April 29, 2008

4/29: Eye Of The Storm

Barack Obama's tough run in the political blogosphere continues. The netroots continue to criticize the IL senator for appearing on FOX News Sunday, which Markos Moulitsas sees as evidence "that Obama is quite willing to score cheap political points at the expense of his base." Still, we don't see this incident as a major turning point that pushes liberal bloggers toward Hillary Clinton, since the NY senator has her own problems with the netroots. Rather, we see this incident as evidence that the leading netroots bloggers won't hesitate to criticize Obama when he steps out of line (as they did last October during the Donnie McClurkin controversy). Nevertheless, some bloggers are worrying that Obama no longer cares what the netroots think.

Meanwhile, conservative bloggers are in an uproar over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's media blitz. Righty bloggers are savaging Wright and calling on Obama to denounce his ex-pastor in the strongest possible terms. How will the latest Wright controversy affect Obama's popularity in NC and IN? We'll know very soon. But it's worth noting that more than a few conservative bloggers are already writing Obama's obituary.

OBAMA: Covering Their Eyes

Obama's online supporters are depressed about Wright's media blitz, which they believe is hurting Obama:

• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "In case you needed my opinion to figure this out, Reverend Wright doesn't seem to be doing his former parishoner any favors, choosing instead to hog as much of the spotlight as possible, reiterate the most objectionable of his greatest hits, and I guess just see what John McCain can do with this. One supposes this'll lead to a more open breach between Wright and Obama, which might help the latter in the long run, but it's a pretty depressing mess at this point."
• The Huffington Post's Eric Deggans: "By now it's obvious Obama is deep in a sound-bite-fed, image-waged war. A man smart as Wright knows it doesn't really matter what he says. He's been reduced to an emotional image -- the Willie Horton of 2008 -- a boogeyman of black nationalism and aggression, used as a prop to make the professorial Obama look like a smooth talker hiding more radical inclinations. [...] Wouldn't it be ironic if Obama's pro-black pastor was the one who kept Democrats from presenting the party's first black nominee for president?"

MyDD's Jerome Armstrong, a Clinton supporter, mocks Obama: "How about Jeremiah Wright this morning in the Q & A. Oh boy, talk about angry. Obama, having successfully kicked the secular warriors that jumped on board his 'movement' to the gutter by embracing Fox, probably will follow up by doing some sort of ultra-distancing of Wright -- the kind I said he should have done right at the beginning of this whole fiasco. I imagine the 'former pastor' becomes the 'disavowed former pastor' and maybe even 'former church.' The thing is, Obama is doing this with the conclusion in mind that he's got it all sewn up. He doesn't."

OBAMA II: Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

Some liberal bloggers are defending Wright and promoting his interview with Bill Moyers, which they believe gives a more accurate portrait of the pastor's views:

• Firedoglake's Peterr: "[The Moyers interview] struck me as a much more honest picture of Wright than has been out there in the media to this point. Wright's not a wild-eyed radical, but he speaks in the vernacular of the Black Church in ways that those outside might easily misunderstand. The Moyers interview, especially the opening, gave a lot more context that I think probably helped those with a bit of an open mind to see him more on his own terms than on the terms of the religious and especially the political right."
• tristero: "If you haven't seen Bill Moyers' interview with Jeremiah Wright, go now and see both parts. You will encounter a very remarkable man, highly intelligent, articulate, charismatic -- it's easy to see how someone as smart as Obama would find him so compelling. [...] If the man who spoke to Moyers -- and who's shown in long excerpts (for tv, that is) of his sermons -- is who Jeremiah Wright really is, the rightwing likely has committed a spectacular blunder in trying to demonize him -- and by extension, Obama. The more opportunities given Wright to reach a national audience, the harder it will be to counteract him, let alone brand him as some America-hating black power radical."

Open Left's Mike Lux also views Wright more sympathetically: "My minister brother and I were taking a few days back about the whole Wright thing, and he commented, 'I sure wouldn't want my parishioners to be held responsible for the stuff I've said in my sermons.' And that sentiment is true for every good minister I know of. What I was always told growing up was that a minister's job was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Bad preachers speak in mushy truisms watered down to the lowest common denominator. Good ministers stir people up, challenge their congregants' assumptions, make people uncomfortable. They should serve, in the language of the church, a prophetic role that speaks truth to power. [...] Good ministers say dramatic things, stir things up, and push people hard to look at what they believe and how they act. That's their job. To hold their congregants accountable for every word they say in a sermon is absurd, and shows the people who attack them for such that they don't understand religion very well."

