write other people’s work. Doesn’t your husband do this for you?

Palin: Don’t be silly, native girl, schoolbook learnin’ is for children and my Todd is a real man, the kind that loves to hunt and fish and carry out orders to remove your enemies.

Malin: Then why don’t you have him take out—

Palin: Drinkie, sweetie. The day ain’t getting any younger. Fetch.

Malkin bares her fangs and starts to growl.

Reynolds: (hastily) Malkin, you can go now.

Malkin: I bet she tastes like bear grease and failed ambition anyway. (Malkin stalks away.)

Palin: Okay, Grandma, it’s your turn.

The bloggers look around the restaurant. Palin points a long, red fingernail at Althouse.

Althouse: Me? I don’t mind getting you a drink, Mrs. Palin. I know a very special concoction that will make your toes tingle.

Palin: No drinks for you-you’re going to need your wits about you, Grandma. Since Obama’s kids are helping him in his socialist take-over of BP, we have a couple of our own little kiddies to fight back. Your job is to assist them.

Althouse: You want me to introduce them to audiences? Write their little speeches?

Palin: Yeah, yeah. Here’s their pictures.

Althouse: Um, Mrs. Palin, I don’t have any experience with special needs children. Surely his mother would rather be with him if he’s going to be surrounded by strangers?

Palin: Some mothers are busy, alright? They have responsibilities. And their stupid mothers have to take a cruise just because her doctor said she’s exhausted and needs some rest, instead of helpin’ her children like Jesus commanded.

Goldberg: Isn’t that your kid?

Althouse: This is Trigg and Track?

Reynolds: You mean Trogg and Trigg.

Goldberg: I think they’re Trip and Trap.

Palin: Whatever.

Althouse: What about Bristol?

Palin: Teen abstinance lecture. That poor girl pays and pays and pays for her sin. Oh, that reminds me–I haven’t taken my cut yet. Take a note, Honeymoon Girl. Now, which one of you is the Jew?

Reynolds: (points to Goldberg) He is, Mrs. Palin, but I’d be glad to convert if you want. I wouldn’t have to cut anything off, would I?

Palin: (to Goldberg) I have a very special relationship with your people. The only flag in my office is an Israeli flag. I just can’t wait until Jesus returns and wipes you all off the map so Christians can be Raptured. Your assignment is to read all about the history of BP and fill out this research material.

Goldberg: This is a bunch of questions about the history of Alaska. And it has “Piper Palin” written on the name line. And it was due yesterday.

Palin: Your people are so smart, I’m sure you can do it in no time. You have an hour. Piper’s ballet lesson’ll be over then.

Goldberg: I can’t. My research assistant is busy working on my book about cliches.

Palin: Do you want to serve your country or not?

Goldberg: Not if I have to do your daughter’s homework. I have to run, anyway. I have to go to the movies and write a review. For my job. And I have to interview some dancers in the women’s dressing room. I hear some of them belong to a union and I need to talk to them about freedom and the free market. And then I need to take my daughter to the new Harry Potter theme park. For my job.

Reynolds pulls his gun from its holster and points in in Goldberg’s face.

Goldberg: (hastily) I’ll pull my assistant off the book right away.

Reynolds: Good. Anything else, Mrs. Palin?

Palin: Yeah. What the hell is that?

Palin points to a small woman in a nun’s habit and veil making her way to the table.

Reynolds: Oh, Jesus. Quick, eveyone, under the table!

The League and Palin duck under the tablecloth.

Palin: You wanna explain yourself, Col.?

Reynolds: Shhhhh!

“Nun’s” voice: Glennie, is that you?

Palin: That nun is lookin’ for you Glenn. Stop hidin’ and act like a man.

Reynolds’ face turns red and he comes out from under the table. The rest of the League stays where they are.

Reynolds: K-Lo. What are you doing here and why are dressed up like a penguin?

K-Lo: Hi, Glenn! I thought that since Megan was on her honeymoon I could take her place in The League of Extraordinary Bloggers’ latest adventure. I’m in disguise so nobody knows my real identity.

Palin appears from under the table. K-Lo stiffens with shock. Her eyes widen and her mouth slowly opens. She sinks to her knees.

K-Lo: Mrs.–

Palin: What’s that, honey?

K-Lo: Mrs.—

Palin: You got a stutter, honey?

K-Lo makes the sign of the cross and rises.

K-Lo: Oh, Mrs. Palin! God has answered my prayers at last! Well, one of my prayers, but that’s one more prayer than he’s ever answered before!

K-Lo bends over and kisses Palin’s wedding ring.

Palin: Take it easy, girlie, you’re getting spit on my diamond.

K-Lo shudders in esctasy.

K-Lo: Oh, Mrs. Palin! Can I do anything for you, Mrs. Palin? Would you like a drink? A massage? A kidney, one that’s never tasted the demon rum? Is your chair comfortable? Do you need a pillow? I can be a footrest if you want. See, I’ll just bend over and—.

Palin: Col., I don’t think you and your Bloggers will be needed after all. Come with me, little nun. I think we’re going to be very good friends.

Palin hands her wig, sunglasses, purse, and sweater to K-Lo and departs. K-Lo caresses the sweater furtively and follows.

Reynolds: She’s gone.

The other bloggers sit back in their seats.

Reynolds: She’s gone, and I don’t know if she’s ever coming back.

Goldberg: They’re both gone, hopefully for good. I never thought I’d see the day when K-Lo found her true calllng. I was sure she’d end up in the loony bin.

Reynolds: Enough chit-chat. Mrs. Palin needs us. Let’s get crackin’, bloggers.

Goldberg: Sure thing, Glenn. Right after lunch.

K-Lo Goes To Confession: Mission Improbable

K-Lo: (in a fake southern accent) Bless me, Father, for ah have sinned. It's been six days since mah last confession at an undisclosed location far, far away from Florida, where I, a wandering stranger, did not go this weekend, cross mah heart and hope to die.

Father: Kathryn Jean, is that you?

