How to tell look-alike politicans apart.

There are various techniques reporters employ:

I used to make notes next to the names of members I was looking for — intentionally sloppy so they wouldn't be legible to the member as we huddled over my notebook off the floor of the House chamber — of their distinguishing characteristics. "Bald. Bald with glasses. Combover. Close-talker." And there is this classic method, offered by a former colleague on the beat: "My trick is, when you're talking to a member and you don't remember who they are, you ask at the end of the conversation — even if you couldn’t give a shit — 'And how will this affect your district?' So that way it narrows it down, and you can return to the picture book to look them up."

Several great examples of look-alikes at the link, including:

 

Freaky! I'd scribble the illegible note that Yoder is the one with the slightly devilish eyebrows. 

"I don’t want anyone to try to grow a unibrow because of me and then try to make money off of it."

"Me and my family decided to trademark it because it’s very unique.

Ron Paul, interviewed by William F. Buckley in 1988.

"The libertarian movement has come of age. We've been around for 15 years, and I think we're going to have a real impact...."

Via a reader who wanted me to know — after this — that Ron Paul's eyebrows are real.

And, by the way, I liked Ron Paul on yesterday's Meet the Press.

Ron Paul's spokesman says it's "stupid" and "insulting" to say that Ron Paul wears fake eyebrows...

... and one was falling off at the debate the other night. But then how do you explain that double eyebrow/partly detaching phenomenon in the photograph? "Dr. Paul's allergies acted up a touch." What the hell kind of allergy is that?!

IGotYa app sends a photo of the person who steals an iPhone to the phone's owner...

... but what if you only look like the guy in the photo and the police arrest you?

"It looks a little like me," [Brian] Chattoo told police. But he said that the scar over his left eye is different than the one on the man in the photo. Chattoo noted that his scar is horizontal while "his [in the photo] is vertical," adding, "I don't do robberies."...

His sister, Laura, said her brother's face was shorter, his lips were plumper and his eyebrows were more manicured.

"He does them himself," she said.

Oh, man. On top of all your troubles, you've got a sister telling the world that you do your eyebrows.

I'd say: Compare the ears. Ears are distinctive, and these 2 guys have completely different ears. (That is... assuming the photo provided by the family is accurate.)

The movie we watched last night.

"Rebecca."

I'd seen it before, but others here hadn't. I'd forgotten some of the details, but I remembered the key surprises. So I wallowed in the old-fashioned acting, especially Joan Fontaine moving her eyebrows asymmetrically in a way that only a comic actress today would use...

"Rebecca" won the best picture Oscar in 1940, beating "The Grapes of Wrath." I guess people preferred watching the melodramatically exaggerated travails of rich people in gigantic houses more than they liked watching the melodramatically exaggerated travails of poor people in gritty hovels.

Both William Ayers and Barack Obama "use the phrase 'beneath the surface' repeatedly."

"And what they find beneath the surface, of course, is the disturbing truth about power disparities in the real America, which each refers to as an 'imperial culture.' Speaking of which, both insist that 'knowledge' is 'power' and seem consumed by the uses or misuses of power. Ayers, in fact, evokes the word 'power' and its derivatives 75 times in Fugitive Days, Obama 83 times in Dreams."

Jack Cashill is back, marshalling the evidence that Bill Ayers helped Barack Obama write "Dreams From My Father."

Are these things really that striking? It's thoroughly pedestrian for a political writer to talk about power, and "Knowledge is power" is a big cliché.

Cashill makes much of the 2 authors' references to eyes, eyebrows, and faces.

There are six references to "eyebrows" in Fugitive Days -- bushy ones, flaring ones, arched ones, black ones and, stunningly, seven references in Dreams -- heavy ones, bushy ones, wispy ones. It is the rare memoirist who talks about eyebrows at all.

Etc. etc. Note that the one adjective they have in common is "bushy" — bushy eyebrows.

If we were playing "The Match Game" and Gene Rayburn asked the question name an adjective that is frequently used with "eyebrows," they'd all match with "bushy" — unless some ditz, say, Betty White, wrote "arched," in which case she'd crouch behind her card and attempt to waggle her eyebrows until, say, Bennett Cerf, clobbered her with his own card.