OBAMA III: Obama's Doooooomed

Conservative bloggers are slamming Wright -- and, by extension, Obama:

• Michelle Malkin: "Is [Wright] working for the Hillary campaign? Is he angry at Barack Obama? Because he has got to know this is killing his spiritual protege's campaign. [...] A piece of work, this guy. A rude, racist, self-righteous piece of work."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "I've always thought 'liberation theology' was nonsense, but I confess that I hadn't studied it enough to realize how pernicious it is until Jeremiah Wright made the news. There is a deep irony here: genuine Christianity, not Wright's hateful perversion of the Gospel, really is a liberation theology. Jesus said, 'You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.' No one is liberated by being fed lies of the sort peddled by Wright, e.g., that the federal government invented the AIDS virus. To believe such foolishness is to have one's freedom stunted and one's prospects in life limited. Wright is a thoroughly despicable character, and one wonders how long Barack Obama can go without confronting the cancer on his candidacy that Wright represents."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "Americans are left wondering: How could a man who seems so reasonable and so likable embrace a race-baiting radical like Jeremiah Wright for 20 years? What does that reflect about Barack's inner life -- and does it mean that there is a side to him that we're not seeing?"
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "Obama's defenders will continue to say it doesn't matter what Wright said, Obama doesn't agree with his comments. But the problem is that since Obama has such a thin public record...all the American people have to go on are his speeches. But it's hard to take a leap of faith with somebody who you don't know very well. Therefore, when trying to determine who Obama is, this guy who within five years has risen from the obscurity of the state senate to within arm's reach of the most powerful job in the world, his close relationships take on an added importance."
• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "Do I think Barack Obama, in his heart of hearts, believes all this nonsense and views white people as 'the enemy?' I do. Why else would he spend so long in a church full of people who believe these things and why has he become so closely associated with a reverend who feels this way? It would be like a white politician going to KKK meetings for 20 years and then pointing out all the 'good work' the Klan does when he's called on it, refusing to disavow the Kleagle, and saying that the people pointing out his time in the Klan were trying to 'distract' people from the real issues of the campaign."

Several conservative bloggers are arguing that Obama's chances of becoming President are all but dead:

• NRO's Victor Davis Hanson: "All this will be fatal to the Obama candidacy. Had he set an example of moral outrage at his pastor, Wright would be gone and Obama would have recovered by now from any backlash from the African-American community. But the problem is that by contextualizing Wright, Obama has lost any high ground in commenting about race, and essentially given Wright a blank check to say what he wants without being 'disowned'. [...] Right now Wright and what he has said to the nation are the legacy of [Obama's] campaign."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Jeremiah Wright may have just sunk Obama's campaign. The Obama campaign is off the rails. [...] Obama is saying he should be president, instead of two much more experienced rivals, because of his superior judgment. But what kind of judgment is needed to select Wright as a surrogate father figure?"

OBAMA IV: Time To Reject And Denounce

Conservative bloggers are (once again) calling on Obama to denounce Wright in the strongest possible language:

• Hugh Hewitt: "The Obama campaign is sinking fast. Unless Senator Obama moves quickly and decisively to completely repudiate Reverend Wright, his fall campaign will be doomed. (And even a complete repudiation of Wright may not save the nomination if Hillary Clinton stays to her own course and begins to talk about Michelle Obama's vision of America for the rest of the primary season.) [...] And we thought [Howard] Dean '04 was a train-wreck."
• Power Line's Scott Johnson: "Wright's racism casts a backward light on Obama's original attaction to Wright. It is a racism that cannot withstand scrutiny and it is one that Obama will have to renounce in less complacent terms than the ones to which he has confined himself so far. [...] It's too late for another speech that seeks to transcend the controversy. The reemergence of Wright shows how inadequate Obama's Philadelphia speech was to the task. Obama could resign his membership in Wright's church, even though Obama now emphasizes that Wright is only the church's retired pastor. Or he could forthrightly denounce Wright. Wright himself seems to be begging for such a denunciation. It is a a consummation that Obama has carefully avoided, but it is one devoutly to be wished."
• RedState's Jeff Emanuel: "If Mr. Obama cannot even stand up to his own pastor, friend, and mentor -- if he cannot even make a peep about Wright's hateful, divisive, racist message -- then how in the world can he be expected to show the spine, resolve, and direction to do so to people who don't simply preach, but deliver death, destruction, and ultimata penned in the blood of those whose security the President of the United States is ultimately responsible for? Mr. Obama has already said that he will meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among others, if and when he is elected President. If he lacks the spine to even tell a friend when he is wrong, how will he possibly come away from a meeting in Iran anything other than fully cowed, having -- through his silence or his verbal acquiescence -- given away the store, and made the U.S., the Free World, and the world as a whole an exponentially less safe place for all involved?"