K-Lo: Oh, fudge stripes. What gave me away, Father?

Father: It was a wild guess.

K-Lo: That's very impressive. It reminds me of the gypsy fortune teller that Mama wouldn't let me visit because she would have drawn me into her dark web of occult terror, and I would end up a bride of Satan instead of a bride of Mitt. Not that I know anything about brides. Or weddings. Or go to weddings, except when I have an invitation. Which I always have.

Father: Kathryn Jean, I suspect you have something to confess.

K-Lo: Father, I stole a candy bar. I felt jealousy and envy and I'm not sure but I think I had some impure thoughts. I stole a detonator. I lied about my age. I snuck over a subway turnstile. I threw a peacock at a security guard. I--

Father: Kathryn Jean, back up a little bit. What did you do?

K-Lo: I snuck over a subway turnstile.

Father: Before that.

K-Lo: I lied about my age?

Father: Before that.

K-Lo: I had impure thoughts?

Father: Kathryn Jean!

K-Lo: I stole a detonator, Father, but it was for a very, very good reason. I, uh, wanted to, uh, help a friend set off some fireworks.

Father: Fireworks don't have detonators, Kathryn Jean.

K-Lo: These were very special fireworks, Father, made in communist China where they also hate our freedoms, especially the freedom of the Free Market. Also they like the color red a lot although I'm not sure why.

Father: Kathryn Jean, you are coming dangerously close to lying in confession.

K-Lo: (sigh) Your Jesuit logic is too strong for me, Father.

Father: Actually, I'm not---.

K-Lo: Now, don't be modest, Father. I knew you'd see through me eventually. I wanted to set off a little celebratory explosion at the wedding of a friend. An acquaintance. Okay, a man who blocks my e-mails and once drew a mustache on my program picture at the Young Republican fundraising dinner. Mr. Rush "Talent On Loan From God" Limbaugh.

Father: Yes, I received a chain e-mail asking me to pray for him and his new bride. Now, what was her name?

K-Lo: The Whore?

Father: Kathryn Jean! I'm ashamed of you!

K-Lo: Did you see her blond hair? I've seen more natural-looking hair on my Barbies. And that engagement ring was just tacky. Did you see the way she waved it around? And that jaw-the last time I saw a jaw like hers was when my cousin invited me to go horseback riding with her. And she bosses him around all the time--all the tabloids say so. "Kathryn put Rush on a diet" and "Kathryn is wearing a huge diamond" and Kathryn this and Kathryn that. Her name is Kathryn too! I was so close!

Father: Kathryn Jean, I notice you are avoiding the subject of detonators. It's time to confess, young lady.

K-Lo: Well, you know that this is "Rushbo's" fourth marriage, and it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of his eternal soul that he find a nice girl and settle down and have kids, like he says he always wanted to.

Father: Yeeeees....

K-Lo: But she doesn't love him, Father, I can tell. She doesn't want to have his babies and light his cigars and fetch his slippers, like Mama does for Daddy, except for the cigars because Daddy doesn't smoke.

Father: Detonator, Kathryn Jean?

K-Lo: It was my moral duty to try to save him, Father. So I slipped away from Nanny by jumping--okay, falling--over a turnstile. Boy, was she mad! Then I hid in the baggage compartment of the train to Florida. I didn't have anything to eat the entire time so I stole a candy bar from a lady's suitcase. I took a taxi to the Breakers and distracted a security guard by throwing a peacock at him, for which I am heartily sorry, so help me God. He screamed at me, Father! It was scary!

Father: The peacock?

K-Lo: The security guard. The peacock pecked his eyes.

Father: Oh, Kathryn Jean. Please finish. Quickly.

K-Lo: I snuck into the Bridal Suite and took out the bomb I made with common household chemicals using directions I found on the internet. That's when I had the impure thoughts. The marriage bed was so pretty, Father. It had lace and was covered with white rose petals and glittery confetti and these little tiny candies in a dish on the table next to the bed. I stole some of those too, Father; I didn't want to but I was so hungry and everything smelled like roasted pork and my tummy was growling so loud I thought a maid would find me.

Father: (dryly) God forbid.

K-Lo: Exactly! But I didn't leave the bomb, Father. I just couldn't do it.

Father: The maid?

K-Lo: Two security guards. They were sweeping the room for microphones and itty bitty cameras. I was afraid they'd find the bomb so I wrapped a towel around my head and another around my waist like an apron and pretended I was cleaning the bathroom. I grabbed the bomb but they caught me and I can't remember what happened after that.

Father: Good Heavens, Kathryn Jean! Did they render you unconscious?

K-Lo: I have no idea what happened, Father! I started feeling kind of woozy right after I ate those little candies and I think I passed out. One minute they were grabbing me and talking into their little ear telephones and the next minute I was waking up and they were on the floor, bleeding. Do you think Jesus smote them for me, Father, since I was on a Mission from God? Or maybe I have secret ninja skills that only come out under national emergencies, like Jonah Goldberg has.

Father: Kathryn Jean, I think he was pulling your leg. So you escaped and decided to visit your parents in New York for a while?

K-Lo: I'm laying low, Father, until the heat dies down. I changed my appearance and my voice and I am on the run at Mama and Daddy's apartment. They said I could hide out as long as I wanted. I'm afraid Rush's soul is on its own, which is no more than he deserves for not valuing the love of a good woman over the wiggling bee-hind of a bad one.

Father: Kathryn Jean, say the rosary every day of the week and I hope you've learned your lesson for a while.

K-Lo: Don't fall for men who hire gay-married gay men to be their wedding singers?

Father: No---.

K-Lo: Don't fall for men who marry women younger than you are even though you really aren't that old and are in your reproductive prime?

Father: (firmly) No.

K-Lo: Don't fall for a married man or a man with multiple wives?

Father: Bingo!

K-Lo: Did I win something, Father?

Father: Never mind, Kathryn Jean. Just say your rosaries like a good girl and stay away from weddings.

