Jason Linkins

Just how much do ordinary Americans dislike the group of legislators who are currently spending their days babbling at each other in the House of Representatives and the Senate?

So much so that they would now actually be pretty okay if all of the lawmakers were replaced by people selected at random out of a phone book. (A "phone book" is something people used to keep in their homes to look up other people's numbers, before the Internet and the dawning awareness that we didn't actually want to talk to people anymore -- because, gah, what is the point anyway? -- made them basically obsolete.)

Or so says the latest poll from Rasmussen Reports:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows that 43% believe a group of people randomly selected from the phone book would do a better job than the current Congress. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree with that assessment, while another 19% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

President Barack Obama's decision to give his "reluctant blessing" to a super PAC supporting him, Priorities USA Action, has created something of a low-grade mess for his campaign team, which has had to spend the past few days fending off charges of hypocrisy from the press. This is understandable! President Obama, after all, famously defamed the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that has allowed these secretive organizations to flower and flourish. And the president has taken his share of shots from those on his side of the aisle as well: Russ Feingold characterized Obama's embrace of the super PAC system as "dancing with the devil."

Of course, the argument in favor of getting into bed with super PACs is equally compelling and typically involves the phrase "unilateral disarmament." Bill Burton, who runs Priorities USA Action, made the argument on MSNBC this morning, saying, "This is not a perfect system, and these are not the rules that we would have if we were able to just make them from whole cloth right now, but it's the rules that we have, and we are going into an election where Karl Rove and the Koch brothers and others have pledged millions of dollars against Obama ... we do not like the rules but we have to have a force against what they are doing."

In other words, Team Obama Re-Elect can fight according to the established rules of the game -- including those they do not care for -- and thus avoid going into a knife fight armed with a plastic spork, or they can stand on principle, get obliterated in the general, and everyone can spend the rest of their lives as private citizens, lamenting the corrupt campaign finance system with Buddy Roemer. As a tactical decision, it's the right one. It's the one I'd make, if I were in charge of tactical decisions.

But I'm not. It's my job to fret about the corrupt campaign finance system. Now, in terms of how this issue might impact anyone's electoral hopes, it's safe to say that at the moment, this is not going to be a matter that voters consider too deeply. With a fragile economy and high unemployment, I doubt it really even rates. But that could change. Sen. John McCain predicts that at some point, there's going to be some massive scandal that arises from all the money that's sloshing around. If something like that happens to Mitt Romney, it could end up costing him. But if it happens to Obama, it costs him double, because he's the guy in the race who took a principled stand against super PACs in the first place, and who is continuing to profess those principles, even as he fudges them.

My feeling is that if Obama is not going to unilaterally disarm, that's fine. But he's going to have to take some steps that might nevertheless place him at a disadvantage.

First, he will have to insist that his super PAC do the one thing it is legally entitled to abstain from, and offer absolute and total transparency. Priorities USA is going to have to disclose the sources of their funding -- the individual donors, the bundlers, right down to how the administrative costs of running the super PAC are funded. No part of this operation can be permitted to operate in darkness. What that means is that not only will the Obama campaign have to endure process stories about who is financing their effort, they'll also have to endure process stories about who is refraining from offering assistance. And shady money? That will have to be returned, no excuses.

Second, Obama is never going to be allowed to do what Mitt Romney has done during the primary season -- pass the buck. The main reason to have a super PAC in the first place is to have a campaign entity that can do all the dirty work -- the deceptions, the brutal attack ads, the low blows -- while giving the candidate something that looks like "plausible deniability." But Obama can't be the guy standing onstage at the debate, pretending to have no idea how it came to pass that his super PAC put out a controversial ad, and gosh golly if he had his way he'd put a stop to it ... but, you know ... that would be considered "coordination," so his hands are tied, shucks. If Obama is going to maintain some semblance of a principled stance, it's a luxury he can't claim for himself. In this way, someone like Mitt Romney is going to have a natural advantage over Obama, but what can you do? Romney never took a principled stand against super PACs!

Finally, Obama is going to have to find a way to convince voters that he's hot to reform the system he's using to win the election. Or at the very least, it's something that he should articulate, since many of his defenders are putting their principles on the line by making the argument that the only way to fight the system is to use the system, as Jonathan Chait argues:

Indeed, if you want to change the system, unilateral disarmament seems like a pretty bad way to go about it. Republicans are already pretty strongly opposed to campaign-finance reform. If keeping the current system means preserving a system in which their side gets unlimited outside spending and Democrats abstain, then the GOP is never going to agree to change it. Not that matching their money will force them to agree to reform, but eliminating the GOP’s partisan self-interest in the status quo seems like, at minimum, a necessary step toward reform.

“Should a constitutional amendment be necessary to reverse the worst aspets of the Citizens United law, he would support those efforts,” the official said. “But ultimately as we look at what’s possible this year, we recognize the reality of what the Republican Congress will and won’t support.”

“That doesn’t mean his commitment to reform isn’t there. But we’re recognizing the reality of the political situation. We’re going to need to elect a Democratic majority in Congress.”

On last night's edition of his eponymous Fox News show, Sean Hannity briefly took a trip to his smile-time fantasy world when he had this conversation with Frank Luntz:

HANNITY: I know the president will say, 'Well, we got bin Laden.' Putting that aside...

LUNTZ: And the public gives him credit for that.

HANNITY: They do. The public does give him credit for that. But it wouldn't have happened if he had his way, and I think that can be proved as well on tape.

Well, hello there! You have arrived just in time for your Sunday Morning Liveblog of the political chit-chat shows. My name is Jason. Last night, Mitt Romney prevailed in the Nevada Caucuses, like everyone expected. And everyone else decided, for some reason, to keep on campaigning. So there were no real "losers" last night, except for any reporter who used some form of the "What happens in ____________ does/does not stay in ___________" construction. In addition, it's Super Bowl Sunday, or if you prefer, Superb Owl Sunday, so enjoy:

"If you are talking we go down to 7.9 percent in the fourth year of the longest recession since the Great Depression, you still have a challenge," Gingrich replied. "If it's combined with the highest-priced gasoline in the history, he will still have a challenge, and if we got to that recovery because he is borrowing trillions from our children and grandchildren, it's still down."

"By an overwhelming margin, the American people think Washington is on the wrong track," Gingrich continued. "Obama's policies have consistently weakened the country. There are very few Americans who want to see the price of gasoline raised by ... 25 cents a gallon."

Even if an improving economy is unhelpful to Republicans, Gingrich suggested there's always the culture war alternative. "It's not just an economic election," he said. "[Obama] declared war on the Catholic Church. That's the language of the archbishop in New York."

GREGORY: This is for insurance to be provided, including contraception, for employees around the country. But religious institutions would be exempted. How is this a war against religion, while religious institutions (churches and the like) would be exempted? And there are states that have very similar rules to ensure the health and safety of women, that they get covered in their workplace, whether it be a Catholic hospital or other kind of institution.

GINGRICH: Well, I mean, you just managed to precisely repeat the Obama administration's line, which is also the American Civil Liberties Union line. The fact is, what you're saying is there cannot be a genuinely Catholic university, there cannot be a genuinely Catholic hospital. That in fact, it will have to be subordinated to the rules of a secular government. I mean, I happen to oppose rules that have, for example, forced Catholic adoption services to be closed because they're only willing to have adoptions for marriages between a man and a woman. There are states that now close that. I think that is a tremendous infringement of religious liberty, and I think you're saying the same thing. You're saying basically, "Oh, you can have the name on the-- but you can't actually be a Catholic institution. You can't actually be an evangelical Christian institution. You can't actually be an Orthodox Jewish institution because we, the secular government, are going to impose on you."

GREGORY: Governor Daniels, one of the things you hear from the campaign trail, Mitt Romney said it just the other day, is that the recovery should have been so much stronger. You know, it's very difficult to prove something like that, just like it's difficult for the president to prove that the economy would have been weaker if not for his particular policies. How could it have been stronger, had a Republican been president, in your judgment? Been in the White House, I should say.

DANIELS: Well, for one thing, national policy wouldn't have been so relentlessly anti-enterprise as it's been. If you assembled a team of Nobel economists and said, "Design us a policy to stifle and strangle investment and small business growth and innovation in this economy," you couldn't have done better than what's happened the last three years. The mindless piling on of new regulations, every one of them very expensive, and in the aggregate extraordinarily so, that's all drained away dollars that could have been used to hire someone. The new taxes, and the threat of more; all the uncertainty that's come with that. What we know is this, David. No one can prove what might have happened, but this is the weakest recovery, by far, from a deep recession that we have since the records have been kept. And I don't think that's an accident.