"When was the last time you considered lubing up your brows?"

This is another little example of the tiny craziness of women's magazines. There's something about the writing and the inane specificity of this advice that just kills me.

The writers are sort of trying to make us laugh — lubing up your brows — but also, it seems, seriously trying to make us worry about something — a "trouble zone" — that we've never even thought about — the skin under our eyebrows. Hey, think about it! Each eyebrow — I refuse to use the word "brow" to refer to the hairy facial arch — has its own mini scalp! It might get dandruff.

And then there is the problem of the inappropriate sexual innuendo: lubing up. I guess they get tired of telling us to moisturize. They brainstorm endlessly for synonyms. There's lubricate. So then let's make it cutesy and sexy. But it's absolutely unsexy. Imagine learning that your romantic partner dutifully adhered to a twice-a-day regimen of care for her eyebrow-scalps.

"Susan Boyle: What's the big deal?"

"Not to be a grump, but am I the only one who finds this a little over-the-top and, frankly, a little condescending? Plenty of big-voiced PYTs sing their hearts out every week on American Idol (not to mention onstage in Broadway shows) without getting this kind of reaction. But Susan, because of her looks, because of the fact that people were snickering at her before she opened her mouth, becomes a sensation simply by being able to carry a tune. She has a decent voice, sure. But let's not get carried away. She's no LuPone, and her talent is only really shocking if you've already counted her out as a squawker on account of her granny hairdo and pre-fame Julia Roberts eyebrows. Once the element of surprise is gone, we're all going to be stuck with the fact that she's a capable, but by no means extraordinary singer. And is that really worth all the fuss?"

Thank you, Adam Markovitz. You are not the only one.

"After the first lady drew criticism for looking angry..."

"... her high-arched eyebrows were reshaped with a softer arc that gave her a friendlier appearance."

Just one of the details in this story about why Michelle Obama has full-time makeup artist.

(I don't like the term "makeup artist." I'd like something more frank and descriptive. Maybe face wrangler. Something like that.)

Why aren't we talking about how Caroline Kennedy looks?

Noticing the absence of the usual catty talk.

What with all the time spent this year by women and journalists and everyone else obsessing over Sarah Palin's looks and lipsticks and wardrobe, it's hard to believe the absolute dearth of women journalists obsessing over Caroline Kennedy's physical appearance, makeup choices, and hairstyles. Why are her highlights not front-page news?...

.... Caroline was routinely compared to her famously svelte mother, and as a result her self-esteem plummeted. In a fit of pique that bordered on the bizarre, she shaved off one eyebrow. "My face," she offered by way of explanation, "is too symmetrical."

Bordered?

UPDATE: I have 6 answers to the question why we aren't talking about how Caroline Kennedy looks.

Tattoos, tattoos, tattoos.

Yesterday, I started a discussion about tattoos. Chip Ahoy said, for himself, he'd always wanted "a snake crawling out of my arse crack," that is a tattoo of same, not an actual snake. For me?

Something tattooed on a spot on the body that moves like an elbow or a knee so that a frog appears to croak or a woman's breasts bulge, or eyes widen.

A tattoo that appears to be a rip in the skin revealing underneath to be steam-punk mechanism of gears and levers rather than muscles...

Like a sly reference to the "In His Image" episode of "The Twilight Zone"? (Video.)

...or perhaps a sack of worms.

A tattoo to look like an alien being born by tearing its way out.

A realistic eyeball on the back of your neck. [When I was a youngster I asked my mum how she knew what I was up to and she answered, "Because I have eyes in the back of my head." Being a literalist, I took her on her word, and for years tried to examine her head more closely to confirm it. She was always such the bullshitter.]

Conversely, a realistic eyeball on your forehead that blinks when you furrow your brow.

Weighing scales that rise and fall depending on your arm movement would be too trite. Reject those.

Something in Latin that makes a person asking appear foolish for having asked isn't worth the joke. Reject that too.

Also reject some long passage or inspiring message that must be closely examined in order to be read. They're pretentious and the reader is ultimately let down for having troubled.

A dung beetle placed on your gluteus maximus appearing to be rolling a piece of dung away from your anus.