K-Lo: (bitterly) You don't have to worry about that, Father.

Father: Amen!

K-Lo Goes To Confession: The Flu Is At The Door

K-Lo: Bless me Father (cough) for I have (cough cough) sinned. It's been ten (cough) hours since my last (coughcoughcoughcough)----.

Father: Kathryn Jean, are you alright? Would you like a glass of water? Maybe you shouldn't have come to confession.

K-Lo: (Cough) I had to go to church to pray to get well anyway (cough), Father. (cough) I have the flu and my chest really hurts and I feel woozy and I keep thinking I'm seeing "Mittens" but it's just the doorman. (cough) Who really doesn't like it when you run your fingers through his hair. (cough)

Father: Kathryn Jean, you should go home right now and have your mother call the doctor. God will understand if you miss confession today.

K-Lo: I can't go to the doctor, Father. Didn't you hear?

Father: Hear what?

K-Lo: (hisses) The Obamaination.

Father: The---?

K-Lo: Obama's (cough) health care plan.

Father: But what does the health care plan have to do with going to the doctor, Kathryn Jean?

K-Lo: I can't go to the doctor because Obamacare kills people, Father. They make you wait for days at the doctor's office and then the computer tells you that it can't afford to pay for your medicine because it has to pay for illegal aliens' health care instead. (cough)

Father: Many illegal aliens are good Catholics and the future life blood of the Church, Kathryn Jean. It is both our duty and our privilege to follow Jesus' example and help the poor and suffering.

K-Lo: I thought blessed are the poor means that the poor are lucky to be poor?

Father: No, Kathryn Jean, we've had this discussion before. Poverty is bad because it makes people suffer.

K-Lo: But I thought that suffering was (cough) good because it makes you more like Jesus?

Father: Jesus died to end suffering, Kathryn Jean. He taught us to serve God by helping our fellow man, for we all all God's children. Each act of kindness is an act of worship.

K-Lo: That's what I said. People should suffer so they will be like Jesus and be good.

Father: Kathryn Jean, have you been talking to Mr. Douthat again? I'm sure he's a fine Christian man but his theology can be a little confused.

K-Lo: No, Father, (cough) I promised his wife I'd stop calling and I kept my word. I just print out his articles and post them in my scrapbook that I decorated myself. Would you like (cough) me to bring it next time? It's not as big as my (cough) "Mittens" scrapbook but I finally got to use my glow-in-the-dark (cough) Our Lady of Guadalupe stickers and they look so pretty.

Father: Kathryn Jean, I know a very nice young lady doctor who will be happy to take care of you, and I know for a fact that she's a Republican doctor, not a socialist doctor.

K-Lo: But what about abortion, Father? Obama is killing little innocent babies by (cough) forcing their mothers to have socialist abortions that we pay for.

Father: Kathryn Jean, while I have many problems with an institutional bureaucracy telling people what they can do with their bodies and making their health care decisions for them, the government is not trying to force people to have abortions.

K-Lo: It kills old people by dropping death panels on them.

Father: Kathryn Jean, does that even make sense?

K-Lo: It kills new drugs because liberals hate money and want all the drug companies to die so the (cough) government can make socialist drugs instead, that won't work because they're always on strike.

Father: I don't' think----.

K-Lo: Father, I think the statue of Mary over there winked at me.

Father: Kathryn Jean, go home at once. I'll call you a cab.

K-Lo: But---.

Father: (firmly) Now.

K-Lo: Okay, Father, but only because Mary told me to. She wants me to be able to go ice fishing with her next week. (Yelling hoarsely) I'll do it, Most Holy Mother! I'll see the doctor and he'll heal me through your Loving Grace! You betcha!

The League of Extraordinary Bloggers: Goin' Galt At Last

In a Secret Location, a Meeting of Diabolical Minds takes place. It is the League of Extraordinary Bloggers, each a hero (or a heroine or a Coulter) in his (or hers, or Coulter's) own sphere. They are:

Col. Glenn Reynolds—famous defender of guns, wherever they are needed to fight the Brown Menace.

Michelle Malkin—a creature of the night, with an insatiable thirst for blood under her modest, cheerleader-clad façade.

Jonah Goldberg—A barefoot man-boy with cheek, famous for being so lazy he got his research assistant to paint his fence.

Megan McArdle--a woman of mystery, of disguise, of charm, which hides an unscrupulous and greedy heart.

Ann Althouse—A respectable professor who digs deep into the evil aspects of her psyche when she drink an experimental potion know as “Merlot.”

Part I: The Adventure Begins
Part II: A Fresh Face
Part III: And The Band Played On
Part IV: Strange Bedfellows
Part V: The NRO Cruise: Voyage To Nowhere

Part VI: Goin' Galt At Last

Reynolds: Is everyone here? Good God, what a storm. If it weren't for my steampunk snowplow I'd still be stuck in Virginia. How did you get here, Malkin?

Malkin: I flew. It was easy once my eyes started glowing red.

McArdle: We should have been able to just drive here instead of getting a police escort. I blame the government for not taking better care of me when I needed them and when everyone else got to go to the Mediterranean on Spring Break and I had to go visit Aunt Bessie and her pet cow Daisy on the farm. Or was it the cow who was named Aunt Bessie? We pay our hard-earned money on taxes for services and where are the services?

Goldberg: We shouldn't be paying any taxes at all!

All: Yeah!

Althouse: And we shouldn't get any services either! We should all clear our own roads!

McArdle: Not so fast, Ann. I have no problem with privilege. Why should I clean my own house or cook my own meals or research my own columns when I can pay someone else to do it for me or not do it at all? It's a much more efficient allocation of resources. Plus work is hard.

Goldberg: Very well said, Megan. I tell my wife that all the time but she never listens to me just because she has more degrees than me.

Malkin: You upper class twits are helpless.

Goldberg: Not everyone has a stay-at-home husband to cook and clean for them.

Malkin: Your wife seems to-she's the lawyer; you blog in your "home office." Also known as "the den."