BLOOMBERG: I think it'd be great, but the Pentagon has asked us to postpone any parade as long as we still have our soldiers in Iraq, getting shot at and sadly killed. I think I'll leave it up to the military experts and the Pentagon to decide when they think it's appropriate, and then New York will give them a parade like we've never done before--

DAVID GREGORY: But--

BLOOMBERG: to say thank you for everything they've done.

GREGORY: But does it make sense, we can deploy to two different wars at the same time and fund two different wars, but we can't have a parade for two different sets of veterans?

BLOOMBERG: Well, you know, I think the military's very sensitive. They're the ones that are out there, they're the ones that have been in combat themselves. I'll defer to the leadership.

RACHEL MADDOW: The idea that the Catholic Church is being forced to do something that, as a church, it does not want to do is a misnomer. The initial exception in here is that the Catholic Church, somebody that is providing the service of being a church, that is operating as a church, they're already exempt from this. The question is, as the congressman says, when you want to become a health insurance provider, you must follow the rules of providing health insurance. And in this country, that means that you have to cover contraception. And 80%--

(OVERTALK)

RACHEL MADDOW: -of Americans agree with that. This fits into-- you guys want to make this only about religion, but listen.

ALEX CASTELLANOS: It is all--

RACHEL MADDOW: Mitt Romney is campaigning today that he would like to end--

ALEX CASTELLANOS: --the administration made this all about religion. Ask the bishop.

RACHEL MADDOW: He would like to end all family planning support at the federal level. He would like to eliminate Title 10. Rick Santorum said that he would like states to be able to make contraception illegal. You can try to make this an issue of, "Oh, Democrats hate religion," but the fact is, churches were exempt from this from the beginning. This is about providing health insurance.

BROOKS: You can't wage this on the cyclical ups and downs of the economy 'cause it might get better. God willing, it will get better. So if I were the Republicans, I'd say, "Cyclical, we're doing a little better. We've got these huge structural problems. We've got the debt, we've got wage stagnation, we've got families falling apart," and highlight the deep structural problems. The message for Romney out of these jobs numbers is, "I can't cruise quoting God Bless America," whatever song he quotes. "I've got to actually have some big policies." And he's cruising on a bad economy, but that may go away, hopefully.

Congratulations, America: you survived January of 2012, along with its four super-hyped primaries and its eleventy-billion debates. Your reward? A snoozy February, with some primaries and caucuses that will not draw the same level of media attention and only one debate scheduled between now and March. That's good news for everyone -- especially if you are named "Mitt Romney."

Yes, this week, as expected, Mitt won the Florida Primary in a rout, and successfully "altered" the "narrative" and "changed" the "complexion" of the race. Again. And he did it the new-fashioned way: he had his super PAC minions carpetbomb the Sunshine State into oblivion, with wave after wave of toxic attack ads on his closest rival, Newt Gingrich. The end result? Romney is once again looking like the inevitable nominee, and Gingrich is once again looking for a venue in which he can win between now and Super Tuesday.

Let's take a look at the numbers behind the Florida ad wars that turned the tide:

Numbers from CMAG show a total of 11,586 television spots aired in Florida between Jan. 23 and Jan. 29. Of those spots, 10,633 were negative and 953 were positive.

Of the 1,012 spots Newt Gingrich's campaign ran, 95 percent were negative. Mitt Romney's campaign ran 3,276 ads and 99 percent were negative.

The two super PACs supporting the top candidates were more divergent in their ad strategies. Restore our Future, supporting Romney, ran 4,969 spots, all of which were negative. The Gingrich-backing Winning our Future ran 1,893 spots, and only 53 percent were negative.

Correspondingly, the bulk of ads in Florida -- 68 percent -- were negative toward Gingrich. Twenty-three percent were anti-Romney spots. Gingrich got support from 9 percent of ads while pro-Romney spots accounted for less than 0.1 percent.

Polling shows Trump a net drag on any chosen candidate. In September, Fox found that it would make people 31 percent less likely to vote for someone, with 62 percent saying it would make no difference at all. Before the New Hampshire primary, an NBC poll found that a Trump endorsement would have a negative impact on 42 percent of that state's voters. A Pew poll found a Trump endorsement to have the most negative impact of any given by leading GOP figures.

One of the things you learn from watching political coverage, especially during an election season, is how important it is for the Big-Time Political Media to have ample opportunity to breathlessly cover all manner of manufactured pseudo-events. If, for instance, you don't get to spend a day blathering on and on in an idiotic fit about that time someone used the common expression "lipstick on a pig" and What It Secretly Means, you run the risk of having to actually talk about "the issues" and how they impact common people.

So right as the 2012 campaign season begins to teeter into what would ordinarily be a month-long snooze to Super Tuesday, reality teevee mogul and former pretend presidential candidate Donald Trump has emerged to offer up his "endorsement" of a presidential candidate. It's fitting that he's doing so on Groundhog Day. According to legend, if a teevee camera happens to alight upon Donald Trump's waffley comb-over today in Las Vegas, it means six more hours of bullshit! No one will have to point a camera at or talk about the widespread economic despair in Nevada.

What little intrigue that existed before this non-event took place boiled down to two questions:

1. What candidate will receive Trump's endorsement?
2. Will that candidate be stupid enough to actually accept it?

On the first question, we began with nothing but various rumors and sighs to go on. First, it was presumed that Newt Gingrich was going to receive the endorsement. This made some sense, as Gingrich was one of two candidates who signed on to participate in the aborted Donald Trump Debate and the only one who really vigorously defended it on the merits. (The other candidate who agreed to participate was Rick Santorum, and you really can't blame him: He's needed whatever exposure he could get to maintain his presence in the campaign.)

But later came a twist! News began leaking that it would be Mitt Romney that would earn Trump's gaudy imprimatur. Which was sort of odd, given that in the past, Trump has done little more than throw shade on Romney. In a long-forgotten (by Trump, anyway) interview with CNN's Candy Crowley, Trump said that Romney was "a basically small-business guy, if you really think about it." Trump went on: "He was a hedge fund. He was a funds guy. He walked away with some money from a very good company that he didn't create. He worked there. He didn't create it." He also bragged, "I have a much, much bigger net worth. I mean my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney.”

In addition, here's what Trump had to say about Romney back in April of last year: "He's going to lose. He doesn't resonate, you know?" Trump said that in an interview with Meghan McCain, and if that doesn't demonstrate that we are deep down the rabbit hole, burrowing in the direction of sub-relevance, I don't know what does.

What possible reason would Romney have to accept an endorsement from a cartoon mogul who doesn't know the difference between a hedge fund and a private equity company? And who sort of holds Romney in contempt? Your guess is as good as mine! Romney, like all the other presidential candidates (save for Ron Paul, who is the luckiest candidate of all because he's in a longstanding feud with Trump), made a pilgrimage to New York City to hobnob with the reality teevee star, but Romney had the good sense to avoid being photographed with him. Romney has the inside track to the nomination and is in no need of a stunt endorsement that's only going to remind everyone about his strange detachment from the working poor. So why do it? David Corn had a theory:

The Romney camp had to worry that a Trump endorsement of Gingrich would hurt the front-runner's efforts to keep Gingrich from mounting a full-scale Tea Party rebellion against Romney. In the closing hours of the Florida primary, Gingrich was claiming to be the embodiment of the Tea Party wing of the party and trying to set up a civil war between the true-believers and the GOP establishment. Winning Trump's seal (or bark) of approval would certainly have helped Gingrich in this endeavor and, undoubtedly, caused the commentariat to question whether Romney really could win over the party's conservative base. A Trump nod would have boosted and extended Gingrich's latest narrative.

Dave Dayen today flags an exchange between Fox News White House Correspondent Ed Henry and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, in which the former drives the latter to distraction in a discussion over the White House's new plan to allow certain struggling homeowners refinance their homes in order to help them save some scratch. The vagaries of home loans seem to elude Henry, but from what I know of the White House Press Corps' skill set, I imagine that there are many more of Henry's colleagues who are similarly asea. So let's learn together, shall we?

What the Obama administration wants to do is help current mortgage holders who are upside-down on their mortgages (they owe more than their property is currently worth) reduce their monthly payments and stay in their homes, in the hope that this will stem the tide of foreclosures and soften the real estate market's slide to the bottom. Right now, these mortgage holders are locked into interest rates that could be reduced if they were allowed to refinance their loan at the lower interest rates that are available today. The problem here is one of access -- many of these homeowners are locked out of obtaining refi loans. What the Obama administration seeks to do is allow these homeowners to get around these barriers, provided they have been reliably making payments and their credit scores are above 580.

