Because If We Can’t Laugh About Differences Over Torture… 
Light-hearted jibes about torture were in the house Sunday at DC’s Alfalfa Club dinner.
The annual gathering of Washington’s great and good is of course a temple of good natured joshing amongst the elite, the very pinnacle of our treasured bipartisanship. Thus Barack Obama found himself making light of the founding purpose of this entirely white until the 1970s dinner, honoring Robert E. Lee.
The sparkling event was brightened even more by the podium styling of “Jumping” Joe Lieberman, who the Washington Post reports wow’d them with topical laughs.
Lieberman’s rib-tickler sprang from Dick Cheney’s mysterious back-injury-while-moving-offices. “I had no idea waterboards were so heavy,” quipped the Nutmeg State Senator.
Shape Up, Punks! 
Michael Reagan is taking a break from identyfying New Reagans in order to diss the post-catastropy Republican field.
” We are attaching ourselves to certain individuals, and as a result we have become a party of people and not a party of principles. We are Romney-ites, or Huckabee or Giuliani devotees, or McCain-ites, or supporters of Gov. Sarah Palin – when we need to be just plain Republicans…In the Balkans, warfare between factions was the status quo. As Republicans, if we continue to Balkanize and fail to unite, then fighting one another will be our party’s status quo.”
Stirring words from a man who upon his death compared Gerald Ford with Saddam Hussein.
New Math For Tired Arguments    
America’s ceaseless quest for a New Reagan has taken myriad forms, from Charlie Crist, to Sarah Palin, to Barack Obama.
That last one has proven controversial!
Now Reaganauts of the true faith are fighting back, mobilising the armies of infectious optimism to carry John McCain over the last mile.
A hilariously ignorant ad by neverfindout.org shows it’s the economy, stupider:
“MAN 1: Senator McCain, history has shown us your economic plans will work.
WOMAN 1: When Ronald Reagan took office, the economy was far worse than it is today.
MAN 2: You understand that Reagan’s plan worked. Senator Obama does not.”
What were His wonder working ways?
             “Ronald Reagan cut spending and reduced the size of the federal government. Senator Obama plans to increase spending by nearly a trillion dollars. So who’s right?”
Gosh, if by “cutting” you mean increase by a quarter, and if by “reduced” you mean added 200,000 federal workers, then they are right on track.
Bill Clinton was actually closer to their mad dream. He cut heads, and shrank the government portion of GDP by twice what Reagan did.
 What Reagan did do is jack up unemployment, cut incomes and goose the stock market, and Clinton beat him on that last marker too.
| Average Annual Change |
1960s |
1970s |
1980s |
1990s |
| Real GDP |
4.4% |
3.3% |
3.1% |
3.1% |
| Productivity |
2.9% |
2.0% |
1.4% |
1.9% |
| Employment |
1.9% |
2.4% |
1.7% |
1.3% |
| S&P 500: Real Returns |
6.6% |
Ã0.5% |
12.9% |
15.9% |
| Real Weekly Wages |
1.45% |
Ã0.27% |
Ã0.72% |
0.28% |
| Real Median Family income |
3.21% |
0.76% |
1.01% |
0.95% |
| Average Level of Inflation |
2.3% |
7.1% |
5.6% |
3.0% |
| Average Level of Unemployment |
4.8% |
6.2% |
7.3% |
5.8% |
 source: Dollars & Sense
“MAN 5: Senator McCain, we are hopeful.
MAN 4: Because your economic policies are the policies of Ronald Reagan.
MAN 2: As a nation in crisis, we’d be fools not to embrace your ideas.
ANNOUNCER: What happens when we pick the alternative? Please America. Let’s never find out. “
 Take Nancy Reagan, Please!   
“The Divine Gift of Motherhood” desperately tries to process the Palin Clothes Express into the simple country girl narrative, and somehow comes up with the haunting parallel of…..Nancy Reagan!
Elizabeth Kathryn Gerold-Miller’s calls Palin a misunderstood Everygal in need of a beauty boost:
“Most of us need a little help to look absolutely fabulous. You can almost see yourself being put into her position, becoming a surprise vice-presidential nominee, with a newborn baby and nothing appropriate to wear. You know your looks are going to be scrutinized from head to toe and all around. Considering that the entire budget spent on her behalf actually could have been spent on one outfit, by some of the rich elite, I think she was her frugal self.”
Indeed.
Further point-missing erupts when Gerold-Miller takes comfort from history, in this case the sunny version of herself Nancy Reagan presented last year in a White House fashion retrospective at the Reagan Library.
“What comes to mind most easily is a similar controversy over the pricey, high fashion clothing worn by the elegant Nancy Reagan. Most of the clothes were borrowed, and some were donated by the designers. Many of the pieces were in turn donated by Nancy, as is the intent of Palin.”
Nancy Reagan took dresses as gifts, didn’t report them, promised to reform when she got caught, and kept doing the same thing throughout Reagan’s administration.
Androids! 
….And choose to present herself as a great philanthropist by retroactively donating some of her ill-gotten gains.
The show closes next week, although Betsey seems to think it opens then.