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, who's been a strong supporter of Obama, agrees that Obama must "disown" Wright: "Obama is a decent human being, and cutting off someone who has nurtured and sustained his faith and been a father figure to him is not in his character. [...] But Wright's cooptation of Obama for his own agenda -- his assertion that Obama's distancing from him is insincere -- requires, in fact demands a response from Obama. Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright's views; he needs to disown him at this point. Wright himself, it seems to me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against: the boomer, Vietnam era's obsession with its red-blue, white-black, pro and anti-America fixations. [...] This is no longer about cynics trying to associate one man's politics with another. It is now about Wright attempting to associate himself and some of his noxious, stupid, rancid views with the likely Democratic nominee. Wright has given Obama no choice -- and he has also given him another opportunity. He needs to seize it."

NRO's Peter Wehner, on the other hand, thinks Obama can't "disown" Wright: "Reverend Wright is a torpedo aimed straight at the Obama campaign. It will be fascinating to watch how Obama handles it. But one thing he cannot do, based on the logic of his Philadelphia speech, is to disown Wright. Wright is, by Obama's own testimony, a part of Obama himself, and a part of America. Obama's words ensure that they are joined at the hip. It remains staggering to think that Obama spent almost two decades under the leadership of this minister of hate. And now it seems as if everyone, even John McCain, understands that the Wright issue matters -- and it seems to matter more and more every day."

OBAMA V: Real Dems Don't Go On Fox

Adam Green, a spokesperson for MoveOn (which supports Obama), criticizes the IL senator for appearing on FOX News Sunday: "It was a mistake for Obama to go on FOX's Sunday show and treat the experience as if it was a real news interview. Democratic politicians need to understand that FOX is a Republican mouthpiece masquerading as a news outlet. When dealing with FOX, you either burn them or they will burn you."

Daily Kos' Moulitsas also criticizes Obama: "So let's see...a right-wing media outlet taunts you for a few months, and the way to show strength is to cave in to those taunts? Kind of an odd approach. We've spent the last few years in the netroots working to discredit Fox News as the propaganda network strives for mainstream respectability. The more it is viewed as a legitimate news outlet, the better it will be at injecting right-wing narratives into the broader media stream. It's why we fought so strongly against the attempts by the Nevada Democratic Party and the Congressional Black Caucus to partner with Fox on several Democratic primary debates. Debating on Fox made as much sense as Republicans debating on Air America. Or Daily Kos."

Moulitsas continues: "Given Fox's role in pushing several bullshit attacks against Obama (including the one about Obama attending a Muslim Madrassa while living in Indonesia in his youth), Obama had wisely steered clear of the network during the primary. Yet he clearly hit on a dilemma -- Indiana is an open primary, hence Republican crossover support could be key to victory in the state. And where do Republicans hang out? Yup. Fox News. [...] I won't pretend to guess whether this helps him in Indiana or not. It may or it may not. And since I've never put Obama on a pedestal, this doesn't knock him down. What this does demonstrate, and quite clearly so, is that Obama is quite willing to score cheap political points at the expense of his base, regardless how much it might embolden the very same people that are working to demonize him to the American people."