Okay, let's go to the Henry-Donovan colloquy:

Q: Just a quick — you were saying at the top that basically to make the President’s plan work you’re going to tell financial institutions that they can’t say no to refinancing. How do you actually — how does the federal government tell private institutions, you can’t say no?

SECRETARY DONOVAN: You misunderstood.

Q: Okay.

SECRETARY DONOVAN: Single-family loans in this country are prepayable, so any homeowner already has the right, even if they’re — if you owe $300,000 on your house and it’s a $250,000 house and you have $300,000, you can go and pay off your mortgage today — right? The issue is they can’t get a new $300,000 loan.

So what this plan would do, the way it breaks through this barrier for these families is to allow them to refinance that loan, to get a new loan that allows them to pay off their existing loan. There’s nothing the existing lender can do today — we’re not changing this at all — the existing lender today can’t stand in the way of a family paying off their existing loan.

Q: You’re saying if they have $300,000 laying around to pay it off — or how do they do that? I don’t understand.

SECRETARY DONOVAN: They’re going to go get a new loan, and that new loan for –

Q: — the lender is okay with that, is just going to say, this is the rate you’re at right now, it’s fine if you just want to change it?

According to Tuesday night's CNN exit polls, one of the few demographic segments that Gingrich won the Florida primary were voters for whom the debates were the "most important factor" in choosing a candidate. In this subset of Florida voters, Gingrich prevailed -- barely! -- pipping Romney by a 40-38 percent margin.

CNN doesn't have results on the same question from South Carolina, where I suspect Gingrich's sharp denunciations of debate moderators Juan Williams and John King did more than anything else to fire up voters and bring them to his side. The thin margin in Florida isn't that surprising, given that his debate performances in that state were not nearly as strong. And I can't help feeling like the way the voters respond to the debates is almost entirely superficial -- after all, lately Rick Santorum has been the one running a clinic on debate technique. But against the backdrop of Mitt and Newt's huge feud, and Newt's own pyrotechnic rages at the media, Santorum's more subtle argumentative arts are getting drowned out.

Nevertheless, Gingrich's result among voters who placed special importance on the debates indicates that the central premise of his candidacy has obtained some modicum of persistence. His argument there is two-fold. First, Gingrich maintains that in a debate with President Barack Obama, he will be better suited at establishing clear ideological contrasts than the "Massachusetts moderate" Romney. Second, his continual conjuring of debate face-offs with Obama are designed to stimulate that part of the electorate that likes to believe that Obama is some sort of stone idiot who can't talk without televised assistance. (A short memory that doesn't recall, say, the 2008 debates, or the March 2010 GOP retreat in Baltimore, is required for that to work.)

And Gingrich's demands for future debates are getting to be more ornate than Jay-Z's tour rider. After NBC staged a debate at which audience members were asked to sit on their hands and refrain from responding to the candidates' arguments, Gingrich registered his strenuous objections. And since then, he's gotten considerably more outlandish, saying that in the general election, he'll refuse to participate in any debates that are moderated by reporters. Of course, Gingrich's dream is to restage the "Lincoln-Douglas debates" of yore -- he wants to meet Obama in seven four-hour contests of endless, unmoderated yammering, before an unrestrained audience.

To that end, it would appear Gingrich has reached out to historians for help in making the case that these tete-a-tetes would benefit the nation. One of the people he contacted was Harry Holzer, historian and author of “The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text.” But in an op-ed in last week's Washington Post, Holzer argues that Gingrich is really overrating those beloved Lincoln-Douglas debates. "As I’ve told Gingrich, the problem is that, as famous as the debates are, their reputation far outweighs their value. And they’re hardly an inspiring model for modern candidates seeking to showcase their oratorical skills," he wrote.

As Holzer points out, those debates were actually sort of a chaotic shitshow:

These lengthy rhetorical bouts tested the endurance of the audiences and the candidates. Rather than inspiring memorable words, they proved for the most part an embarrassment. The encounters were brutally sarcastic, featuring highly personal attacks rather than elevated discourse. And while they were the first major political forums transcribed by stenographers, the debates were not even accurately published. The texts we know today were massaged by partisan editors eager to make their candidate sound less garbled. Newspapers of the era were openly connected to major parties — imagine Fox or MSNBC editing debate tapes before broadcast.

With little to entertain them outside church and county fairs, Americans flocked by the thousands to political events. Spectators stood for hours, toted banners, hocked wares, fired cannons, downed hard drink and raucously interrupted speakers with hurrahs and harassment — there was no Brian Williams-like proscription against audience response.

It was not uncommon for fistfights to break out in the farthest reaches of these large crowds, where the unamplified voices of the debaters seldom reached. During one debate, a Republican smeared excrement on Douglas’s carriage.

Most of the time, when Herman Cain sends someone a text in the middle of the night, the rest of the world doesn't find out about it until Gloria Allred files a discovery motion. Fortunately for everyone, Cain went on Fox And Friends this morning to let everyone know about the message he sent to Newt Gingrich after last night's result in the Florida primary.

CAIN: My text message to Newt afterward was: "Congratulations. It is now a two-man race. Get some rest. Give me a call. Let's talk strategy." That was the message I sent to Newt Gingrich.

One of the more effective ways Newt Gingrich has managed to galvanize voters and bring them to his side -- most notably, in South Carolina -- has been to savage the media for all of their sins. But if Newt criticizes the media and the media isn't around to write down, record, and broadcast his remarks to a national audience, will anyone hear about it? Because that's the problem that anyone not named Mitt Romney faces as the campaign trail leaves Florida and wends its way, silently, to Super Tuesday.

Over at BuzzFeed, John Ellis explains what's going to happen to the coverage of the primary season, now that the over-hyped early contests are over and the battalions of campaign embeds report back to their home offices to file for reimbursement of their travel expenses:

Plane fare, town cars, hotel rooms, rental cars, set up costs, satellite feeds, filing centers, edit rooms, "dinner with sources!" It was adding up to real money. All the while, back in the home offices, the accountants were writing anxious memos to the Executive Suits: "we have to get this spending under control! Forget about the primary/caucus season budget, we're already eating into the conventions budget! And those are in late August and early September. You, Great Suits, must do something, now! Otherwise we're going to have to look at ways to cut back general election coverage."

But never you worry; the Suits understand exactly the seriousness of the problem. Their bonuses are tied to profitability and, as in every presidential election cycle prior, "news gathering" was eating into the bottom line. Unchecked, it would eat right into their bonuses.

So, tonight, word will come down from the executive suites. Florida is definitive! Romney wins! Coverage of the campaign will adjust accordingly.

When Sen. John McCain won the South Carolina primary in 2008 (after winning the New Hampshire primary) he essentially won the GOP presidential nomination. Coverage of his opponents diminished (and in some cases evaporated). By the time of the first "Super Tuesday," McCain had been nominated by the media and coverage shifted almost exclusively to the battle between Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

Years from now, assuming that the human race survives in a way that allows us all to have the free time to reminisce about the politics of the past, and not in a way where we're all on the run from our own drone warbots turned sentient, our grandchildren are going to ask us, "Hey, back in 2012, why was there so much discussion over who voted for Paul Tsongas during the '90s?" And we'll tell them, "Oh, darling, I ravaged that part of my brain with Xanax so long ago I can't remember." So, I guess it's good that Politifact has adjudicated this matter for posterity.

At issue is the past voting record of Mitt Romney, the discussion of which has recently become all the rage on the campaign trail, because everyone has run out of things to talk about that matter in our contemporary American lives. See, in his ongoing effort to characterize Romney as a "Massachusetts moderate," Newt Gingrich criticized Romney for casting a vote for Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Democratic Primary. Romney answered back:

"I've never voted for a Democrat when there was a Republican on the ballot. And -- and in my state of Massachusetts, you could register as an independent and go vote in (whichever) primary happens to be very interesting. And any chance I got to vote against Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy, I took. … I have always voted for a Republican any time there was a Republican on the ballot."

Media reports dating back to 1994 -- when Romney first ran as a Republican for Senate -- said that he had acknowledged voting for former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Democratic presidential primary in Massachusetts.

"An independent until last December, he publicizes his brief stint as a Democrat to support ex-senator Paul Tsongas in the 1992 presidential primary," wrote David Broder in the Washington Post on Oct. 7, 1994. " ‘I'm not a partisan politician,’ he said. ‘My hope is that after this election, it will be the moderates of both parties who will control the Senate, not the Jesse Helmses.'"

