Thursday TidBits

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1. George Will, the Georgetown fashion icon who, on a daily basis, defiantly rocks a dazzling variety of individualistic starched shirts, pressed slacks, and Hermes-like ties, demonstrating his constant, dare we say, heroic, determination to separate himself from the herd, to, as he would say, “differentiate” and rise above, tells America where it can stick its denim–that “discordant” “plague” and “blight” for “people eager to communicate indifference to appearances.” Please, George, more of this. Please. You show me how to tie a bowtie, and I’ll show you the Diesel store on Wisconsin. We will laugh so hard that our collar stays get dislodged.

2. Nicolas Sarkozy, the excitable French president, demonstrates that he is different from past French leaders in that he does not have any height issues.

3. My fearsome arch-rival on the White House beat, Holly Bailey of the Newsmagazine Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken, explains how President Obama can sell more books and make less money in an election year.

4. The economy still sucks for homeowners.

5. Sen. Chris Dodd is keeping busy (trying to save his job).

6. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano explains that there is nothing extraordinary about the recent security assessment of right wing radicals. (Her claims can be verified by anyone who wants to read past security acessments of domestic threats, which are almost always poorly worded in alarming police jargon, announcing right-wing and left-wing threats around every corner.) But such facts are no match for a good story, which is why Republican leaders are jumping up and down, waving their arms, and claiming an assault on military veterans.

7. John Madden is retiring. Despite all the ribbing he took, much of it justified, he always made the games better to watch. I will miss him, but not as much as I have missed Howard Cosell all these years. I was a little kid when Cosell left the booth, maybe seven or eight, not yet old enough to tell a linebacker from a guard, but I still remember his voice. The game never again sounded the same.