After a number of Daily Kos readers registered their disapproval of Moulitsas' comments (including setting up a diary entitled "OFFICIAL DISAPPROVAL of KOS stance on Obama and Fox"), Moulitsas responded: "Yo people, Obama isn't beyond reproach or criticism. I want him to win the primary and the general, but I ain't gonna keep my mouth shut and carry his water when I disagree with him. If you have a problem with it, you might want to go elsewhere, because this is the reality based community, not the 'Obama can do no wrong' community. The dude is human, believe it or not. What's funny to me is that the same people who have criticized Clinton for legitimizing Fox, or who helped fight to kill the Fox News Democratic debates, are now busy rationalizing Obama's decision to appear on the network."

TPM's Josh Marshall offers his view: "My take is that it was stupid for an unnamed Obama advisor to tell TPM Election Central's Greg Sargent that Obama was going to 'take Fox on' in the Sunday interview, since obviously he didn't. But I think it would have been even stupider for Obama to have actually done so. I'm totally down with the idea that Fox News is an immense pile of crap and essentially a fraudulent operation. And for that reason I think it's in general a good idea for Democrats to shun the network. Certainly, Fox shouldn't be hosting any Democratic debates since it essentially operates as an arm of the Republican National Committee. But once Obama agreed to sit down for an interview with Chris Wallace I think it would have been crazy to try to make it into some sort of 'take on fox-fest'. Totally, nuts. Presumably Obama wanted to introduce himself to people who actually watch Fox. And getting in a tussle with the moderator of their show would not have been the way to do it, especially since he's campaigning on an ability to reach across the partisan divide, and so forth. In addition, it's virtually impossible to have that work when the people you're 'taking on' control the editing."

OBAMA VI: We Get No Respect!

While discussing Obama's FOX News Sunday appearance, Daily Kos' BarbinMD notes that Obama hasn't appeared on Daily Kos since Sept. '05: "I would be remiss if I didn't mention the shout out that Daily Kos received during the interview. It seems that for some reason, the senator is less willing to take on our commenters than he is Chris Wallace. It's now been 922 days since his last visit. Is it time to borrow from Fox News and start our own 'Obama Watch?' After all, we never pushed the 'Barack is a Muslim, Marxist, un-American, latte swilling, elitist' stories. That should be worth something, right? Or is that left?"

Open Left's Chris Bowers: "BarbinMD asks a good question: why has Obama spent a longer time away from Daily Kos than he has from Fox News? The reason I ask is that there are far more Democratic primary voters to be found on Daily Kos than on Fox News. Only 7% of the Fox News audience supported John Kerry in 2004, whereas the vast majority of the roughly 1.12 million daily readers of Daily Kos not only vote for Democrats in general elections, but in primaries as well. Surely, with several remaining upcoming Democratic primaries, Obama would rather appear on media outlets where he can not only reach more Democratic primary voters, but where he can even control his own message by crafting his comments ahead of time."

Bowers concludes that the Obama camp no longer respects the netroots: "Matt [Stoller]'s basic argument, with which I am inclined to agree, is that the blogosphere and netroots have lost their leverage over the presidential campaigns because we have made our endorsement, and now there is no way to hold the campaigns accountable as a result. MoveOn.org and many of the larger blogs endorsed Obama a while ago. Now, Obama's more than 3-2 advantage among small online donors, and more than 2-1 advantage among online supporters, basically means that he has the constituency as locked up about as much as anyone [could] ever hope to have it locked up in a national primary. Further, the unwillingness of many to even call the Obama campaign on its about face from once freezing out Fox News to now appearing on Fox News, not to mention sending out mendacious missives about the purpose of his appearance on Fox News, only exacerbates the situation. Last year, [when] the progressive political blogopshere was still undecided and/or split among several candidates, its potential voter and activist support had to be respected. Now, because we have fallen in line and take beatings with a smile, there is no need to respect us."

CLINTON: Pander Bear?

Several liberal bloggers are criticizing Clinton for supporting a gas tax holiday that she opposed during her 2000 Senate campaign:

• Moulitsas slams "Clinton's shameless hypocrisy on the fuel tax": "Honestly, why take the 18 cents out of the federal budget? Why not take it out of the oil company profits? The $10 billion in revenue the federal government would lose, at a time when our roads are crumbling and bridges literally collapsing, is only a quarter of Exxon Mobil's annual profits. [...] And that's just Exxon Mobil, excluding every other Big Oil company. Add them all up, and $10 billion would be but a blip in their balance sheet. So why do McCain and Clinton want to penalize the federal government at a time of record oil profits?"
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis chastises the Clinton camp: "Good grief. How are you people going to run against McCain, should you steal the election, when all you do is praise him? Any chance you could take a moment away from trying to destroy Obama and destroy McCain, just a little bit? But supporting tax cuts at a time of massive deficits? Come on. What's next, embracing guns? Oh. Yeah. I forgot."
• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "Clinton's idea is ridiculous and would just ship money to OPEC."