>> Nation's Gentrified Neighborhoods Threatened By Aristocratization: "When you have a bejeweled, buckle-shoed duke willing to pay 11 or 12 times the asking price for a block of renovated brownstones—and usually up front with satchels of solid gold guineas—hardworking white-collar people who only make a few hundred thousand dollars a year simply cannot compete." [The Onion]

>> Buried in the "for Kids" section of the Treasury Department, there's a page featuring Excel spreadsheets of alcohol distributors and wholesalers, nationwide. News you can use, kids! [Treasury Department]

>> Don't be so hasty to throw those stinky leftovers out! They could be award-winning. [Endless Simmer]

>> Congratulations to nine DC students, who won scholarships to George Washington University. There, they will meet people from New Jersey. [DC Wire]

>> DC Cab riding, cajun style! [Diary of a Mad DC Cabbie]

>> "WHAT IS SHE DOING TO THAT CAKE?!!?? THAT’S SOMEBODY’S BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!" [Pygmalion In A Blanket]

>> Hey! Wanna know what's been happening with that Tower of Invincibility whose email alerts I signed up for? Not a frakking thing. [By The Way Battlestar Galactica Returns Tonight]

Picture by Flickr user _kurtie_.

Mark Athitakis' latest article in the City Paper, "Building the Great D.C. Novel," is a fine one, and it really gets the mind grapes juicing. It takes up a noble task: how to write the classic DC novel.

His thesis, for which he builds a solid case, is this, "Though a few have come close, the Great American Novel has bypassed Washington." Along the way, Athitakis speaks to Jeffrey Charis-Carlson, a "scholar of DC literature" who's been immersing himself in the subject for his dissertation, and finds that he has "had a rough time finding a singular book that might rank with the likes of The Adventures of Augie March, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Big Sleep, A Confederacy of Dunces—novels that drill deep into how a city operates, giving you a sense that multiple waterfronts are being covered."

That's not to say that Athitakis is harshing on the literary offerings that stem from, and speak of, this city. He isn't. He makes copious mention of authors that have been inspired by and in the city (Chris Buckley, Ana Marie Cox, Ward Just, and others). Nevertheless, it should be noted that DC lit often does get some short shrift. Browse out to the Wikipedia page devoted to DC culture, and you can stub your way through topics related to film and theatre, music and museums, but nothing on books.

That seems shortsighted. DC novels are out there: the genre-anthropologies of George Pelecanos typically spring to mind, and you've likely pored through any number of spy thriller set in the city as well. But there's much more. There are sweeping historical epics from Henry Adams (Democracy) and Gore Vidal (Washington, D.C.), a classic horror novel that's turned a staircase into a tourist attraction (Blatty's The Exorcist), snapshots of ordinary lives (Andrew Hollaran's Grief, Paul Kafka-Gibbons' Dupont Circle, Ann Beattie's Chilly Scenes of Winter), the poli-sci-lite lit of Kristin Gore, and at least one wack-ass coming-of-age story: Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children.

But I get what Athitakis is after. He's looking for that essential DC novel—the book that takes on the "multiple waterfronts," finds a way to integrate different races and classes, finds a sweep and scope that doesn't ignore the Federal City at the center of Washington, but doesn't get bogged down there either. He identifies four novels that break out into the component parts he finds important, but he's dreaming of a novel that knits it all together.

It's a daunting task, given the traditional transience of the city and the fact that our central industry—governance—is as apt to alienate as it is to fascinate. What to do, what to do? Well, in The Areas Of My Expertise, John Hodgman maintains that the most salable premise in novels is "all animals versus all humans." So maybe we need a novel that depicts the entire city, coming together as one to fight all the city's animals—the rats, the pigeons, the cherry-blossom chomping beavers, the snakehead fish that walk on land, and all the denizens of the national zoo. It can contain lines like:

Dammit! We've tried it your way, Kucinich! But if we want to make it through this day alive, we need to start using the things that make this city truly great! Like our deep-seated, toxic distrust of neighborhood improvements and our confusing, zone-based, taxi fare system!

And the whole thing can end with a mortally wounded Marion Barry, breathing his last as he impales Butterstick upon a DC flag, choking out the words, "Celebrate and discover, you bamboo-chomping m*therf*cker!"

Or...maybe not. Still, as Athitakis says, "The field is wide open for somebody with the nerve to give the Great D.C Novel a shot." We'll take your best pitch, commenters.

For some, "Hell is other people," but for one local blogger, hell is just one person: the maitre d' at Kramerbooks & Afterwords, who governed over last Sunday's brunchtime with a haughty manner and a tendency toward "psychological abuse." There were snippy quips over bathroom tokens, for example, and memories that seem to have been remembered in German. But the whole matter ended up taking an existential turn for the worse:

I also heard Herr Säuglingsmörder berating several other patrons, notably someone who missed their name being called. The patron tried to insist that he had been in the store the whole time, but Lord Testicalshredder at his little podium of power called him out for having a Starbucks cup in his hand - BUSTED! But something Yelly McImpatient said to the now-indicted customer struck me:

"You can’t leave the store! You can’t leave the store!!!"

My god, I thought, he’s right! You can’t leave! That’s what they’re doing here! They are amassing bodies in this bookstore - for what? To harvest their body heat for energy for Testy Von Why-Am-I-40-Years-Old-And-Shouting-”Party-of-Three”-For-A-Living to devour? To muster a great hipster army bedecked in vintage tees?

Earlier this year, newly minted Washington Times EIC John Solomon began making changes at his new place of employ. His first move was to bring an end to some of the Times' most sacred traditions: like deploying scare-quotes around the word "marriage" when preceded by the word "gay," and belittling a major national political figure and presidential nominee by referring to her constantly with her first name. Also, they resolved to be slightly less douchey to immigrants and stuff. And, as we learned earlier this week, Solomon is poised to undertake a staff realignment -- old talent trimmed, new talent brought in -- that he promises to be "expeditious and fair, even-handed and humane," especially to the people being hired.

Well, that wasn't the end of Solomon's changes, not by a long shot, and today, he detailed some of his plans to FishbowlDC. The coming Times' upgrades include a recently launched TV/Radio studio, a website redesign (with a goal to "go live in mid-May"), and a reorganization of the physical look and feel of the paper itself.

As far as the online initiative goes, Solomon promises a "a Web 3.0 generation website" that's focused on enhancing the reader experience through the use of something called "news cubes" and greater "horizontality." Solomon also says that the Times plans to "create 15-20,000 RSS feeds on narrow-casted themes," which might just be the most terrifying promise the Times has ever made. Even more exciting: increased opportunities for you area bloggers to turn your hobby into a profession! The Times will be launching various online communities over which will rule a "blogger in chief." Expect the look and feel of permalancing, however: "They will most likely not be a Times staffer," Solomon says.

The paper's print redesign is also coming in the short-term: Solomon says to expect it "by summer time." Are you mentally prepared for a new Washington Times?

Photo by matvontheis

My sister, after spending over a decade away from the Washington area, recently moved back to attend graduate school. As she had been away a good long time, and was only in her early teens when our family decamped for Orlando, Florida (a move we all regretted, trust me), she thought it wise to take the time to refamiliarize herself with the area. And, being a child of an employee of the American Automobile Association (hence the move to Florida), she was well versed in the lore of guidebooks and TripTiks. So she went out and purchased several.

One of the things she bought was a pocket-sized guide to Washington from a publisher named Inside Out. As a package, Inside Out's D.C. guide, revised in 2005, is pretty good. It has maps that unfold and enlarge like origami butterflies, a decent -- if not exhaustive -- run down on area attractions, a compass for those moments when you forget how to count or spell, and even a pen with a tiny light...you know, for those times when it's better to light one tiny penlight than curse the darkness. In short, it's a nice and inoffensive little guide. Until you get to the last page.

Unfortunately, that's where the good people at Inside Out attempt to lay out an essential glossary of D.C.-centric terminology, and, my oh my, are they ever out of their depths. The effort ranges from the adorably parochial to the hopelessly stupid, and throughout, it is hilarious. So much so that the best thing one could possibly do, is quote the whole thing at length, which we'll do after the jump. I promise you, I am making none of this up.

Titled "Speak it," the glossary is divided into two sections. The first deals specifically with the culture of politics. It is actually sort of cute in the way it strains to be so cynical.

POLITI-SPEAK DC politi-speak is what you will hear from the politicians and their entourages in bars and restaurants throughout the city.

