Misc.

* Ezra Klein argues Nancy Pelosi is playing three-dimensional chess.

* "Tea Party" is now a registered party in Florida. Excelsior! The sky's the limit.

* John Hodgman now has a daily podcast.

* 40 House Democrats are now threatening to vote no on the health care conference bill unless Stupak is removed.

* Number of Ph.D.’s hired last year to “develop” carrot sticks for McDonald’s: 45. Is this on the usual job list? Interviews at MLA?

* Also at Harper's: Number of U.S. universities that have a Taco Bell Distinguished Professorship of Fast Service: just one. That's the tragedy.

I'm seeing a marked uptick in lefty griping in my feeds, often with some variation on the phrase "washing my hands of the Democratic Party." I'd say this sort of proclamation was unfair, but I guess its time has come; Obama has been president, after all, for two whole months and yet puppies still die.

Confidential to my fellow travelers: What I wrote about pragmatism during the primaries (1, 2) still holds. I don't like the way the financial crisis is being handled either, but unless you foresee wholesale Constitutional reforms before 2012 you're going to have either a Democratic or Republican president. You have to pick one, and there's only one who will ever even listen to people like us. The happy feeling you get from not voting for a Democrat is worth exactly nothing.

Elections have consequences. To take just one example that passed across my newsreader yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency has now blocked mountaintop-removal coal-mining. That happened because the far-too-centrist, corporatist, hopelessly compromised Democratic Party is now in power. And not just in power, but more unabashedly progressive than it's been for forty years. Drag the country to the left with one hand, hold your nose with the other, but we're stuck with the Democrats if we ever want to get anything accomplished. You don't have to like it—but if you want to be a politically relevant actor in America you have to come to terms with it.

I would have thought the example of the last eight years would have proved this point well enough. Have our memories gotten so short?

Morning newsbits.

* The most recent McCain "ad"—I doubt it's actually airing anywhere but on cable news—is truly stunningly dishonest. It could not, in fact, be more dishonest: it concerns a bill Obama neither wrote nor sponsored, that never passed, that didn't do what the ad claims. It's just amazing. John Neffinger is right: Obama should hit back on this, hard, fast, and viscerally. Don't explain, attack.

* Is McCain finally hitting the wall on working the refs? Signs of life from the press.

* This Kos diary runs through the different swing-state permutations to figure out what Obama and McCain each need to win.

* Everyone is talking about this "emotional child abuse" line from the judge in Palin's sister's divorce, but the fact is Troopergate is a massively losing issue for the left. Taser a kid, you don't get to be a cop anymore. You can't put lipstick on that pig.

There are better things for us to talk about—ideally things that don't involve Sarah Palin whatsoever.

* And Ron Paul will make a speech today in Washington, D.C., urging his followers to support third-party candidates. I wholeheartedly endorse that message: Ron Paul supporters should absolutely vote for third-party candidates, starting with Paul himself in Montana.

From small things, Mama, big things one day come: Ron Paul is on the Montana ballot. In the last poll, taken over a month ago, McCain and Obama were tied in the state.

Quick links.

* Is McCain's unvetted VP pick really associated with the Alaskan Independence Party (actual self-description: "No longer a fringe party")? Really? Is this a joke?

* Johann Hari tries to game out the partisan political implications of Hurricane Gustav. I'm reserving judgment—you can't underestimate how much Americans love kitsch, and I think McCain's political opportunism in heading to the disaster zone could play really well among low-information voters. You and I know that a high-profile visit like this draws needed resources away from rescue efforts, but sad to say most swing voters just aren't that savvy.

* So what if Kafka enjoyed porn?

* And, via Cynical-C, Steve Buscemi on The Big Lebowski.

Bold electoral prediction from my father: Fox News's decision to unfairly bar Ron Paul from its debates will be the nail in the coffin that pushes Paul into a third-party run as a Libertarian, as he hinted he might last weekend on Meet the Press. I sure hope he's right; let's have Huckabee running in a fourth, pro-life party while we're at it and kill the unholy Republican coalition once and for all.