CLINTON II: Now They're Being Nice To Her?

BooMan notices a trend: "Why are members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy so nice to the Clintons these days? Rupert Murdoch holds a fundraiser for her. Richard Mellon Scaife has lunch with Bill [Clinton] and endorses Hillary. Sean Hannity spends all day telling his listeners falsehoods about William Ayers and his connections to Barack Obama. Rush Limbaugh is trying to get all his listeners to re-register as Democrats and vote for Hillary Clinton. And Bill Kristol sticks up for her in the New York Times."

Salon's Glenn Greenwald offers an explanation: "When the Right and the media assumed that Hillary Clinton was the inevitable nominee and that Obama couldn't win, the Right just 'loved' Obama, and people like The New Republic's Jason Zengerle marveled at what they actually believed was the astonishing (and real) phenomenon that no 'conservative writer [is] able to withstand Obama's charms.' Now that it appears that Obama rather than Clinton will likely be the nominee, that has, quite predictably, reversed itself completely: suddenly the Right hates Obama and has great respect for Hillary Clinton. [...] Karl Rove's army, including those in the media who revere him, aren't objectively evaluating each Democratic candidate to decide which one is strongest, which one is best, what they ought to do to win, etc. Their goal, instead, is to demonize and weaken whomever the nominee is going to be. Praising whomever appears to be the loser at the expense of the winner -- while issuing 'advice' designed to exacerbate tensions and wedges -- is one prong in that strategy. Why would anyone take any of that seriously, as though it's some sort of serious political analysis being offered in good faith?"

Crooks and Liars' scarce agrees: "In one of the odder transformations seen this primary season, some of the harshest critics of Hillary Clinton are now championing her candidacy with great gusto. Kristol seems to lead this pack of concern trolls from the vast rightwing conspiracy, but we've also seen Rush Limbaugh, Joe Scarborough, and Karl Rove among others rush to her defense. And then last month's bizarre endorsement from her once arch nemesis Richard Mellon Scaife. [...] Of course, the disdain for all things Clinton has not lessened one iota among these people. The annoying clucking sound we hear is only Republicans savoring the prospect of Democratic discord, their only real means to retaining the White House."

MCCAIN: Sorry, RNC, But Those Are His Words

Liberal bloggers are mocking the RNC for threatening legal action in order to stop the new DNC ad, which criticizes McCain for advocating a 100-year troop presence in Iraq:

• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "Now, this is funny. Yes, the RNC wants to protect America from misrepresentations and falsehoods. So, what are they objecting to? The DNC ad that uses John McCain's own words against him."
• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "The RNC is really losing its grip over the new DNC ad of John McCain making his '100 years' in Iraq comment. I don't quite know how, but a clip of John McCain uttering this statement himself is supposed to be 'false and defamatory.' They're demanding CNN and MSNBC not run it. The whole thing must be testing just horribly for McCain."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "There is no 'falsehood' in the ad, deliberate or otherwise. The DNC commercial quotes McCain directly. It relies on his own comments, the context of which does nothing to change the meaning of his remarks. He believes the United States should be prepared to leave troops in Iraq indefinitely, maybe 100 years, maybe more. He said it, he meant it, and Democrats would be insane not to tell voters about it. The DNC was very careful in exactly how it worded the ad, precisely because it knew the RNC would make a variety of ridiculous demands. So what on earth is the RNC going to sue over? At least for now, there are no laws against running ads that make John McCain look bad."
• Marshall: "McCain does not want to leave Iraq. Period. He wants tens of thousands of troops to stay in Iraq permanently. He made a big point of this during the primaries when it was politically advantageous to do so. And he followed up with a qualifier explaining that it's okay because our occupation of Iraq will soon be like our presence in Germany and Japan where nobody gets killed. But there's little reason to believe our occupation of Iraq will ever be like that. We tried this in Lebanon; the French tried this in Algeria; the British even tried it in Iraq. Western countries have a very poor history garrisoning Muslim countries in the Middle East. Iraq isn't like Germany or Japan, not simply because of the history of the country but because both countries accepted decades-long US deployments as a counterweight to threatening neighbors. The relevant point is that McCain believes American troops should stay in Iraq permanently. His pipe dream about Iraq turning into Germany doesn't change that. It just shows his substitution of wishful thinking for sound strategic judgment."
• Marshall continues: "There is a way foreign policy questions are hashed out in quiet symposia and a way they are fought over in political campaigns. They are not the same. McCain and his surrogates are demanding something no one else gets: namely, the right to have their words repeated only in their fullest context and most generous, most amply spun interpretation. He wants his own set of rules, an election with a stacked deck. If the Democrats have any intention of winning this race, that's not something they can possibly accede to, or accept reporters going along with."

