Chris Matthews Would Like To Play With Some Hard Balls.

NBC, please keep this man from moderating any more debates.

I watch the debates compulsively as a political junkie of sorts, and rarely am I impressed with any of the moderators the networks dig up among their stable of talking heads. Both MSNBC debates, from last week's Democratic debate in South Carolina to last night's GOP square-off in Simi Valley, have been lame excuses for the horse race. I get that the herd kind of needs to be thinned, but it would help if the moderators would try to stick to political questions. During the Dem debate, Brian Williams rattled off some crap about the Democratic Party being extinct if they lose the presidency in 2008 (despite 2006's Congressional takeover), and then, we get questions like these:

Moderator: Governor Gilmore, you know Karl Rove and you've worked with Karl Rove. Is Karl Rove your friend?

And later:

Moderator: But let me ask you about something else that might be a negative in the upcoming campaign. Seriously.
Would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House? (Laughter)
Romney: You have got to be kidding.
Moderator: No, I'm not.

Chris Matthews is still obsessed with Bill Clinton's dick after six years. That's the conclusion I've ultimately come to. It's not like Brian Williams acquitted himself any better last week, either.

Actual debate insights: Tom Tancredo (I used to live in his district), Duncan Hunter, and Sam Brownback scare me. Giuliani gets actual points for knowing the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite (but he's still creepy and authoritarian, and the whole cross-dressing and the bad splits with ex-wives will catch up with him.) Romney invoked Ronald Reagan's name the most; no coincidence there. Everyone was basking in the glow of the Reagan library, and couldn't move fast away from moderator questions about Bush quickly enough.

Pure, Unfiltered Nightmare Fuel.

That is, Karl Rove, spitting rhymes at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last night after cracking a joke about tearing the heads off small animals:



As the Rude Pundit eloquently puts it, this is a video that will make you want to down three Klonopin with a bottle of tequila after watching it.

blunt object, meet forehead.

Let me get this straight:

We (the U.S.) had an Agreed Framework with North Korea regarding the development of nuclear weapons via plutonium.

For five years, the current administration has believed that the nutcase on lifts over in Pyongyang was violating the agreement by enriching uranium. We got pissy, and who wouldn't, when you're pretty damn sure they're violating the agreement?

Now, well, maybe those uranium efforts weren't as far along as we thought, per the NYT:

The disclosure underscores broader questions about the ability of intelligence agencies to discern the precise status of foreign weapons programs. The original assessment about North Korea came during the same period that the administration was building its case about Iraq’s unconventional weapons programs, which turned out to be based on flawed intelligence. And the new North Korea assessment comes amid debate over intelligence about Iran’s weapons.

The public revelation of the intelligence agencies’ doubts, which have been brewing for some time, came almost by happenstance. In a little-noticed exchange on Tuesday at a hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee, Joseph DeTrani, a longtime intelligence official, told Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island that “we still have confidence that the program is in existence — at the mid-confidence level.” Under the intelligence agencies’ own definitions, that level “means the information is interpreted in various ways, we have alternative views” or it is not fully corroborated.

As Robert Farley at Tapped puts it: "Morons. We have morons on our team."

a needle will turn you into a slut.

The very conservative governor of Texas has issued an executive order requiring sixth grade girls in the state to get vaccinated for the human papillomavirus, with its obvious and scientifically proven links to cervical cancer.

Of course, Gov. Rick Perry's religious conservative base is not having any of it, claiming the order doesn't allow enough room for parents to object or have a say in their children's medical treatment, adopting not only the "sexual license" arguments but taking the anti-corporate one when it suits them -- Merck's funding of such orders and bills in state legislatures is well known; Perry's former chief of staff is now a Merck lobbyist.

The cognitive dissonance required to wrap heads around this is stunning -- while I don't like the idea of Merck forcing the vaccine down people's throats, the fact that this vaccine could prevent cervical cancer likely outweighs concerns about Merck's profits or ramrodding through state houses and legislatures. Eventually, you have to wonder whether the people opposing this are more comfortable with the potential of dying due to a preventable disease rather than the thought of premarital sex.