A radiation hazard symbol tattooed on your penis. Oh wait.

An archer fish depicted spitting placed near your urethra.

A Boxer dog tattooed on each breast so that when they sag they magically become Shar-peis.

For myself, I've always been partial to Egyptian designs, at least that's what I doodled all through college, and that's the art I sell, so the only tattoo acceptable for myself is a design of my own in the Egyptian style. It would be large, colorful, and dramatic. Probably a winged solar disc with something within the disc, possibly a uraeus.

There's an idea for you, a uraeus on your forehead.

Back to the snake!

Or a snake wrapped around your arm.

Or a gold bracelet with lapis lazuli. But then that begs the question, why not a real bracelet? I always thought if you were inclined to tattoo barbed wire around your arm, then real barbed wire would be much more dramatic.

A crown of thorns across your forehead.

Bugs crawling from out between your breasts.

An "R" and a "L" tattooed on the back of each hand appropriately. Or the word "Down" tattooed on top of each foot and possibly "Up" tattooed on your forehead.

"I'm with Stupid --->" tattooed immediately beneath your clavicle.

A diver hands clasped together aiming downward tattooed on you one side of your belly appearing to be preparing to dive into your pants.

An alligator snapping out of your crotch.

An elf, a fairy, a gnome, a leprechaun, or otherwise, some tiny being tattooed making it's way out of your pubic hair.

Ropes tattooed around your arms and legs so when you crossed your arms or legs it would appear as if you were suggesting bondage.

Robot parts tattooed on working segments of your body.

Open eyes tattooed on your eyelids.

A mustache tattooed with glow-in-dark ink, just for fun.

Jagged backhoe bucket teeth tattooed around your mouth.

Mucus tattooed draining from your nose.

Ants tattooed crawling in a line across your shoulder or torso carrying off some treasure like a leaf segment or other bug parts.

Bees laden with pollen tattooed to appear crawling out of your ears as if they [were] flowers.

A raptor on one knee and a bunny, chipmunk, fox, lamb or some other prey animal on the other knee, so that when your legs are crossed one appears to engulf the other.

Wow! Chip was a blog thread unto himself. Such overwhelming thread domination could have silenced everyone else. But we still had Christy:

A stylized slightly tilted fibonacci spiral that starts directly above the center of your left eyebrow, arches up and drops to end in a tight swirl beside your left eye. In blue, a strong blue. With wings coming off the outside edge of the curve that reach up and out to your hairline. A little black can be used to give definition to the wings.

Then, Dody Jane said:

I am going to answer seriously... I was in a writing seminar once called "Writing Family Stories". There was a man in the class of East Indian heritage - he was first generation American. 

He told a lovely story about being taken to India as a child. It was a pilgrimage of sorts. His mother had the back of his neck tatooed with a round black dot. She was not going on the trip. He was going with his father. She told him she had the tattoo placed at the nape of his neck so that God would be able to easily identify him when he looked down from heaven and protect him from harm while on his journey. The way he told the story was so incredibly moving. 

I think this is an ideal tattoo. I told my daughter it is the only tattoo I would sanction. Otherwise, I told her I am leaving everything to charity. She remains untattooed...

See, I hear that story, and I imagine God thinking: There's that kid with the dot again, whose mother thinks he's so special, like I'll be all screw the other kids, this one has a dot.

Freeman Hunt said:

I told my husband about this thread, and he had a recent tattoo anecdote I have to share:

Last week my husband was down in our basement with his friends for their weekly movie get together. One of the men took off a fleece pullover and inadvertently pulled up the t-shirt underneath, revealing what appeared to be a large flower on one pectoral muscle with his nipple forming the center.

"Wait a minute--what was that?! Is that a flower around your nipple? Lift up your shirt again."

"No. That's the only time you'll ever see it."

"Why do you have a giant flower around your nipple?"

"It's not a flower. I'm going to get it fixed. It was going to be something else, but it hurt too much, so they couldn't finish it."

"Well, right now it looks like a flower."

"I know."

Ha.

Ha, indeed.

"Are her boobs SUPPOSED to look like giant, evil green eyes glaring back at me from her torso?"

