The XX Factor: What women really think.

Newt Gingrich to Jon Stewart: "Why Don’t You Talk Pelosi and I’ll Smile?"

As Slate columnist John Dickerson pointed out late last week, by saying that the CIA "misleads us all the time," Nancy Pelosi "put the spotlight on herself and has given weakened Republicans a fight they can enjoy, engage in, and possibly win." Newt Gingrich took to the Daily Show last night to promote his new book, 5 Principles for a Successful Life, but before getting into the heart of his shill, he called for... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)

The U.S. "Teabagging" Party?

I love the fact that the word teabagging has dipped its way into the cable news lexicon. For those of you who are fortunate enough not to know the original meaning of teabagging, you won't find it in a regular dictionary, and I will not retype it here, but if you are curious, you can find several definitions at UrbanDictionary.com. Be forewarned: Make sure you are not eating or drinking when you read it.

The term fell into our mouths more than a month ago, when the Republicans decided they were going to protest Obama's tax policies by symbolically re-enacting events from the Boston Tea Party. Now there are several planned protests taking place across the country, and to report on them, newscasters, commentators, and cable show hosts have been forced to take in this mouthful of a word.

I've heard it from Jon Stewart, David Shuster (sitting in for Keith Olbermann), and a poor blushing Rachel Maddow.

Of course, this is how our language evolves, and in this case, how an "unacceptable" word becomes an "acceptable" one. But, in the meantime, we are allowed to giggle a little, aren't we?

And it gave me an idea. The Republican Party, which has been foundering since even before the election of President Barack Obama as it struggles to find new leadership, new direction, new ideas, a new identity, and new members, should maybe start with a new nickname. The could easily shed the "Party of No" label if they began to refer to themselves as "the U.S. Teabagging Party." Catchy, right? Sounds like a ball to me.

The Economy Blew Up and the Person You Most Want To Yell at Is Jim Cramer?

Jon Stewart Gives Jim Cramer the Business

This morning, everyone is talking about Jon Stewart's smackdown of CNBC talking head Jim Cramer. Stewart has been appropriately critical of Cramer and CNBC of late for peddling bum advice to the little guy while lobbing softballs at visiting CEOs. Cramer tries to defend himself in the Daily Show clip below, but Crooks and Liars description of Cramer as a "wounded puppy" is pretty spot-on. If this clip inspires you to play a computer game involving Cramer's disembodied head, click here for The Big Money's answer to your prayers.

Jon Stewart on "Holy Folks'

Funniest thing on TV in days: The Daily Show's Hall and Oates tribute to Alan Colmes.

Least funny showcase of stereotypes that makes me want to rap someone's knuckles with my ruler: Jon Stewart and Philip Seymour Hoffman on same, discussing Catholicism and Hoffman's new movie Doubt, adapted from the great John Patrick Shanley play about a (potential) pedophile priest, which I saw twice (and liked Eileen Atkins even better in it than Cherry Jones, of The Heiress and 24).

Stewart: The idea of holy folks, the priests and the nuns, having an argument, it's just something that never occurred to me that they would have, like, an office argument.

Hoffman: I know, you kind of don't think they're real when you're a kid. You think they go behind closed doors and something strange happens but it's magical and you shouldn't know anything about it. It is kind of strange, because I didn't have a big connection to the Catholic Church—I mean I was, but when I was playing those scenes, I remember actually in the scene walking into the room and action, cameras rolling, and still having this odd feeling of "What do we do here?''

Stewart: There's a priestly or religious figure sort of countenance that you imagine that never turns out and you forget that oh, you're just like, you're just some schmuck that decided never to have sex again.

Hoffman: And also, "I'm a man, so therefore I have all the power." Which is something that I don't—I don't live in that world ...

Stewart: Right ... I wonder, it's probably almost harder to hold on to your bearings in that, because it's, the rules of engagement are so different I would imagine in the clergy in any religion, and you do have this, not only do you have the power over those that work for you but you also have this pipeline to God. People have to come to you and be like, "Do you think he's going to be mad at me about the whole ...''

Hoffman: I was told, which I didn't know, that before all the changes happened in the '60s with the Catholic Church, the whole service was done with the priest's back to the audience. ... Because they had to talk to God through the, everyone basically like poltergeist through the priest.

Stewart: He's like Dixie cups with the string; it's fascinating stuff.

Philip, babe, loved you in The Savages,  Capote, even State and Main, but don't talk about what you don't know. Sister Mary Melinda has your penance now: Read a bleepin' book, for heaven's sake.

(Sorta) Defending Michelle Bachmann

If negative campaigning really had finally found its floor, in any case, that would be the best thing since Caller ID. And whatever her motivations, I'm glad Sarah Palin has apologized for her comments dividing us into the "real America'' of small towns like the ones she and I grew up in and...not so real America, like New York and Washington, where lots of us small town natives wind up. As Jon Stewart said the other night, Bin Laden must feel like a real *&F@# after having realized he bombed the wrong America. Not to mention those from-the-wrong America firefighters who ran into the Twin Towers; gosh are they embarrassed.