Meanwhile, MyDD's Jonathan Singer wonders: "By raising the specter of legal action, drawing out dueling press conferences, isn't the RNC drawing more attention to this ad rather than figuring out a way to convince American voters that McCain didn't say he'd be comfortable keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years?"

MCCAIN II: Release Your Tax Returns, Cindy!

Several liberal bloggers are pressuring Cindy McCain to release her tax returns, since "all of the couple's assets are in Cindy's name", not John's:

• The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "I didn't realize just how skimpy John McCain's financial disclosure was until I read this Moneybox piece over the weekend. [...] Can we stop pretending to be children about this? There's only one reason for a politician to make sure that all his assets are in his wife's name: it's to make sure that no one knows anything about his assets. It's not as if McCain is the first pol to try this, after all. Is the press really going to let him get away with this?"
• Yglesias: "As a married couple, John and Cindy McCain are multi-millionaires. But John McCain on his own is just a guy with some money in a Wachovia savings account. In other words, he's stashed all his considerable assets under his wife's name, and then proceeded to not disclose anything at all about his finances under pretense of protecting his daughter's privacy. It's absurd."
• Firedoglake's Attaturk notes that the media put pressure on Teresa Heinz Kerry to release her tax returns in '04, and writes: "Funny, how the rules change."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "I love that [McCain's] wife has a jet and let's him use it. But, he pretends she doesn't give him any of her vast wealth for his campaign. Her vast wealth is the reason he has a political career. What is in those tax forms of Cindy McCain? We need to know."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Wright's Intentional Monkey-Wrenching

The New Republic's Michelle Cottle thinks Rev. Wright wants Obama to lose:

"I, too, think Wright is digging center stage. But I also suspect he specifically wants to tank Obama's candidacy. I mean, this is a man who has spent a fair portion of his career spreading the message that blacks cannot get a fair shake in this country; that America was, is, and always will be fundamentally racist; that the U.S. government in particular has it in for blacks. So what happens to all that if suddenly a black man -- and not just any black man, but one who has been counseled by Wright and so cannot be dismissed as some pathetic Uncle Tom -- is elected president? With Obama in office, it suddenly becomes much harder for Wright to rage against the evil of America in general and the government in particular. Certainly, he'd have a harder time spinning new tales along the lines of AIDs was a government creation aimed at wiping out the black race. But if Obama loses, Wright's ugly vision of America is confirmed yet again, and so he can keep on fighting the good fight at even greater volume and with even uglier rhetoric. How nice for him. How sad for the rest of the country."

LEST WE FORGET: Conversations My Parents Must Have Had While Planning To Raise A Child

McSweeney's' Jen Statsky:

DAD: We should talk very loudly about the truth about Santa Claus.
MOM: Yes, and let's not make any attempt whatsoever to disguise Santa's handwriting from our own.

MOM: I'll make sure to give her a haircut that matches mine. Mine in 1972, that is.
DAD: Great. I'll wear an awkward comb-over.

DAD: I think I'll always be a little bit weirder than necessary around her friends. Especially the "cool" ones who are just over to copy notes for Ms. Reardon's AP Physics midterm.
MOM: Sounds good. I'll always talk one decibel louder than a normal person.

Posted by Ian Faerstein at April 29, 2008 12:55 PM