"Is she TRYING to make a play on that old chestnut where a guy stares at a girl's cleavage and she coos, 'My eyes are UP HERE'? Or is it just an ugly dress that looks like someone sewed the bodice out of old shoulder pads?"

I think they're supposed to look like big green eyes ... with scowling, bushy, black eyebrows, I must add. There's no other explanation. I realize there's also no explanation for why Katy Perry would wear a dress like that, but ... oh, wait, scroll down...

Who in the McCain campaign got paid $22,800 for 2 weeks of work?

Sarah Palin's makeup artist.

That's from the NYT "Caucus" blog, where the first commenter notes the URL: "pains-makeup-stylist-fetches-highest-salary-in-2-week-period." Pain.

Let me add that I do not have a problem with paying a lot for the makeup job. It's extremely important. Remember how great Hillary Clinton always looked during the primaries. That didn't just happen. And bad makeup can screw up even a male candidate's campaign. Let's not forget the rouge that cost Al Gore the presidency:

This election always has been about one thing, and it was thoughtfully touched on by Kriss Soterion, the former Miss New Hampshire and owner-operator of Kriss Cosmetics & the Studio of Holistic Beauty in Manchester, N.H. Kriss, you may recall, was invited to do the vice president's makeup for the first Gore; Bush game. Before the debate, the local papers were running endless profiles of the hometown gal on the eve of her big break. After the debate, she entered the witness protection program. The pancake she smeared on Gore's cheeks, on top of his overly worked-out, 23-inch neck, on top of his lumpy suit, combined to make him look like Herman Munster doing a bad Ronald Reagan impression.

Poor old Kriss would like to make up for her makeup, but she fears she'll never get another chance, and now seems to be going through some existential crisis, riddled with self-doubt and questioning her calling. She told the New Hampshire Sunday News that her catastrophic touchup of Al has caused her to "think deeply" about "the psychology of makeup." "It just makes me think about the whole thing, about wearing masks," she said. "It's kind of a fascinating subject, to analyze why we hide behind it in the first place."

This is not a subject the vice president wants to discuss at this stage in the election cycle, but Kriss has a point. For the second presidential faceoff, Al was appearing without his face on -- not just the foundation and rouge, but in a broader sense: The mouth wasn't merely in non-sighing mode, it was zipped up and hung slack; the eyes seemed dead. The only remnants of last week's Gore were the eyebrows (N.B., Kriss: nice pencil liner) imperiously arched with the amused contempt of an overthrown king sitting through his own show trial. On Wednesday night, the vice president had the look of a man who'd run out of masks. After the expansive array of dazzling new Gores of the last year, the vice president apparently opened his closet and found that his housekeeper had sent all his identities to the cleaners.

Ha ha. That's Mark Steyn, writing in 2001. You do not want to lose the election over makeup.

William F. Buckley, Jr. has died.

The NYT obit:

William F. Buckley Jr., who marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, famously arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to the center of American political discourse, died Wednesday at his home in Stamford, Conn....

Mr. Buckley’s winningly capricious personality, replete with ten-dollar words and a darting tongue writers loved to compare with an anteater’s, hosted one of television’s longest-running programs, “Firing Line,” and founded and shepherded the influential conservative magazine, National Review.....

The liberal advance had begun with the New Deal, and so accelerated in the next generation that Lionel Trilling, one of America’s leading intellectuals, wrote in 1950: “In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation.”

Mr. Buckley declared war on this liberal order, beginning with his blistering assault on Yale as a traitorous den of atheistic collectivism immediately after his graduation (with honors) from the university.

“All great biblical stories begin with Genesis,” George Will wrote in the National Review in 1980. “And before there was Ronald Reagan, there was Barry Goldwater, and before there was Barry Goldwater there was National Review, and before there was National Review there was Bill Buckley with a spark in his mind, and the spark in 1980 has become a conflagration.”

Lots of commentary at the National Review blog, The Corner.

I remember watching Buckley on "Firing Line" in the 1960s, before I went to college and learned that he was to be considered poison. What a great character with a great talk show. I should try to find some old video clips and add them to this post.

ADDED: Here he is interviewing Noam Chomsky in 1969: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. Now that's television!