Here is what their jargon really means

bounce effect: Occurs when a presidential candidate does better than expected in the primaries, causing a "bounce" out of the primary. In other words, the candidate receives increased media attention, which leads to more funding.

the big tent: In which everyone is welcome in a political party, as in "Step right up and join our party, we need your vote (but don't expect anything in return)."

handler: The marketers who sell the product, which in this case just happens to be the political candidate.

pol: One of the more pleasant names for a politician

pork (pork barrel): Excess "fat" in the budget that only benefits a politician's constituents, for instance the building of a highway or bridge to expedite local traffic

soft money: Money that cannot be legally given to a federal candidate so is given instead to the candidate's political party to spend in a way that will benefit the candidate.

spin: To mainpulate the message for your own purposes. This is what press secretaries do for a living.

straw poll: An unofficial, nonbinding trial vote, used by some state parties during a presidential primary race.

wonk: flunky steeped in arcane governmental minutiae such as details of Sweden's public plumbing system.

Yes. Those are indeed, the NINE TERMS you will hear in every bar and restaurant. If only Inside Out had stopped there!

Because the next section is on street lingo. They're not precisely wrong in these usages...some are tantalizingly close to correct, so some attempt at doing the research and getting it right was made. It's just that the whole section is just a little off (and a lot dated), as if it was prepared by some impossibly earnest alien being who was probably sent by his overlords to study Sweden's public plumbing system.

DC SPEAK Meanwhile out there on the streets, there is a whole other language going down.

bama: A very uncool person.

bangin': Something very good.

beat your feet: To join in on an improvised go-go dance competition. [Ed. Note: And what tourist doesn't find themselves faced with that opportunity?]

bumpin': Also something very good.

cosign: To support someone in an argument.

cuz: Short for cousin.

don't wrap me up: This is a request for another person to make themselves clear.

off the hook: An all-encompassing superlative used long and often in street talk.

rollers: Police. "The rollers locked me up."

So there you have it, faithful readers! Leave your best sentences in the comments. And don't wrap me up, wonks!

In today's sad reminder that terrible people are out there walking among us, there is news today that an Alexandria charity, ALIVE (Alexandrians InVolved Ecumenically), has been the victim of a warehouse burglary, in which thieves made off with more than 1,000 pounds of food intended for the needy. ALIVE, which according to their website, "serves over 12,000 Alexandrians annually," works with community volunteers to provide Alexandria's less fortunate with a full spectrum of services, from financial assistance and donated goods, a child development center that targets health and education, and a massive effort to help the hungry.

The burglars struck at a city-run Wheeler Avenue warehouse where the organization stores the food that doesn't fit into the space they rent from an area church. The food that was stolen was said to be the quality products that ALIVE had in the warehouse: meat, fish, and spaghetti sauce. It was part of a stock that the organization distributes at the end of every month when people begin to run out of food stamps. According to the Washington Post, the charity isn't as worried about restoring their supply -- though they noted that "requests for food have risen 30 to 40 percent in the last year and have been growing" -- as they are about where they're going to store the food now, "Do we put it in the same place, where someone can just steal it again? That's the problem."

According to reports, there were no signs of forced entry at the scene.

For every dollar donated, ALIVE is able to purchase ten pounds of food from the National Capital Food Bank. If you'd like to help out with a donation, click over here to find out how.

Norovirus Outbreak Traced To Convention: According to this morning's Washington Post, a convention held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Prince George's County seems to have been the origin for an outbreak of the nasty norovirus -- the crafty little vomitous bugger that's known best as the ruiner of cruises. It's an inauspicious debut for the just-opened convention center, which was ironically hosting some sort of "medical meeting" at the time. According to the Post, "Seven people were taken to hospitals with conditions not considered life-threatening; seven others were evaluated and treated on site."

Nats Stadium Open House News: We woke up this morning to rumors that the Stadium Open House scheduled for today had been scuttled, and those rumors, we're sorry to say, are true. Nats officials confirm that today's inclement weather have forced the cancellation. There is no further news at this time as to when or if today's Open House will be rescheduled, but Saturday's is still on as planned. We shall keep you posted.

Harry Thomas Wants A Clampdown: A recent uptick in violent crime in Ward Five has Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. calling for a "crime emergency" -- you know, instead of a "crime...feh, whenever you get around to it." The Examiner says the District Police Chief Cathy Lanier is cool to the idea of invoking a "crime emergency" -- which allows the MPD to alter police schedules and force additional overtime shifts -- even though, when last deployed in June 2006, it totally solved all of D.C.'s crime problems forever and ever and ever. “It’s a drastic measure, but these are drastic times,” said Thomas.

Briefly Noted: Urban guru Richard Florida decamps for Toronto, but don't worry, Ryan Avent is still here...Reliable Sourceresses say that Jenna Bush and Henry Hager are looking to settle in Charm City...D.C. Area paramedic shortage is said to have been curbed after successful recruitment drives.

This Day In DCist: Last year, Inside Edition sent their "Rat Patrol" to D.C., and for one day, no one in the city could have been said to have the worst job in media. Two years ago, many of you went to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. That's what bloggers and their readers do! See the Yeah Yeah Yeah's...act like you've witnessed a rock revolution. Not me. I was, at the time, beginning a long set of dorky and complicated plans to see the Long Winters one year later.

Picture by Flickr user afagen

Well, sad to say, but the A-Hole Patriots Ran Up The Score On Us Revenge Tour of 2008 came to a premature end in Seattle Saturday, and Washington fell to the Seahawks, 35-14. Yeah, yeah, they lost by 21 points. But the game was much more competitive than the score implied. In fact, after a Seattle special-teams mistake gave Washington a fortunate fourth-quarter possession deep in Seattle territory, I was starting to believe that something otherworldly was affecting the outcome myself. But there's only so much poltergeists can do.

For most of the first half, it looked as if Seattle's defense was going to keep the Redskins offense completely bottled up. Patrick Kerney led the way for Seattle, a seething pillar of menace that single-handedly short-circuited our schemes, providing plenty of opportunities for his teammates to get into the act. A Leonard Weaver run for touchdown and a second quarter field goal allowed Seattle to take a 10-0 lead into the locker room, with Washington looking for some sort of answer to get the team moving again.

Washington responded in the second half by giving quarterback Todd Collins some adjustments - shorter drops and quicker reads - to help him get rid of the ball in the face of Seattle's onrush. But Seattle gave Washington an assist themselves by going conservative on defense and easing up on the pressure - the wages of playing teams like Arizona and St. Louis, I suppose.

Slowly, Washington started to get moving, and in the fourth quarter came that brief flood of impassioned play that made it seem like the tide was turning. Washington finally got on the board with a touchdown pass to Antwaan Randle-El. On the ensuing possession, the defense got into the act, with Laron Landry grabbing an interception that would set up a quick touchdown pass to Santana Moss.

When Seattle, mystifyingly, failed even to field the ensuing kickoff, allowing special-teamer Anthony Mix to grab possession, it really looked like Washington was going to seize the game. But the team couldn't close the deal, and the drive - their best opportunity, really - ended in a Scott Suisham miss. Phillip Daniels told reporters afterwards, "Not to score on that turnover, that changed the momentum of the game."

Fatally, as it turns out. While Landry managed another pick, Seattle bore down and got the score they needed. And on the next possession, a critical route-running error from Moss allowed Seahawk corner Marcus Trufant finally to hang an INT on Todd Collins - one that he took the distance for what would prove to be the game-icing points.

And just like that, the season was over, leaving me stuck with deciding which group of smugbags I want to root against more - this season's New England Patriots or the 1972 Miami Dolphins (email me your advice, please). From the big picture standpoint, the season's positive outcome has likely done the team a world of good. If Washington had not managed to arrest their mid-season slide out of contention, the offseason would have seen some sort of system-wide rebooting of the team, and history has shown that the last people you want carrying the ball for Washington is Danny Sixflags and the front office.

More importantly, though, Washington's fortunate run was an unexpected period of joy in a season scarred by loss. No one would have blamed this team if the loss of Sean Taylor had put thoughts of competing out of their minds. But the team made something of their season, playing with heart and sharing their passion with the fans. It was more than anyone could have possibly expected. A special season, and hopefully better days to come. There were times this year when this team pushed me to the brink of pure acid and cynicism, but even though we couldn't punch our ticket out of Seattle, I'm moved enough now to offer one last Hail to the Redskins. See you next season.

A month ago, the Washington Redskins needed to win out the rest of their season and receive a ton of help from the rest of the NFC in order to make the playoffs. And it needed to start in the short week between a Sunday's loss to Buffalo and a Thursday night game with Chicago. And then it needed to start after Sean Taylor's funeral. And then it needed to continue despite losing starting quarterback Jason Campbell. And lastly, it needed to include three more victories over teams with playoff aspirations. Two of them on the road.

