Gibb’s criticism of the left couldn’t have led to a happy ending. Did he really think he was going to win that one? I told him flat-out: Gibbs, you’re not the prettiest guy in Washington, but save what face you can and bail. Look for the note under the door soon.

Also: Water’s wet. Mehlman’s gay. The sky’s blue.

But today, there it is, Zeleny’s shot-in-the-foot. The headline: “This Time, Voter Anger Is No Surprise to Democrats.”

In the arsenal of advantages that Republicans hold as they seek to win control of Congress this year, one thing is missing: the element of surprise. Unlike 1994, when Republicans shocked Democrats by capturing dozens of seats held by complacent incumbents, there will be no sneak attacks this year. Democrats have sensed trouble for more than a year, with the unrest from town-hall-style meetings last August providing indisputable evidence for any disbelievers.

The result has been to goad many Democrats into better preparation: more fund-raising, earlier advertising, lots of time on the campaign trail.

“Sneak attacks”? Right, well, as I told Bill what Zeleny’s saying is one of three things. Either, a) in 1994, we didn’t do our job, or, b) nobody reads the paper. Or, c) both.

Then I get to the op-eds and see this:

Disgust with Washington and its overspending, deficits and debt is so great that even nontraditional Republican candidates have real chances to win.

What a thunderbolt. Stop the press. I know, I know. It’s Sunday up there, and nobody’s getting paid to over-think the weekends. But we’re supposed to make money with this? Next thing you know, we’ll be doing front-page stories on yesterday’s weather.

It’s summer. It’s hot. Surprise.

But as an eyewitness I can say that any report of a massive conflagration in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda. There are no actual forest fires or deaths from fires, but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to premature and partial cremation.

This has gotten out of hand. I wasn’t at the paper today or Deviscio’s obviously overheated headline – untouched by human thought – wouldn’t have run. “Russia is burning.” That’s ridiculous.

a.) Russia’s 6.6 million square miles big and they have 800 fires.
b.) That’s one fire every 82,500 square miles.

Hey, Delviscio, you little overachiever. Since when did we do our foreign reporting by scanning zerohedge.com? I mean. At least Kramer’s in the Moscow office. (Probably hasn’t see a live flame since the day he quit smoking, though.)

Anyway, Duranty will be on the scene, and I’ll let you know what I find in a day or two. As I’ll say to number one houseboy on my way up, “Keep the home fires burning.”

Seriously, we need to get this past SCOTUS so we can start taxing the hell out of all those Catholic and Orthodox freaks for whom, you know, marriage is one of their “sacraments” that can only take place between one person with a penis and one person without (with a gay guy in a dress in between). If they won’t follow the law, well, hey! Tax the bastards straight to hell. Just not this one, please.

God, New York is hot! So relieved to get home. Rubell was having a “Rave Vaughn Walker” party and I stopped by for a minute, long enough to get one of those “VAS Difference” pitchfork stickers Harry Blackman was handing out. That “Voters Are Stupid” movement of his has really caught fire lately. Gotta love Harry.

Anyhoo, who gets resurrected today by right-wing blogger and Catoist Jim Powell? Herb! I called him and read it to him – well, just the last page, since most of it had to do with yours truly. He was thrilled, until I got to the last line and Acton’s old bromide about power and corruption. “How dare he appropriate a condemnation of that Pope and use it on me? Tell Powell that I said if you want to make a frittata, amigo, you gotta bust a few huevos!”

On that topic: Would somebody explain to me why Mastai-Ferretti went to that other place? Chasm 3 here on C8 has its own Popeville, that’s how many of those Italians we ended up with here. They have their own Swiss pool boys and everything. Like a little Vatican, really.

Peggy, of course, knew Reagan personally. Martha M once told me she sold Peggy a fragment of Ronnie’s True Shorts. She the kind of Republican we love because her politics are the politics of a party drunk, and the GOP can never have enough of those. They sell a little Chinese “executive gadget” down here for your desk. It’s a miniature teeter-totter – they call it “Crazy Lady Flamers” – with Peggy on one side and Maureen Dowd on the other. Two bouncy redheads! You wind it up and it makes a noise like cats fighting.

Last week, on her Wall Street Journal perch, Peggy took after those Tea Party people. I loved the way she called them Birchers – then denied, in the same breath, she’d done any such thing. She hates them because they make her look less important than Mo.

She has a point. Dowd just has Frank Rich to embarrass her. Noonan has the Tea Party set. I really howled when she called them citizens of “crazy town” and told them to “get serious” by worshipping the governor of New Jersey, I suppose because he wants to balance budgets.

Personally, I think balanced budgets are the Tea Party’s thing already. But they hadn’t been insulted by Noonan yet, so now that’s done. If you can hear me, thank you, Lady Carrot-top! See if you can be one of the boys on Tom Tancredo’s bus! He rolls right over those little people and their annoying signs.

We heart you, too, Tom!

It’s my fault, of course. I told Barry to hire him. “The guy’s a soccer goalie! Get it?” Sure enough, the first briefing, the first question – from Helen Thomas, no less – and instead of just saying,”Helen, fix your damn teeth,” he jumps sideways across the podium with his arms in the air. When the guy from Univsion yelled, “Goooooaaal!” I thought I’d die. Well, actually…OK. I’m okay. Fine. And back.

We’re winning on 43rd Street! We finally got the insurgent leader from Morgan Stanley in New York, Hassan El-Masry (or “Elmasry,” as he likes to call himself), to retreat and dump his shares in the paper. NYTCo stock closed at a ten-year low, 18 and a few dimes.

“This is exactly what we have planned all along, of course,” a jubilant Adolph said this morning. “We bilk the little old ladies and the big investors who bought our stock in the $40s and $50s because they think they’re just like us–prominent, important, powerful. Then we tank the business and when the stock price starts hitting the carpet, we take the whole show private and keep the change. Offer the suckers a nickel a share–who cares? We don’t even have to buy anybody out. By the middle of next year, our common stock will be cheaper than the Sunday paper, but with better comics.”

He’s right! With predictions like that, Ochs can do the horoscope in the new, all-family-owned paper.

Meanwhile, somebody ought to get up an editorial urging the government to bail out Times investors.

Despite my objections, the paper yesterday announced a new blog–”The Board.” Screams “excitement”, doesn’t it? Pinch wanted to call it “Olympus,” but legal bumped into trademark problems.

Let me just say, I’ve been against this from the start. According to Pinch’s own blurb, ”The Board” will be used for ”providing commentary and background on each day’s editorials.” Excuse me? Can anyone up there spell “front page”? Do we really need a special blog for running commentary on our commentaries? What are we paying Sheryl Stolberg and Adam Nagourney for? What a waste of compromised talent!

Today, the company’s stock hit an all-time low: $18 and change. Coincidence?

*

The good news of the day: The farm guy, Verlyn Klinkenborg, finally got in line with the rest of us at the paper and came out against civility. About time! His sentimental reveries about chickens and his inane odes to goats just sucked, and was clearly the result of prolonged drug use. Maybe now somebody topside will set aside the kind of polite deference we habitually give the harmless and tell him to go straight to detox.