AND: More video. What election commentary was like in 1969: "And yet always there is a strange seriousness, something in the system that warns us, warns us that America had better strike out on a different course, rather than face another 4 years of asphixiation by liberal premises.... No, Nixon won't bring paradise, but he could bring a little more air to breathe."

Live-blogging the big Hillary-Obama debate.

8:00 ET: Let's get started!

8:04: So get started already! How long can they stand there at attention in gray — hopefully not empty — suits?

8:05: No rules! But try to keep it short — and have real conversation. We see Obama taking careful notes — left-handed. The little desks in front of them make them look like oversized grammar school kids. Hillary is making her opening statement. She's done a lot and she has so much more to do.

8:08: Obama opens. He says he and Hillary are friends. She smiles a fixed smile at him. How hard this must be for her. He quickly glides from health care to NAFTA to Iraq. "What's lacking right now is not good ideas" — a jab at her emphasis on "solutions." The problem is that good ideas "go to Washington to die." So it's all about "bringing this country together." She's still gazing and smiling.

8:13: Jorge Ramos begins the first question in Spanish and switches to English: Will you meet with the new leader of Cuba? Hillary will be ready to "reach out" to the new government after it demonstrates that it is ready to change. She sounds very relaxed and articulate. Campbell Brown reminds Obama that he's already said he would meet the the leader of Cuba, so he has to say yes to this. He says he will meet without preconditions — but he does want "preparation" with some matters of rights on the agenda. He stresses that it's important for us to meet with our enemies. Clinton gets rebuttal time, and she distinguishes herself from him: She wants preconditions. Obama seems to be making a conscious effort to hold his chin up, which makes him look a tad arrogant as he looks down his nose at her.

8:22: What's the difference between the two of them on the economy? Obama says everyone knows the economy is "in trouble." "People have been struggling." We need to "restore balance" to the economy. He's against lead paint in toys. Hillary seems to plug in a prepared speech: "We need a President who works for you." She too comes out firmly against lead paint in toys. She wants a moratorium on foreclosures — and I can't even understand how someone would think that's a good idea. I wish Obama would say she's woefully misguided. Hillary seems a little manic with eyebrows grouchoing up and down as she exclaims about "innovation!"

8:31: Immigration: Hillary is passionately, desperately in favor of it. (They're in Texas.) Obama tells us "we're a nation of laws" and mentions border security and "cracking down" on employers (but in a way that doesn't burden workers with Spanish surnames). Illegal immigrants need to get to "the back of the line." I think I see Hillary glowing. Clearly, she came across as the more generous one.

8:36: About that fence. Hillary speaks clearly, elaborately, and incomprehensibly about the fence. The message is: I'm a sophisticated policy geek.

8:43: Is there any problem with the U.S. becoming bilingual? English must be our "common, unifying language," says Hillary. Obama too thinks everyone needs to learn English — to "bind us together." And let the English-speaking kids learn a foreign language. He segues into criticizing No Child Left Behind: It pushes out the study of foreign language.

8:50: Hillary is asked if she's saying that Obama is "all hat and no cattle." It's little awkward to invite her to call him a nothing while sitting right next to him. She refers to that famous video clip of the state senator who couldn't name any of Obama's accomplishments. That gets almost no response from the big University of Texas audience. Maybe people aren't watching YouTube that much. By contrast, Obama gets a huge cheer when he says every major newspaper in Texas has endorsed him. Score 1 for mainstream media. His point is: She has to be saying that everyone who supports him must be delusional.

8:57: About that "plagiarism." Obama defends his use of a couple lines given him by his associate Duval Patrick. "This is where we start getting into the silly season in politics." People want to hear about the real issues. "What I've been talking about in these speeches, and I've gotta admit: Some of 'em are pretty good..." Ha ha. We should be lifting the country up, he says, not tearing each other down. Now, it's Hillary's turn, and it gets a little ugly. "Well, I think that if your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words. That's a very simple, uh, proposition. And you know, lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in. It's change you can Xerox." Cute, but obviously prepared. "And I just don't think..." Obama: "No, that's not..." Hillary: "No, but Barack, it is, because if you look..." [boos from the audience] "if you look at the YouTube of these videos, it does raise questions." It's fine to want to unite the country, but, she says we need to "unite it for a purpose around very specific goals." That sound silly at first, but it actually defines an important difference between them, though I think she's wrong. The presidential candidate doesn't need to be all that specific.