And it all happened. Coming into yesterdays game with rival Dallas, they had gotten the wins they needed. The teams which had the inside track to the final wild-card spot a month ago had all taken a dive. And a guy who hadn't earned a start at quarterback in ten years - for whom one-sixth of his career pass attempts have come in the past four weeks - had become one of the hottest players in the league. But best of all, while there were any number of favorable scenarios that would have let the Redskins back into the playoffs (all of which came to pass anyway), Washington instead went out yesterday afternoon and took the last playoff spot in emphatic fashion.

I'm not sure it's possible to evaluate a football defense that same way you do a major league pitcher, but yesterday, the Washington defenders played about as perfect a game as one can. They allowed a single yard of rushing, folks — an all-time historic low for the Cowboys — and were seemingly always in the Dallas backfield. They forced Dallas off the field on every single third down. In three trips inside the red zone, they allowed only two field goals. Basically, if you're a fan of good team defense, you would have loved the Redskins effort. And if you're a fan of Redskins defense, you probably tried to find a way to bang the Redskins effort, and, later, maybe even spoon.

On the offensive side of the ball, after a few dodgy fumbles, things went pretty much according to Hoyle. Clinton Portis ran for two scores — the first of which, by the way, was a tackle-shrugging-off thing of beauty. Collins played a smooth, confident game — why, several of his incompletions were so beautiful that the refs took several long, lingering looks at them. And - I swear this is true - just as I was thinking, "You know, this ass-whupping has been awesome and all, but it's time we just put a button on this thing and get our playoffs on," Collins dropped back, looked down field and hit Santana Moss in stride for the frosting.

So guess what, Bostonist? The A-Hole Patriots Ran Up The Score On Us Revenge Tour of 2008 is a go. First stop Seattle, where we'll take on a Seahawks team that gave up 44 points to the Chris Redman-led Atlanta Falcons.

And to everyone who might be thinking that Washington only won because our opponent had little to play for, was resting its starters, was without T.O., et cetera, we'll say only this: See you in two weeks, jerks!

Well ain't this a kick in the pants? The Washington Redskins, faced with having to take the same long cut to the playoffs that they did the last time they found themselves all but eliminated and facing a slew of teams suddenly willing to play dead, took their act on the road to Minnesota and won 32-1421, in a game that was only briefly tense and was basically decided by an alert eye on the sidelines and a well-timed challenge by Joe Gibbs.

Conventional wisdom says that when you face the Vikings, you have to go out and shut down Rookie of the Year mortal lock/human Wii controller Adrian Peterson and force Minnesota’s offense to put their trust in the hands of Tarvaris Jackson, a quarterback who, so far this season, is known for combining the recklessness of a Rex Grossman with the accuracy of a William S. Burroughs. Naturally, Adrian Peterson has proven to be a difficult running back to contain all year. Sunday night, however, the Redskins' D made Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson look more like Chicago’s Adrian Peterson, which isn’t entirely fair because Chicago’s Adrian Peterson put up a very Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson-like 102 yards rushing against Green Bay, which actually HELPED the Redskins greatly because it ensured the Dallas Cowboys of home field advantage throughout the playoffs – which in turn means that we won’t face their starters when they come to D.C. next week. OK. Did you get all that? Whatever. The upside is, rooting against Dallas next week will not be an empty-calorie affair.

In fairness, Tarvaris Jackson did have a long sustained period of professional competence last night. Luckily it all transpired after the Vikings were 22 points in the hole after Jackson’s two interceptions set up two short field opportunities for the Washington offense. Washington’s winning streak has mainly been paced by a streak of well-played games from the offensive line – all those guys pressed into battle due to injury, like former Terp Stephon Heyer, are coming into their own at the right time. While they did give up two sacks last night, the protection afforded Todd Collins was often quite good, and Collins made the most of it, hitting on 22 of 27 passes for two touchdowns and an 8.8 pass average. The line wore down the Vikings over time, letting Clinton Portis – who did a little of everything last night – run longer and stronger as the game went on.

Yet there was an unnerving sense in the second half that the Vikings were going to take over the game. Having cut the lead to eleven in the fourth quarter, the Vikings were desperate trying to stop the Redskins offense when their defense received a gift-wrapped opportunity in the form of a fumbled snap. At the time, Washington was trying to get a play off quickly so that they could forestall a potential Vikings challenge of a Santana Moss sideline catch. It looked for a moment like Washington was going to get hoisted on its own petard, but thanks to a shrewd eye on the sidelines, it was the Vikings that ended up looking petarded. Catching them with twelve players on the field, Gibbs challenged the call and got the Vikings fumble recovery reversed. This caused Viking coach Brad Childress to dance around in pissypants rage as Clinton Portis notched the icing touchdown.

So, crazily, improbably, Washington finds itself with the inside track to the sixth playoff spot. All they have to do is win at home against whoever the Cowboys choose to dress for the game next week. Granted, it’s no gimme, but seeing as how Terrell Owens basically single-handedly beat us the last time we played, Washington’s chances for postseason play are suddenly, somehow, surprisingly decent. Win next week, and we can definitely kick off the A-Hole Patriots Ran Up The Score On Us Revenge Tour of 2008. Why not, right?

With nothing left to do but go for broke, the Washington Redskins kept their playoff hopes alive for the second week in a row by beating their division rivals from New York 22-10 in the frigid Meadowlands last night. It was the type of win fans have hoped for throughout the past month in a half: a solid game from Portis, truly stout play from the offensive line, and, most importantly, a held lead.

Early on, it looked like the game might turn into a private battle between Eli Manning and Todd Collins to see how many incomplete passes each could throw. Collins missed on his first eight throws, but managed to thaw himself out as time went on to give the offense just enough of a passing game. Manning had the worst of it as the game wore on, ultimately throwing 34 incomplete passes. Not that the blame was Manning's entirely. By the end of the game, he seemed to running out of receivers (an injury to Jeremy Shockey - a broken fibula that will require surgery - being the worst).

Those receivers that remained upright suffered from a game-long case of the dropsies. Most of the reports today say that Manning's corps dropped eight passes last night. I think they're being statistically charitable, but, heck, that might be simply because so many of the drops were egregious unforced errors. Brandon Jacobs seemed to be the primary offender last night - he ran quite well (130 yards on 25 carries), but as a receiver, Eli would have been better off throwing to a bronze statue of Jacobs.

Still, Manning seems to play his best ball while under duress, and for a while in the second half, he went on one of those jags where he seemed to be finding everybody open. He went 6-9 during the third quarter, got his team into the end zone, and, with two nice gains on consecutive first downs, had his team rolling toward the red zone to start the fourth quarter. But right as the flashbacks to the previous game against the Giants started to rear up in the mind's eye, the defense stiffened to force the field goal try, which kicker Lawrence Tynes ended up missing.

Even though thirteen minutes remained to play, it felt like Washington had managed to weather the worst the Giants had to offer, and the score, happily, stood the rest of the way.

Washington now finds itself back at .500, and staring at an opportunity to control some of their own playoff destiny. Next week, Washington heads to Minnesota, the team that now stands directly in their way for the final wild card position, and they'll be no worse than one game behind them. If they take the win and the head-to-head tiebreak, they'll actually find themselves on decent footing for the postseason. Too bad Dallas lost yesterday! If the Cowboys can get a game ahead of the Packers again, they might be inclined to rest their starters when they come to D.C. in the final week of the season.

Obviously, Redskins fans should feel free to root for the Chicago Bears tonight, though I understand that the Bears will be starting Kyle Orton at quarterback, so, like they say, your mileage will vary.

Well, so much for inspiration. The Washington Redskins pulled out all the stops to honor their teammate Sean Taylor yesterday. There were special patches, a moment of silence — the defense even took the field in a “missing man” formation (which history will remember as a 22-yard gain for the Bills). The inflamed passions failed to translate into quality gameplay, and Washington found themselves coming undone for many of the same reasons they’ve done so over the course of a disappointing season. Oh, and then, Washington somehow managed to find a way to lose that was more humiliating and inane than one could have possibly imagined.

With seven seconds to play in the game, Buffalo’s Rian Lindell took the field to take a game-winning 51-yard field goal try. Which, he made. But the play didn’t count because Joe Gibbs called one of those last-second timeouts that seem to be the obsession of head coaches this season (and which are, ENTIRELY, bush league – the league needs to put an end to this practice with all deliberate haste). Lindell looked money from 51 on his first attempt, but, heck — a sliver of slim hope remained that he’d miss his second attempt.

But that’s when Gibbs inexplicably called a second consecutive timeout, which is “illegal” where league rules are concerned, and which drew an immediate fifteen-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. And if Lindell was good from 51, he was golden from 36. Game over, cue the stunned silence.