Goldberg: I work out of the home and office, I'm not a housewife! I'm writing a book and that proves it! I got a million dollars for my second book!

McArdle: What?

Goldberg: I got a million dollars to write a book about how cliches are stupid.

Malkin: Let me guess--your next book will be about how men who speak Klingon are just little boys who never grew up.

Goldberg: I'm an intellectual now, Malkin, so you better be nicer to me or I'll tell O'Reilly to stop putting you on tv. Oh wait, he already did.

Malkin's fangs pop out.

Althouse: Look out Jonah, she's starting to drool, just like when she almost ate Fluffy.

Goldberg giggles.

McArdle: God, you are so jejean, Jonah.

Reynolds: It's jejune.

McArdle: How the hell do you know, Glenn?

Althouse: Helen says it to him all the time. Then she makes him call her Mother Superior.

Reynolds: Gorram it, Ann, the first rule of Dr. Helen's Pleasure House of Pain is to never talk about Dr. Helen's Pleasure House of Pain. That's it--no more Merlot for you.

Althouse: (tosses her head) Fine, I have my own anyway.

Althouse pulls out a flask and takes a dainty swig.

McArdle: Shut up, Ann, and let Jonah talk. How did you get this book contract anyway, Jonah?

Malkin: His mother is a literary agent.

Goldberg: That had nothing to do with it. My reputation preceded me--

Malkin: (interrupts) Much like your stomach.

Goldberg--and everyone begged me to share my insights with my fellow intellectuals. They're making documentaries about me already.

McArdle: Eww, Peter made me watch that with him. It was stupid. Why couldn't we have watched Hoarders instead? I saw this tv show once where a woman filled a warehouse with her possessions. There were shoes and purses and kitchen appliances and electronic equipment and clothes and oh my God, they were everywhere I looked, heaps and piles and mountains of things that prove the superiority of the American Way of Life and our glorious consumer culture and yummy free markets and--and--.

Malkin slaps her.

McArdle sways and ignores the slap.

McArdle: Is it hot in here or is it just me?

Goldberg: Slap her again, Malkin, that was fun.

Malkin slaps Goldberg.

Goldberg: Why, you--I oughta--.

Malkin pokes him in the eye.

Goldberg: Stop it Malkin! That's not funny!

Malkin: I think it's hilarious. What are you going to do, Goldberg, tell your mommy on me?

Goldberg: Leave my wife out of this.

The women snicker.

Reynolds: Enough, enough, we're not here to beat up Jonah, unfortunately. We have a mission to accomplish.

Malkin: Speak for yourself, Reynolds.

Reynolds: WE ARE HERE to coordinate our response to the Snowpocalypse of the Century. My orders are to--

McArdle: By the way, Glenn, who is giving us orders now that Karl has retired to spend more time with his collection of bastinadas?

Reynolds: That's a secret.

McArdle: Come on, tell us. I won't tell anyone else. I deserve to know if I'm going to lead our nation to a new era of fiscal freedom and consumer-based individualism.

Althouse: I don't understand, Megan.

Malkin: Don't worry, neither does she.

McArdle: I went to the top, most expensive schools in the country, Michelle. Where did you go, a state school?

Malkin: I went to Oberlin, you idiot.

McArdle: Where did you go to school, Glenn?

Reynolds: SHUT UP!

Malkin whispers to McArdle. McArdle giggles.

McArdle: How sweet.

Reynolds reaches for his blaster but Malkin grabs his hand.

Malkin: The mission?

Reynolds: Right. Jonah, your mission is to---okay, what the hell happened to Jonah? He was here a minute ago.

K-lo: Look no further than I, Glennie--I mean Col. Reynolds!

Everyone turns around and sees K-Lo, dressed in a pith helmet, khaki skirt and jacket, and Pink Power Rangers quilted coat, holding a knife to Jonah's throat.

Jonah (croaks) K-Lo, let me go or I'll tell everyone what you begged me to do at the office party.

Malkin: Nobody move! He still owes me fifty bucks!

Reynolds: Calm down, K-Lo. Let H. R. Puffnstuff go.

Goldberg: Oh yeah? At least I'm not Jimmie, the magic flute!

Reynolds: Go ahead and cut his throat, K-Lo.

Althouse: Glenn! How will that look in The New York Times?

K-Lo: You guys, it's my turn to talk now. I hereby demand in the name of Pirate Law that you take this ship to Haiti so we can save the poor Haitites from their heathen gods, who are destroying the island in their wrath.

Malkin: K-Lo, you dolt, we are thirty feet under the ladies' washroom in the Lincoln Monument in Washington D.C. How did you even get here?

K-Lo: I'll have you know I got here entirely on my own, after Nanny dropped me off at the entrance and that nice young soldier walked me to the other entrance. Jonah was just coming out so I grabbed him and now you have to listen to me or I'll torture him, just like in my favorite tv show, "24," starring Kiefer Sutherland. I know how to torture because I practiced on Fluffy.

Althouse: You tortured your adorable little dog? That is so mean! And illegal, I think.

K-Lo: It's okay, Ann, I was just pretending. Fluffy was just yelping because I pinched his leg a little to make it more realistic. Mama took away my teeny little home-made electric brain frying machine.

Goldberg: (weakly) What the hell?

K-Lo: I made it with a lamp, magnets, some wire, and the little clips we use to keep the pretzel bags closed.

Malkin: I'm impressed.

McArdle: I'm not going to Haiti for my honeymoon, K-Lo. Forget it. Go ahead and kill Jonah.

Goldberg: Hey! What about my million dollar advance?

McArdle: It's not mine, is it?

Reynolds: K-Lo, I'm afraid to ask but why do you want to go to Haiti?

K-Lo: We have to rescue the heathen children from eternal damnation. Right now the Haiti-tian government is denying us our religious freedom to kidnap other people's' children when their country is hit by a natural disaster. If God didn't want them to convert, He wouldn't have destroyed their country, would he?

Goldberg: That's not a bad idea.