9:03: Obama's emphasizing discussing issues and he's parsing their competing health insurance plans.

9:10: Is Hillary saying that Obama is not ready to be Commander in Chief? Her answer is that she's going to let the voters decide and she's going back to the subject of health insurance. What's that old Woody Allen movie where he's in a prison camp and the torture is being locked in a sweatbox with an insurance salesman? They're finally at the point where both of them are admitting they are going to force you to buy insurance. The difference is that Hillary is promising she will force everyone to buy insurance.

9:15: The Commander in Chief question is re-asked. Hillary falls back on asserting that she's ready to be Commander in Chief. She declines to attack him here. Obama's turn. Of course, he's ready too. He points to his opposition to the Iraq war.

9:21: Unless this campaign takes a "wacky, unpredictable turn," John King says, one of you is going to face John McCain. That's a none too subtle reference to today's NYT story. How are they going to look standing next to a war hero? Hillary tells a story of a mother grabbing her arm for the second time tonight. Both ramble on about war policy, and I don't think either of them talked about John McCain.

9:31: Ugh. I'm bored with this. I see Stephen Green is drunkblogging. I'm blogging on Get Some ZZZ's tea. ("Brew a pot of our caffeine-free herbal blend and breathe a sigh of sweet relief as the bouquet of organic rooibos, soothing chamomile, passionflower and the mellowing properties of valerian gently lulls you toward blissful effects.") Now there's some talk of the superdelegates, and Hillary says well, you know there are these rules, but she's confident that there will be a united party in the end. Barack smirks.

9:38: At what "moment" in life were you most "tested"? Obama plugs in his life story — born to a teenaged mother, etc. He doesn't come up with a specific moment, and that annoys me, and you know one charge against him is that he lacks specificity. Hillary says that we all know she's had some challenging moments, and that gets a big audience response. "But... people often ask me... how do you do it... how do you keep going?" What the hell! She's reliving the crying moment in New Hampshire!

9:42: "No matter what happens in this contest — and I am honored, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama, I am absolutely honored," Hillary says, and I think we hear a tinge of farewell. Obama reaches over and shakes her hand and pats her on the shoulder. She takes a deep breath as she shakes her head and then says: "Whatever happens, we're gonna be fine." Big cheers. It's over. Obama stands up quickly, and he must feel confident. No slips. No shakeups. He pulls out Hillary's chair, which is an odd gesture when a person is sitting down. It seems like he is rushing her to get up. He strides over to the moderators' table, and Hillary wanders off in the other direction. She's off screen. I guess the camera people expected a thanking of the moderators ritual. Another camera catches her. She's with Chelsea. Hillary's eyes are cast down and Chelsea has an impenetrable smile. The two of them walk downstage in front of the desks, over toward the moderator, and Chelsea is holding her mother's hand and gripping her arm. Are we supposed to feel a stirring of emotion? Was this mother-daughter encounter planned? Hillary repeatedly referred to mothers throughout the night and at least twice told a story of a mother grabbing her arm, and now here is Chelsea grabbing her arm. Bill isn't there. Nor is Michelle. It's just a Chelsea moment.

10:16: So, to recap. Not much happened, therefore Obama won. Hillary did fine sitting there, saying rational-sounding things most of the time. The closest she came to making something happen was on the plagiarism question: "I think that if your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words.... Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in. It's change you can Xerox." But that's just a wisecrack, and when we're sitting here listening to Obama spout policy all night, the premise of the wisecrack — that his candidacy is "about words" — just doesn't fit. By the end, Hillary seemed to let it show that she knew her dream was over and that the important thing now was to glide to a graceful defeat. Or is that what they carefully planned to make us think, so we'd reengage emotionally with her? You know, Obama can be a rather cool character. Midway through the debate, I found myself practicing an impersonation of him. Not his speech, but his clasped hands on the table, his head turned sideways, chin up, lips pursed in a grin, his eyes looking down onto the hapless soul who imagines she could unsettle him in the slightest degree.

Great photo at Drudge right now.