Football is a team sport, and the team’s bad tendencies revealed themselves at the worst possible times. The offense continued their tradition of stretching the action downfield only to seize up in the red zone. They found yet another way not to convert a critical short-yardage down, this time on a false start penalty. And where playoff teams find a way to grind out the clock when they take possession with six minutes remaining — and half-decent teams find a way to do so with three minutes remaining — the Skins did neither. But fourth quarter three-and-outs for a team ostensibly built to power-run have become a mainstay this season.

Nevertheless, Gibbs’ second timeout was the mistake that will leave the most indelible mark on this game. Since returning to the league, Gibbs has written for himself a tidy history of clock-management errors. This is especially galling considering the fact that he’s got a well-paid offensive coordinator and a similarly compensated defensive coordinator backing him up. You’d think that he wouldn’t have that much else to do other than know what the league rules are and how much time is on the clock. But yesterday’s mental meltdown is a new low, especially since the result of the decisions served only to turn a loss into an embarrassing loss. Minutes after the game ended, I got an email asking, “So. Do you think Gibbs has jumped the shark?” I’ll say this: don’t be surprised if the next time you notice a “missing man,” the empty space will be on the sidelines.

Washington is nevertheless not yet mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. But they find themselves toward the hind end of an eight team scrum for the final wild card spot. Even if Washington manages to win out from here (and there’s absolutely no good reason to think they will: a short week of preparation for Thursday night’s game against the Bears has only been made shorter by Sean Taylor’s Miami funeral this morning), we can't be sure the rest of the field, battling each other, can post enough total losses to help the Redskins out. There is, perhaps, a needle the team can thread to make it to the postseason, but their story seems to have been written with yesterday’s loss. And having failed to carry heady symbolism to an important win, they’ll play out a string of games that will be, for all intents and purposes, largely symbolic.

Yesterday, I found it difficult to write about Washington's loss over the weekend to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It had nothing to do with the play on the field, which amounted to a carbon copy of the previous week's loss. Jason Campbell strove mightily to lead the team past their mistakes, only to be done in by mistakes of his own. A game changing moment came when the offense failed to obtain some badly needed short yardage in the shadows of their opponent's goal line--something that had already happened twice before this season. And a golden opportunity to improve their playoff standing, offered up by losses over the long weekend from Detroit, New York, and Arizona, was missed.

Obviously, what made even thinking about this stuff yesterday was the fact that Redskins safety Sean Taylor lay in a Florida hospital with a grievous wound to his femoral artery, a wound which proved mortal overnight.

Let's get on with the clumsily written part of this, then.

By all accounts, Taylor came into the league a troubled guy, but with the mentorship of defensive coach Gregg Williams -- who took Taylor in as he would a family member -- and the friendship of several close teammates, he had begun to turn himself around. According to what little has been written about Taylor's personal life, the birth of his daughter seemed to catalyze a desire to get on the path to redemption and responsibility. Earlier this year, Taylor remarked that he was getting paid "a king's ransom to play a kid's game" - a phrase that he did not coin but made significant strides to try to live by. Unfortunately, he leaves that life unfinished.

So, it's easy to sum up a game, hard to sum up a life. This is as it should be. And similarly, some degree of perspective should be sought, as Sean Taylor is just one of many who lost their lives to violent crime in the past 24 hours. There's a certain degree of fatuousness involved when a celebrity athlete's tragedy is held out for special attention against the many others whose relatively anonymous lives ended the same way. And, certainly, the cynical among us will read the statement of Taylor's lawyer Richard Sharpstein, “It’s just a sad senseless useless tragedy, an example of the incessant violence in this town and every other town in America,” as self-serving. But it's nevertheless true.

Washington will play Buffalo this weekend at FedEx Field. The team will likely come to the game fueled by an inspiration they'll wish they didn't have, and, win or lose, the game will be remembered for reasons they'd like to forget. At 5-6, this game is, at least on paper, a "must-win." But, really: let's not call it that.

A day after Washington’s loss to…yes—hated rivals, the Dallas Cowboys, I find myself indulging in that oft-snarked out tendency of Redskins fans: the telling of sweet little lies. At least we didn’t get run out of the stadium, as we did against the Patriots. At least we didn’t collapse stupidly, like we did against the Eagles. At least the team we struggled with was a quality team (insofar as anything the NFC produces this year can be termed “quality”), and not a woeful also-ran like the New York Jets. And, yeah, while I pretty much believe the right call was probably made, I find myself wondering if, indeed, the replays we saw of Rocky McIntosh’s interception actually provided “indisputable visual evidence” of an incompletion. Had the play stood, I tell myself, there would have been a different result.

But, a loss is a loss, and now Washington finds themselves the peer of the Arizona Goddamn Cardinals.

Ultimately, the game hinged on our inability to cover Terrell Owens when it mattered. Owens had a great day against us—eight catches, 173 yards, and four scores, each longer than the last. Strangely, I find myself willing to forgive the coverage breakdown that led to his third score, that was just great scouting of our defensive tendencies. It’s likely Dallas offensive coordinator Jason Garrett was waiting for the opportunity to run that play; Owen’s square in feint suckered the linebacker and froze the backside safety just the way Garrett thought it would, resulting in a touchdown in which Washington’s defenders seemed to just allow T.O. to get open. I’m less forgiving of the fourth score: I understand why Springs released Owens to the safety on the sidelines – but, jeez…the guy has already burned you for 21 points—could you stick with him for just a few more seconds?

If there’s a positive to be wrung from the defeat, it was the play of Jason Campbell. The Savior had his best day yet in the burgundy-and-gold, and with the running game all but shut down, found ways to get vertical. He’ll be remembered for his interception that all but ended our hopes of winning the game, but from a career trajectory standpoint, Campbell is making the sorts of game-to-game gains that you hope a young QB makes.

Of course, therein lies the rub: as some astute commenters have pointed out in recent weeks, Washington’s chief dysfunction is in the front office. With the lack of focused general management, Washington has had a historical problem balancing the needs of the future with the wants of the Now. And, amid all the sweet little lies I’m telling myself today, a nagging worry remains: my feeling is that if Washington cannot make the playoffs this year, we could be due for another one of those debilitating Dan Snyder system-wide reboots. And this time, the cost could be high: it could stop an emerging, maturing quarterback in his tracks.

Washington’s next game will likely decide its future. They’ll travel to Tampa to face the Buccaneers, who are currently a game ahead of Washington in the wild-card race. Win, and you leapfrog a dogged NFC competitor and earn a vital tie-break. Lose, and, well, there goes the last of the room for error.

I know things have been quiet… silent… tumble weedy around here lately. I won’t give you boring excuses as to why, but it being Christmas and all, and because so many of you have written asking me to post a Christmas playlist, and because flattery will get you everywhere, here is the 2011 Pinna Storm Christmas Party! Stop by, have some nog and pop under the mistletoe with the cute guy in the holiday tie. No, I totally don’t already have this, this is great, thank you so much!!

High Places, Purity Ring, Doldrums and DJ Mark Brown played the Soft House in Baltimore on Thursday, November 10.

High Places are touring to support their new album, Original Colors, which is amazing. It’s already in heavy rotation over here.

Purity Ring only have a few songs out right now that you can find around the web, but they are well worth checking out. Their sound is so beautifully polished.

Doldrums is on tour with fellow Canadians Purity Ring. He has the energy of a whirling dervish, twiddling knobs in his suitcase while singing and dancing.

DJ Mark Brown is the best.

For upcoming house shows at the Soft House and more in Baltimore, check out Show Space. For more photos by Jen, check out her website.

Raekwon Feat. Capone-N-Noreaga “Chupacabra”

Emotionally speaking, this is a difficult rap to factcheck. I grew up on the crime side, the New York Times side, where Rae & CNN were no jive. Plus after all of the bitter breakups-2-makeups of CNN, it’s great to see the two great Queens rappers on the same track again.

But they need lessons in the war on terrorism.

First, we can barely — but just barely — give N.O.R.E. a pass on this claim:

I know the Taliban/ Afghanistan, Pakistan

Noreaga doesn’t know the Taliban, in either country, any more than Rick Ross knows the real Noriega. And as much as Ross took heat for that claim, to blast N.O.R.E for this would be to concede that the GZA doesn’t have a man Mohammed from Afghanistan who grew up in Iran, runs a neighborhood newsstand, and put bombs in bottles of champagne. And I’m not prepared to give that up.

This, however… Sorry, N.O.R.E.:

Then 28 days later/ al-Qaeda Noreaga/ killers from Haiti to Grenada

Yes, people, I get it. It’s a metaphor. N.O.R.E. didn’t really join al-Qaeda — he’s a New Yorker, after all.