K-Lo: Oh, Jonah! Do you really think so or are you just saying that?

Goldberg: It would be a perfect time to create a libertarian utopia. No rules, nobody telling you what to do or what to wear, or to sit up straight and do your homework. God, I hate my wife. I mean my life.

K-Lo: Great!

K-Lo releases Jonah, who slowly backs away from her and stands behind Reynolds.

K-Lo: Now all we need is a boat and Nanny and we'll be all set to rescue orphans and establish free market capitalism! Megan, do you want to be in charge of all the money?

McArdle: Why, K-Lo, how magnanimous of you. I was just saying to Jonah that I wanted to be better friends--wait a second.

Reynolds: K-Lo, I just sent a message on my Blackberry to my Secret Boss, who promises to have a ship waiting for you by the time you get to the harbor. Now be a good girl and take charge of your new Pirate Vessel, while we all go home and hug our kids and kiss our wives good-bye.

K-Lo: Sure thing, Glenn. I know how hard it is to leave loved ones behind. I left Mama and Daddy behind in New York when I moved to DC. See you soon, everyone!

K-Lo leaves.

Althouse: I don't want to go to Haiti. I like to take pictures of reflections in mirrors and windows and all the glass in Haiti is broken. If you can't look into a mirror and see yourself, how do you know you're really there? Maybe you're the reflection and the real person is in the mirror. Maybe the person in the mirror is much happier than you are and has sex with famous politicians and gets her picture taken by other people instead of just taking pictures of herself taking pictures of herself taking---.

Reynolds: (interrupts) Go home, Ann. We don't need you for this mission anyway.

Althouse weaves her way to the exit.

McArdle: I don't want to go to Haiti either.

Reynolds: WE ARE NOT GOING TO HAITI!

Goldberg: Jesus, Glenn, you don't have to yell.

Reynolds: Goldberg, you complain that the city didn't fix your lights fast enough. McArdle, you figure out how much money the government wasted by paying people overtime to fix the lights they should have fixed themselves.

McArdle: Figure?

Reynolds: You, know, do the math.

McArdle: Math?

Reynolds: (hopefully) You remember, don't you, Megan? Two times three? The square root of the hypotenuse is something or other?

McArdle: It wasn't fashionable at my school to learn how to do math, Glenn. Everyone knows that.

Malkin: That explains a lot.

Reynolds: Just make something up.

McArdle: Say no more, old chap. I can take it from there.

Reynolds: Malkin, you continue pushing those tea parties. I know by the time you're done with them, they'll be primed to hang the first non-white person they see.

Malkin: Consider it done.

Malkin changes into a bat and flies towards the exit.

Reynolds takes out his cell phone and punches in a number.

Reynolds: They're gone. Send in The Boss.

A glow of unearthly light slowly fills the corridor. A woman's form approaches, radiating in the growing light. She sways slightly as her four-inch high heels slide on the slick floor. The apparition finally steps forward into the room. It is----Sarah Palin!

Reynolds: Sarah!

Reynolds kneels before her. Palin smiles beneficently on Reynolds.

Palin: You betcha!

THE END

K-Lo Goes To Confession

K-Lo: Bless me, Father for I have sinned. It's been two days since my last confession. Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for the horrible meanies who say all those horrible things about Mrs. Ex-Governor Palin. They make me sick. Levi Johnson probably isn't even Catholic. Just look at his name! Is Levi a Catholic name? No, it is not. Levi Johnson is making baby Jesus cry, I just know it. And not a little whimper, either, a big fat crying, like lots of angry babies--.

Father: Kathryn Jean, please, calm yourself. You know how much People upsets you, maybe you should---.

K-Lo: It was Vanity Fair and it was for work, Father, I promise. Our future First Lady President is under attack and I had to defend her. She was nursing a viper at her breast, Father, feeding him the milk of human kindness ,and he threw up the barf of disloyalty all over her.

Father: Kathryn Jean, please---.

K-Lo: Sorry, Father, I didn't mean to be vulgar. Hey, it's kind of convenient to sin in the confessional. You don't have to wait to unburden yourself and risk eternal damnation by getting hit by a bus before you go to Church.

Father: Speaking of sinning, Kathryn Jean, do you have anything else to confess?

K-Lo: I thought about taking a life, but just for a second, Father. Fortunately I carry Jesus in my heart at all times and He turned me away from hatred just in time. Although I don't think I'll get my deposit back at the gun shop, a punishment I gratefully accept for opening my heart to sin.

Father: Kathryn Jean, you may not have a gun.

K-Lo: But the socialists want to take away my freedoms!

Father: No.

K-Lo: I need a gun to defend my right to protect myself from liberals, Father. They eat people, just like that zombie movie I saw on tv when Mama and Daddy left me with a baby-sitter. Sure, it's just a finger today, but tomorrow it'll be brains and Jonah says I can't spare any.

Father: No.

K-Lo: But---.

Father: Kathryn Jean, no. No guns. God watches over us all, and He'll protect us from any zombie attacks, I promise.

K-Lo: True, it won't be His first zombie attack. Thanks, Father, I feel better. And I promise not to shoot Levi Johnson, even after he said that Sarah doesn't care about Baby Trigg. Of course she loves him, Father; she didn't have an abortion even though Obama told her to.

Father: Kathryn Jean, Obama did not tell her to---.

K-Lo:: I read it on the internet, Father, it has to be true.

Father: Try to look for the good, Kathryn Jean. And the truth, that would be good as well.

K-Lo: I am, Father. If it's true that Mrs. Palin doesn't really love Todd, maybe she'll move to Washington, District of Perversion, and we can be roomies. I'll bring her coffee and cokes and breakfast in bed every day if she wants. She likes people who are helpful and giving of their time.

Father: Kathryn Jean, say ten Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers. And for Heaven's sake, stay away from chainsaws.

K-Lo Goes To Confession

XIII: Advise and Consent

K-Lo: Bless me Father for I have sinned. It's been three days since I last went to confession in Washington, District of Columbia, or as I like to call it, Sodom-on-the-Potomac. I brought a note, Father, so you would know that I I'm not telling a lie.

