"But if you use the word pal — or worse, the phrase my friend — in my kitchen, it'll make people paranoid. My friend famously means 'asshole'...."

So writes the chef Anthony Bourdain in his great memoir "Kitchen Confidential," right after reeling off a long, colorful list of scorching epithets the kitchen staff used routinely and in good fun.

Ever notice how often John McCain interjects "my friend"? I always sort of feel that maybe he means "asshole."

Anyway, here's something from The New Yorker, from Hendrik Hertzberg:

McCain does not always use the word “friend” in a friendly spirit; this time, though, he sounded perfectly amiable. The celestial choirs were a little more muffled the next day, in the White House Rose Garden. President Bush, offering the nominee-elect his (somewhat superfluous) endorsement, referred to McCain as “my friend” and himself as “your friend.” McCain, for his part, abjured the “f” word.

Well, maybe you don't talk to the President like that, and maybe the President was putting him in his place.

Link via Drudge, who's highlighting the part about Condi:

If McCain really wants to have it all—to refurbish his maverick image without having to flip-flop on the panderings that have tarnished it; to galvanize the attention of the press, the nation, and the world; to make a bold play for the center without seriously alienating “the base”—then he can avail himself of a highly interesting option: Condoleezza Rice.

... [W]ith Rice on the ticket the Republicans could attack Clinton or Obama with far less restraint.

By choosing Rice, McCain would shackle himself anew to Bush’s Iraq war. But it’s hard to see how those chains could get much tighter than he has already made them....

Choosing Rice would be a trick. Her failures would be buried in an avalanche of positive publicity for a personal story as yet only vaguely known to the broad public. (One of the little girls who died in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing was her playmate? We didn’t know that!) But the trick would not be an entirely cynical one. Her ascension, though nowhere near as momentous a breakthrough as the election of Obama or Clinton, would be a breakthrough all the same.