It says so much:

the election is razor close...

Huckabee faces a close shave in more ways than one...

and he needs close shaves to stave off his resemblance to Nixon...

Huckabee has a monobrow which he controls not with metrosexual waxing but manly straight-razoring...

Matt Drudge wants us to think about "Un Chien Andalou."



ADDED: Yes, and think about "Sweeney Todd" too.

AND: Uncle Jimbo, in the comments, convinces me that the razor is not being used between the eyebrows.

"I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim."

So said Bob Kerrey:

"It's probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim... There's a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal."

Underhanded? Should he apologize for saying that? He did:

"What I found myself getting into in Iowa - and it was my own fault - it was the wrong moment to do it and it was insulting... I meant no disrespect at all."

It was the "wrong moment" because he was in the middle of endorsing Hillary Clinton. So whose idea was it for him to say it? His own?

Kerrey's mention of Obama's middle name and his Muslim roots raised eyebrows because they are also used as part of a smear campaign on the Internet that falsely suggests Obama is a Muslim who wants to bring jihad to the United States....

The Clinton campaign has already fired two volunteer county coordinators in Iowa for forwarding hoax e-mails with the debunked claim. Last week, a national Clinton campaign co-chairman resigned for raising questions about whether Obama's teenage drug use could be used against him, so Kerrey's comments raised questions about whether the Clinton campaign might be using another high-profile surrogate to smear Obama.

Joe Gandelman writes that to take him at his word, you have to believe that Kerrey is terribly naive. It makes more sense to think he deliberately "injecti[ed' info and innuendo into the press and key news cycles," both with his original statement and with the apology.

To some voters, the image of the Clintons as political victims is being replaced by the image of the Clintons as political predators.

If there’s another “mistake” by a major Clinton supporter, it will mean there is a clear cut strategy to hit hot button issues and drive up Obama’s negatives no matter what the risk is to the campaign.

Do you need one more "mistake" to convince you that it's a Clinton campaign strategy?

ADDED: "Dropping the phrase 'Islamic manchurian candidate' in the midst of his 'apology'? C’mon."

Supreme Court cartoon robots with flashing eyes.

Beldar slams the big NYT Magazine piece about Justice Stevens, written by Jeffrey Rosen. (All the Supreme Court psychodramatists are named Jeffrey.)

Yellow journalists masquerading as legal scholars like The Jeffrey Rosen do their very best to persuade us that the Justices view each other in terms like "back-stabbers." In truth, you'll find, for example, Justice Scalia and his wife joining Justice Ginsberg and her husband at the opera several times a year because they like and respect each other despite their very different judicial viewpoints.

As Beldar notes, the kind of people who make it all the way to the Supreme Court are -- of necessity -- extraordinarily mature and highly self-regulated. So why do they come across as such hyper-dramatic characters in popular journalism?

Read Rosen's whole interview with Stevens. Look hard for personal insults toward other Justices that come from Stevens' lips. There aren't any. Instead, you get things like Rosen reporting that Stevens' "eyes [were] flashing" as he talked about Bush v. Gore.

Wow, really? His eyes were flashing? Way cool: John Paul Stevens as Optimus Prime! Pew-pew-pew! That, plus gossip and innuendo, is what Rosen has to peddle.

Yeah, eyes don't actually flash... and it would be spooky as hell if they did. Nor do eyebrows dance (as Jeffrey Toobin perceives looking at Justice Scalia).

And even if eyes flashed and eyebrows danced, it wouldn't necessarily signify what the Jeffreys tell you it signifies.

The pill that increases women's sex drive and decreases their appetite. It's a sex + diet pill!

Yeah, they're trying to invent it.

The Edinburgh team, led by Professor Robert Millar, have been looking at the properties Type 2 Gonadotrophin-releasing hormone.

When it was given to monkeys, they displayed mating behaviour such as tongue-flicking and eyebrow-raising to the males, while female shrews displayed their feelings via "rump presentation and tail wagging".

But the animals also ate around a third less food than they normally would.

Tongue-flicking and eyebrow-raising, eh? I look forward to the day when the world is full of skinny women who seem to be imitating Groucho Marx and William F. Buckley simultaneously. Sexy!