Father: Welcome back, Kathryn Jean. I hope you are enjoying your new life in DC.

K-Lo: Yes, Father, and I have so much to tell you. I went on a cruise!

Father: Wonderful, Kathryn Jean. Was it a Christian singles cruise?

K-Lo: No, Father, it was the National Review cruise, where successful Republicans can meet with the Party's greatest minds and exchange ideas. I went as a pirate, though.

Father: Oh. That's too bad. So they had a costume ball?

K-Lo: No, Father, I found a crew and rented a power boat and took over the cruise ship with my trusty pirate lasses. But don't worry, I didn't break any laws because we were in international waters and nobody found out because the League stopped me.

Father: Pirate lasses? The League? What---? Never mind, Kathryn Jean, I'm just glad no police were involved this time. So, do you have a sin for me?

K-Lo: Kind of. Father, if you're thinking about sinning, can you go to confession first and then sin, or do you have to wait until afterwards to confess?

Father: Kathryn Jean, it is your responsibility to make the right choice. You must listen to God speak through your conscience and tell you what to do. (hastily) Which is to not sin.

K-Lo: I know, Father, but if someone says it's your duty to break the law, what do you do? If I break the law I'll commit a sin but if I don't break the law I commit a sin too. I'm so confused!

Father: Kathryn Jean, I thought you understood our last discussion about killing abortion doctors perfectly. You assured me that you understood it was morally wrong. You gave me your vow. And you signed a legal document.

K-Lo: No, no, Father, not that law. It's the law against selling your organs. Father, is it wrong to sell your organs?

Father: What? Kathryn Jean, is someone actually telling you to sell your organs? Are you sure you weren't very, very confu--I mean, they weren't talking about food? Maybe a waiter offered you steak and kidney pie?

K-Lo: No, Father, it was something Jonah said. He said that when they went on a cruise together, he and Megan McArdle discussed the libertarian argument for organ selling. Oh, that reminds me. Father, I committed the sins of envy and jealousy. Anyway, he said she was so smart and pretty and knew exactly what to say when some liberal wanted to destroy America's freedom to sell the body parts of the poor.

Father: Kathryn Jean, have you considered that your, uh, professional admiration of Jonah might be a little generous?

K-Lo: Oh, no Father, he has excellent credentials. He has a journalism degree and he's an expert on Hitler and fascism. Everybody I talk to says so. And if they don't, I just put my fingers in my ears and say "lalala" like I do whenever those commercials for male enhancement come on tv.

Father: But selling organs is abhorrent, Kathryn Jean. You mustn't listen---.

K-Lo: Father, Jonah said that Megan said that it was morally wrong to not sell organs. There are all those people dying for a transplant and those selfish poor people are keeping organs they don't even need and preventing the marketplace from being free and killing people who need organs now.

Father: Kathryn Jean, the Pope said that the logic of the marketplace cannot be applied to organ donation. That's a direct quote, young lady. He said there was too much potential for abuse, and the donation system fosters a climate of charity and love. No, there is no question here, Kathryn Jean. Organ selling is utterly immoral.

K-Lo: Father, my brain hurts.

Father: There, there, Kathryn Jean.

K-Lo: I don't understand, Father. Jonah is the leading expert on fascism and history alive today. David Brooks said that Megan McArdle is a brilliant economics blogger. They're all really, really smart--they say so all the time. They have to be right.

Father: They don't have to be right, Kathryn Jean. Just because they are in positions of authority doesn't mean they're right.

K-Lo: But the pope is an authority and he's always right.

Father: That's in religious thought, Kathryn Jean. It doesn't mean anyone in authority is right. Look at the president.

K-Lo: Oh! I get it now, Father!. Our authorities are right and anyone else's is wrong. Like all those silly Muslims and Protestants who think their God is the real God but are really wrong and don't know that our God is the real God.

Father: Technically they are all the same God, but let's not get distracted here, Kathryn Jean. Trust the pope, he has Divine Guidance.

K-Lo: Okay, Father. I won't sell anyone's organs. Or buy any. How about bodies? Jonah says that one day we'll be able to transplant our brains into better-looking bodies and he has first dibs on Chris Pine.

Father: We'll cross that Starfleet bridge when we come to it, Kathryn Jean. In the mean time, obey the law and say ten Our Fathers. And stay away from Jonah, at least for a while.

K-Lo: Thanks, Father. I feel much better now.

Father: I'm glad Kathryn Jean. At least someone does.

The League of Extraordinary Bloggers: The NRO Cruise: Voyage to Nowhere

In a Secret Location, a Meeting of Diabolical Minds takes place. It is the League of Extraordinary Bloggers, each a hero (or a heroine or a Coulter) in his (or hers, or Coulter's) own sphere. They are:

Col. Glenn Reynolds—famous defender of guns, wherever they are needed to fight the Brown Menace.

Michelle Malkin—a creature of the night, with an insatiable thirst for blood under her modest, cheerleader-clad façade.

Jonah Goldberg—A barefoot man-boy with cheek, famous for being so lazy he got his research assistant to paint his fence.

Megan McArdle--a woman of mystery, of disguise, of charm, which hides an unscrupulous and greedy heart.

Ann Althouse—A respectable professor who digs deep into the evil aspects of her psyche when she drink an experimental potion know as “Merlot.”

Part I: The Adventure Begins
Part II: A Fresh Face
Part III: And The Band Played On
Part IV: Strange Bedfellows


Part V: The NRO Cruise: Voyage to Nowhere

Reynolds: Is everybody here? Where the hell is Goldberg?

Malkin: He's in the bar, running his mouth off in front of his adoring fans. I haven't seen so many pink-cheeked piglets since the kids watched Charlotte's Web. Did you know spiders eat their mates? We have so much to learn from the animal world.