But in order to work, the metaphor requires plausibility. al-Qaeda has no presence of any note in Haiti, Grenada, or anywhere in the Caribbean/Latin American region. Had N.O.R.E. gone in like, “28 days later/ I splatter yuh/ al-Qaeda Noreaga damage yuh/ killers from Kunar to Mirin Shah” then it’d be fine.

Noreaga, I love you, and you’re on a hot track. Next time you talk terrorism, though, consult your man al-Qaeda Jada.

Hello, pumpkins! It has been far, far too long. You may have noticed that Pinna Storm went on a bit of a sebatical. So uh, October happened! There was baseball and Kim & Thurston breaking up and candy and costumes and something about Google Reader that’s broken the spirits of half of my Twitter feed and about 37 new Beyonce videos. So, here we are now in November! And here are your afternoon links.

• Shawn Stockman from Boyz II Men: Dismemberment Plan fan!
• In terrible but not terribly surprising news, Odd Future goes from being theoretically violent and terrible to being actually violent and terrible by physically assaulting a group of photographers and one woman in particular. This will probably be the last time anybody in that group gets mentioned on this blog.
• Amanda Palmer, Stephin Merritt, Neil Gaiman, Moby and Rocky Horror. Oh yes.
• This handy new tumblr, SpotiFYI, points out what’s new and cool on Spotify.
• New videos! From tabi Bonney and The Kills. And a lovely new song from Cloud Nothings.
• So have you heard the Lykke Li cover of “Unchained Melody” yet? Cause you should.

Pony Island is a bi-weekly radio show on Radio CPR, 97.5 every 1st, 3rd and 5th Wednesday from 6 to 7 p.m.

The ladies of Pony Island welcome their second male guest to the show, the most excellent MC Werewolf. When pressed on the origin of his DJ name, the truth came out: MC stands for “Mid-Change.” The DJ was sporting such a healthy beard in his teen years that he gave his peers Teen Wolf vibes.

Pony Island: 5 Oct with MC Werewolf by Pony Island

MC Werewolf brings songs to get the party started and some older punk jams. Young Coconut brings vibrantly dreamy tracks including the lovely first official release from Awesome Tapes from Africa.  DJ Bottlerocket has lots of news you can use about the library and a hot jam that had all the DJs dancing in the studio.

DJ Peanut is back from her short hiatus when she returns with SO MANY JAMS on the next episode.

Upcoming shows:

10/6 – Screaming Females, The Underground Railroad to Candyland
@ Black Cat Backstage $10adv/$12 door 8pm

10/7 – Benefit for Life Pieces to Masterpieces w/ Laughing Man + Trophy Wife
@ Ras 8pm

10/8 – The Cheniers, Lame Drivers, Polyps
@ The Cherch 8pm

10/12 Future Islands CD release party. w/ Extreme Animals, DJ Mark Brown and a DJ set from Dan Deacon.
@ The Depot (BALTIMORE)

10/20 – Chris Bathgate (MI), Small Sur
@ The Dollhouse 7:30pm $5

For more upcoming shows at houses, small venues and other spaces in D.C., check out In Yr Basement.

Pony Island returns in two weeks with DJ Bottlerocket, DJ Peanut and Young Coconut. To listen to and download archived Pony Island shows, check their blog.

This weather is just the pits. I know, I know, it’s not news. But it’s really bringin me down. And this thundery, extremely wet morning we’re all staring at wondering when we should dash outside and go through to work? JUST THE BEGINNING!

So, concerned that you might be feeling the same way, I thought I’d share a few songs with you. Sunday night I finally saw The Rapture and oh my god damn was it fantastic. What a tremendously tight, talented band. Luke Jenner’s vocals are a national treasure. He goes right up to the yodeling line and takes a flying punk rock leap over it. And since then I’ve basically been mainlining The Rapture to ease the pain of this piss poor weather. The new album, In the Grace of Your Love is damn good. A bit of a movement from their earlier stuff, but it sits alongside the percussion and cowbell bangers you know and love very well. At any rate, if their tour lands anywhere near you, go. Just go. You’re gonna love it. Even if you have to stay out way later on a school night than your old lady instincts tell you you should.

(Oh and also, you should watch Misfits, the show featured in that last video. The Rapture’s “Echoes” is the theme and it is a really good show: a bunch of sexy British 20 something fuck ups get super powers but don’t become super heroes. It’s great.)

So, R.E.M. broke up. It’s not a band I ever particularly loved or had much feeling about. “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” is a good song. So is “Night Swimming.” “Everybody Hurts” soundtracked Angela Chase and “Losing My Religion” soundtracked a breakup I was really excited about because I was always a Dylan & Kelly girl. A lot of other folks have much lengthier and more meaningful thoughts on the band. Here are a few:

• The band and D.C.
• PopCandy’s favorite covers of R.E.M. songs.
• Kyle Gustafson on “R.E.M. and the crucial role they played in my musical development.”
• Because of the breakup, a Congressman has a sad.

OK, that’s all we have to say about R.E.M. Now on to the other stuff!

• BYT interviews The Rapture ahead of their stop at U St Music Hall this Sunday. You should definitely listen to their new album, because it is damn good.
• Modern Man, The State Department and Shark Week play DC9 this Saturday. Here’s a video for Modern Man’s “Big Big Heartbeat,” filmed at their last local show at the Black Cat.
• Nevermind just turned 20. NPR talks to Damien Jurado about Nirvana’s “Something In The Way.”
• The first time I heard 808s and Heartbreaks I thought, I don’t know if I think this is a very good album, but I am very sure that it is an important album. It’s an argument I’ve trotted out countless times but never really written down. Well, somebody else did that for me.
• A new album from Guided By Voices’ original lineup, coming this January.
• This song, “Letter to a Friend” by Pregnant, is pretty good. The video creeps me out, though.

• Hello! Since last we met, far far too long ago, I’ve saved up a ton of musicy links for you, and made some new Afternoon Showers art work to celebrate certain wonderful TV winning awards last night, and to celebrate the fact that it’s football season and my team won yesterday. And thus, my world feels basically perfect right now. Oh, you guys don’t come here to hear about Tim Riggins or the Skins? On to the music, then.
• Bruce Hornsby, Tupac & Chuck Robb.
• Did you enjoy our Wild Flag listening party last week? You’ll probably enjoy this playlist of country duets from the band’s Rebecca Cole even more.
• Radiohead are taking some state-side stages in the near future, including Colbert’s and SNL’s.
• 15 previously unreleased Neutral Milk Hotel songs! I repeat, 15 previously unreleased Neutral Milk Hotel songs! Streaming now, and soon available in a vinyl-only release.
• Childish Gambino/Community/Donald Glover in general fans: there’s a new CG single.
• Did you see Christian Bale lurking around SXSW and wonder what was going on? Here’s your answer.
• The Raincoats — yes, you read that right. Those Raincoats. — played at Comet Ping Pong this weekend and music nerds rejoiced/got really sleepy.
• Doctor Rosen Rosen’s new EP Girls is streaming/available for DL and you should give it a listen.
• Quoth a friend, “This Wilco album sounds like a Wilco album.”
• Take a peek at Yuck playing “Milkshake” at Room 205.
• This is old but new to me: Phil Collins shares some breakup song advice. That’s always relevant, right? Somebody somewhere is always breaking up. Listen to Phil. Make hay of your pain.
• “Thinking About You and Cowboys-and-Indians Revenge Fantasies and Meteors and Witch Doctors and Magical Gemstones and Also Maybe Time Travel.”
• And finally, J.Lo’s new video is a delightful little J.Lo movie. If you enjoy the Sandra Bullock/Tate Donovan hit Love Potion No. 9, incredible gams & abs or fits of choreography in the street, then you’ll love it.

Last Saturday, Lower Dens played a sweet show at the Soft House in Baltimore. Joined by original guitarist Will Adams, the band treated an intimate crowd to a “hometown” set. The band played a handful of new songs, including one they debuted in Baltimore in which Jana Hunter set down her guitar and just sang for us. I love this band so much and this was by far one of their best shows I’ve seen yet. The new material slays.

Speaker, a new dark synth pop project from Lexie Mountain and Shana Palmer, opened the show. (They were added to the bill after car trouble stuck Matteah Baim in New York.) They were followed by local folk favorites Small Sur, who played a warm and moving set to an attentive crowd who sat at their feet.

All around, it was a night of great music and mellow vibes. Lower Dens tweeted after the show that the Soft House has the “best shows in Bmore right now.” To find out more about upcoming shows at the Soft House, you can follow them here.