Dana Milbank says "Marco Rubio was a bundle of nervous energy" who "poked his tongue into his cheek, he clenched his jaw, and he licked his lips."

"[A]s he waited his turn to speak about the bipartisan immigration plan he had helped to draft... He fiddled with his suit-jacket button once, then again, then a third time. He rubbed his fingers together, then interlocked them."

And I'm a bundle of nervous energy, poking my tongue this way and that, clenching my jaw, licking my lips, fiddling with buttons, rubbing and interlocking my fingers, as I watch to see how the media goes about accomplishing its plan to destroy Marco Rubio.

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Lip reader figures out what John Boehner said that made Michelle Obama roll her eyes.

In the conversation, with Obama and Boehner leaning back to converse behind Michelle's head: "Boehner asked President Obama — a longtime smoker who claims to have kicked the habit — if he’d had a chance to have a cigarette before the luncheon. The speaker, a chain smoker, then quipped, 'Somebody [Michelle] won’t let you do it.'"

Judge Michelle's famous eye-roll now.
	Totally justified and good for her.
	She should have appreciated the ribbing and laughed graciously.
	She should have been wary of the cameras and maintained a dignified demeanor.
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Politicians and their wives... chez Drudge.

Right now, at Drudge, at the top of the middle and left columns:



The message of the juxtaposition seems to be: Powerful political wives dominate their husbands. Or: Bow down to women, O ye men!

Here's the story about Carla and Nicolas moving to — of all places to avoid taxes — the UK. You know taxes are harsh when England seems like the way out. (Didn't the English rock stars use to move to France to avoid taxes? (Back in the days when The Beatles contributed to the protest-song genre with "Taxman.")

[Nicolas Sarkozy] and his former supermodel third wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy would be likely to settle in an affluent district like South Kensington – so becoming the most high profile Gallic celebrity couple in the city.

But the former president is under investigation for corruption in France, and if he does cross the Channel there will be outrage.

Oh, to be relatively young and super high profile! Carla is waving bye-bye. We'll see what her getaway looks like. (How "Gallic" is Carla Bruni? She was born Carla Gilberta Bruni Tedeschi, in Turin, Italy. How coupled is she? She famously cheated on Eric Clapton with Mick Jagger.)

Meanwhile, in America, I've got no criticism of Barack Obama bowing to his wife as he invites her to dance. Or do you think anytime he bows, he calls up the old bowing-to-dictators meme?

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"Watch Michelle Obama Throw World-Historical Shade at John Boehner."

I can't believe she had to sit next to that guy.

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"Rehearsals sap my pep... tell me what I have to do and I'll do it."

Said the actress Clara Bow (in 1929), who did it like this:



... in "Kittens" (1926). And this:



... in "Wings" (1927), which was the first movie to win the "Best Picture" Oscar. Bow said it was "a man's picture and I'm just the whipped cream on top of the pie." When Bow was criticized for her bohemian ways and "dreadful" manners, she said :

"They yell at me to be dignified. But what are the dignified people like? The people who are held up as examples of me? They are snobs. Frightful snobs... I'm a curiosity in Hollywood. I'm a big freak, because I'm myself!"

In 1931, when she was 26, she got married and retired from acting. She moved to a ranch in Nevada, and lived until 1965.

I'm reading about her this morning, after clicking to her Wikipedia page from the Wikipedia page "Pin-up girl," which has a list of "Notable pin-up girls" sorted by decades, beginning with the 1920s. I was researching the topic of pin-up girls after Meade called attention to this current ad:



We had a conversation about the nature of 1950s pin-up style, and it got me looking for the classic Betty Grable pin-up, which I think it emulates — peeking back over a raising shoulder and smiling as if to say Go ahead and look at my ass. Grable's pic is the one pic that appears on the Wikipidea "Pin-up girl" page, but I was interested in seeing the first pin-up, and the first couple names on the 1920s list didn't click through to a pin-up style picture. Clara Bow's did. If you count this:



Tell me what I have to do and I'll do it. She's only 15 there. Can you just hear the photographer directing her how to arrange her fingers and where to move her shoulder and even her eyeballs?

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"I'm amused that right after 'potato, my penis droops' up pops Quayle."

I say, in the laughing-in-bed first-post-of-the-morning. 

Quayle is a regular commenter here, but — who knows, on the internet? — it might be Dan Quayle.



Quayle responds: "I carry the blood of polygamists in my veins. So one should expect that sort of thing, I guess." He adds: "I took the name from my great grandfather, pictured here surrounded by some new friends."



That's a photograph of taken at the Utah Penitentiary in 1889, showing men arrested under the Edmunds-Tucker Act, explained here. Included in the photo is John C. Bennett, who "taught a doctrine of 'spiritual wifery'":

He and associates sought to have illicit sexual relationships with women by telling them that they were married "spiritually," even if they had never been married formally, and that the Prophet approved the arrangement.

That wasn't the correct doctrine, and Bennett got excommunicated, and then he "toured the country speaking against the Latter-day Saints and published a bitter anti-Mormon exposé charging the Saints with licentiousness."

Here's John C. Bennett in happier days...



... posing like Napoleon:

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How should we celebrate the 100th birthday of Richard M. Nixon?

It's today.

Ideas:

1. Tell us your favorite thing about Richard Nixon. (It's his birthday. No need to trot out all the usual hatred.)

2. When you encounter someone today, instead of saying "hi," do that 2-arms-raised-with-V-for-victory-fingers gesture.



3. For lunch: Ketchup on your cottage cheese.

4. Work Nixon phrases into conversations, e.g. "the lift of a driving dream."

5. When you put on your coat, call attention to the fact that it's a "cloth coat," as if that's remarkable, as if anyone would ever expect anyone these days to have a fur. If people look at you funny, double down by calling it "a respectable Republican cloth coat." If somebody gets the jump on you and calls their coat a "cloth coat" first, show that you get it by saying, "As I always say, you'd look good in anything."

6. At some point today, when you're with someone who never kneels to pray, insist that they get down on their knees and pray with you.

7. Wearing a dark suit and wingtips, take a walk on the beach.

8. Secretly record all your conversations. (Or is everyone already doing that?)

9. If anyone happens to say "pardon me," say: "Pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section II, I grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto you for all offenses."

10. When you leave a room, turn to anyone who remains in it — or even to an empty room — and proclaim: "I leave you gentlemen now. But as I leave you I want you to know, you won't have [your name] to kick around any more."

11. This is special for lawprofs and other law folk. If anyone mentions Rehnquist, act like they got the name wrong, and faux-correct them with "Renchburg."

12. From Ron in the comments: Play ping pong. Watch Dr. StrangeKissinger. Just for the hell of it say, "Sock it to me?" Just for today call your closest friend "Spiro." Play Checkers.

13. If you find yourself in the kitchen with somebody, strike up a debate and at some point, start needling them about being a Communist.

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