McArdle: God, those NRO-nicks are freaking me out. "Oh, Miss McArdle, you're so tall and pretty. Miss McArdle, should I sell my Citi shares? Miss McArdle, your engagement broke my heart."

Goldberg: What ho, chaps! What's our mission?

McArdle: They were all just devastated about my engagement. To Peter Suderman.

Althouse: Why, what a coincidence. I recently got---

Goldberg: That's our mission? You need help dragging him to the altar and sitting on him until you walk down the aisle?

Reynolds: Shut up, Goldberg. The Foundation has called us together to consult with the party's leading intellectuals and formulate new ideas that will return us to our rightful place in society.

McArdle: Isn't anybody going to congratulate me on my engagement?

Althouse: Just this summer I, too--

Goldberg: The Federation? Hot damn! At last! And they said I was crazy for buying a Starfleet uniform on the internet. I'm going to be first in line at the Academy and then I'll get some big guy to beat up everyone else and all the girls will want me.

Malkin: Foundation, not Federation, doofus. The tiny group of multi-millionaires and billionaires that fund conservative causes. You know, the people who sign the paycheck of the people who sign the paychecks of the people who sign the paychecks of the people who sign our paychecks.

McArdle: Suddenly I feel very tingly. Also, did I mention that I just got engaged?

Malkin: So what?

McArdle: I don't think you understand the importance of my wedding. As the world's tallest female economics blogger, my every move is watched and admired. It's a big responsibility.

Althouse: Me too!! Getting married!!

McArdle: Ann, dear, it's not all about you.

Reynolds: Shut up, all of you! We're here to get new ideas to restore us to or rightful supremacy! Now mingle with the guests and listen to the National Review speakers and report back to me at 0200 hours in the Starlight Cocktail Lounge on the Pool Deck.

Goldberg: Why do we have to walk all over the ship and talk to other people? I know exactly how the country should be run--the libertarian way.

McArdle: You're so right, Jonah. Conservatives had their chance and they failed. Liberals had their chance and they failed. Now it's our turn to fail.

Reynolds: Concentrate, people. Here are your assignments: Goldberg, you take the smoker. Malkin, take K-Lo's lecture.

Malkin: She didn't show up.

Althouse: Really? That's not like Kathryn Jean. She's usually so responsible.

McArdle: It's not like she has anything better to do.

Goldberg: Or anybody.

(Both snicker.)

Reynolds: Forget K-Lo. Cover Rich Lowry instead.

Malkin: (hopefully) Cover or smother?

Reynolds: Just get the ideas first, okay?

Malkin: (sighs) Whatever.

Althouse: What about me, Glenn?

Reynolds: You'll cover Katie O'Beirne.

Althouse: I don't know, Glenn, she's kind of scary.

Reynolds: Tell you what, Ann. Why don't you go to the bar first and ask the bartender to give you a nice glass of Merlot? It'll settle your nerves.

Althouse: Why, that's a great idea, Glenn. I think I'll do just that. Be right back!

Reynolds: Okay, McArdle, you---what the hell?

The Bloggers walk closer to the ship's railing and see metal grappling hooks attached to pink nylon rope fly through the air and grip the railing tight. Female voices rise from over the side of the cruise ship and very soon several young women clamber over the railing. They are dressed in voluminous short skirts and blousy white tops, and dangle cutlasses at their slender waists.

Goldberg: Is this a dream? Am I awake? Pinch me, please!

Malkin stabs him in the arm with a stiletto.

Goldberg: Oww! What is your problem? I said pinch, not stab.

Malkin: I just had my nails done.

Reynolds: Quiet, everyone, I think I hear their leader.

(Disembodied Female Voice): Shove harder, girls! You can do it if you believe enough! Heave!

(Disembodied Girls' Voices): Ho!

Goldberg: No.

Reynolds: It can't be.

(Disembodied Voice): For the Love Of Mittens, heave!

Malkin: But it is.

Everyone: K-Lo.

K-Lo pulls herself over the railing and falls to the deck. Several Pirate Lasses help her to her feet and straighten her tricorn hat.

K-Lo: Guess what, everyone! I'm a pirate! A Pirate For God!

Althouse: Hi, K-Lo! Why are you wearing a pirate costume?

K-Lo: I'm glad you asked, Ann. I've been hired by a secret group of SuperChristians called The Family to take over this ship and declare that the United States of America is now the United States of God. (sings) My country tis of Thee God, Sweet land of God's Mystery, Of Thee I sing. Land of the Goooood's Pride, Land of God's Countryside, From all God's Mountainsides, Let Gooooooood ring!

Althouse: That's funny, that doesn't sound like the anthem that I learned.

K-Lo: I'm here to establish a theocracy, with the Pope as king. And pope. It's a two-for-one, which will save a lot of money in these difficult economic times. And the best part is that we're in international waters so I'm not breaking any laws. Father Benedictine will be so proud of me!

Althouse: And who are these lovely young ladies?

First Pirate Lass: We're here to fulfill our service requirements to graduate from our school, Stigmata High.

Second Pirate Lass: She told us that we were going to be missionaries in the Philippines.

Third Pirate Lass: I told you that the Philippines already is Catholic. All you had to do was google, but nobody ever listens to me.

First Pirate Lass: I thought it would look good on my transcript and I'd get a tan. Father Stevens gives references to people who can get butts in the pews, not people who can climb ropes and swing swords.

Reynolds: K-Lo, the Republican party is the party of ideas, not the party of Jesus freaks. You guys lost a long time ago and you never even noticed.

K-Lo: I think Mr. William F. Buckley, devoted Catholic, would beg to differ. It's the party of Catholic ideas, just you wait and see.

Goldberg: You mean Judeo-Christian ideas, dummy. With the Judeo coming first.

Reynolds: Don't be stupid, Goldberg. This is a Christian nation and don't you forget it. (turns to K-Lo) Forget it, K-Lo. No theocracy. You lost, we won, end of story.

K-Lo: Oh yeah, Glenn? We'll see about that. Girls, attack!

The Pirate Lasses draw their cutlasses and rush towards the Extraordinary Bloggers. Malkin pulls back a little fist and drives it straight into the First Pirate Lass's nose.

First Pirate Lass: Owww! I can't believe how mean you are! I just spent a fortune on this nose. It's the Jennifer Aniston!

Malkin: And now it's the Rocky Balboa.

Second Pirate Lass: Who?

Reyonlds: (yelling) Get out now , and take this crazy woman with you or I'll heave her carcass overboard myself.

Third Pirate Lass: You don't have to be so rude. We're not your servants, you know.

The Pirate Lasses drag K-Lo to the railing.

K-Lo: You're making a terrible mistake, Glenn. I'll pray for you and your poor endangered immortal soul. Say you'll pray too, Glenn. Promise me you'll pray!

The Pirate Lasses attach a rope to K-Lo, tip her over the edge and lower her down the side of the ship. The Bloggers can hear the faint words of The Lord's Prayer float upwards.

McArdle: I need a drink.

Althouse: Don't we all.

Reynolds: Okay, let's regroup at the bar. I've had enough for one day.

Malkin: Buck up, Reynolds. At least you conquered the Phantom Menace and the galaxy is safe for another light year.

Reynolds: Stop trying to cheer me up.

Malkin: It could be worse, Glenn. You could be K-Lo.

Reynolds brightens and follows Malkin inside to the bar.

We Are All Victims Now

The little shop of horrors we call The Corner is obsessively discussing how Palin's abrupt quitting will benefit her in her future presidential run. These geniuses are utterly incapable of seeing the truth because the truth would reflect badly on them. They cheered and praised and supported a woman who was patently under qualified, and through sheer determination, they force the facts to support their prejudices and vanities.

Victor/Victoria Davis Hanson:

Conventional wisdom suggests that short-term the Palin decision was unwise— e.g., "quitter," unpredictable, sulking, etc.

[snip]

In other words, it doesn't matter that much what critics say, but — should she pursue politics — only what she does with her newfound time, especially if she travels widely, studies foreign policy, and helps galvanize the party base.

In the long run, she can lecture, earn a good income through speaking, develop a coterie of advisers and supporters, take care of her family, not have the constant political warring on all flanks, and invest time in reflecting and studying issues, visit the country, meet leaders, etc. She's not looking at 2012; but in eight years by 2016 she will be far more savvy, still young, and far more experienced. It matters not all that the Left writes her off as daffy, since they were going to do that whatever she did; the key is whether she convinces conservatives in eight year of travel and reflection that she's a charismatic Margaret Thatcher type heavyweight.

Kathryn "Prime of Miss Jean" Lopez:

Rather than just be a celebrity, this could be a real opportunity for her to show us her stuff — what's important to her, what she wants people to know about her, why we should pay attention to her, why we should consider her for the highest office in the land (after already gone with the cool dude with little national electoral experience — though in his case it was little experience, period). To get people to know her for something more than being Sarah!

I wouldn't be shocked though, if Palin on the National Scene, Act II, starts out low key, with some downtime. She needs to figure out what her voice is, where and how she can shine, and, most importantly, how she and her family can survive it and even flourish in the brutal world of politics. There's no question she has a gift. Now's the time to figure out how to be prudent with it.

Steve Hayward:

This could be, as Bill Kristol suggests, part of a risky but shrewd long game, not for a run in 2012, but way off in 2016 or 2020. Some folks have mentioned Nixon, rehabilitating himself in the 1960s, and skipping the 1964 election. She may have the self-awareness that she's taken big hits below the waterline, and that her best course is the patient rebuilding of her political life over a decade rather than the next two election cycles. Now she'll have the time to read and study and cultivate wider portfolio as Jonah and others have suggested. But even if she wants to run in 2012, it is certainly the case that it is hard to be a player on the national stage while being governor of Alaska since it is so remote, even in the jet age. (It take longer to get to Alaska than Europe from the east coast and midwest.) If so, she should say this openly. Make a virtue out of it.

Then, too, I wonder, and am slightly hopeful in fact, that she is indeed doing this for authentic family reasons. Political life is hell on decent family life. I have a hard time thinking of a single politician, at any level, who has a happy family life. Kids are usually a mess; non-messed up kids are the rare exception. Whenever I talk to someone about whether to run for any office, that's the first and last aspect I bring up. You shouldn't do it until your kids are grown or off to college is my opinion. This might really be a case of where she has reckoned the cost to her family of near-term political ambition, and chosen her family. Good for her if so.

Other members of the corner are less confident but still see Palin's move as advantageous to her eventually. They pay very little attention to rumors of ethics investigations and seem perfectly happy to accept any reason Palin gives them, no matter how illogical or rambling. Any leader will do for an authoritarian, and Palin can be easily replaced with somebody--anybody--else. Palin might be even more useful as a martyr than as an actual candidate. Mark Steyn:

Then suddenly you get the call from Washington. You know it'll mean Secret Service, and speechwriters, and minders vetting your wardrobe. But nobody said it would mean a mainstream network comedy host doing statutory rape gags about your 14-year old daughter. You've got a special-needs kid and a son in Iraq and a daughter who's given you your first grandchild in less than ideal circumstances. That would be enough for most of us. But the special-needs kid and the daughter and most everyone else you love are a national joke, and the PC enforcers are entirely cool with it.

Most of those who sneer at Sarah Palin have no desire to live her life. But why not try to - what's the word? - "empathize"? If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig and Bristol and the rest are sufficiently non-risible to enable you to prosper in their world? And, putting aside the odds, would you really like to be the person you'd have to turn into under that scenario?

Poor, poor Palin, forced to parade her pregnant daughter and special-needs baby before the public as instant, photographic proof of her fundamentalist bona fides. How could the public do that to her? She's a victim, just as they are all victims, under constant attack by society. Helpless and weak, needing guns and police and armies to save them from the bad men who live in the shadows.

Frightened children, who would do or say anything to keep lying their comfortable, soothing lies.