An ignorant hillbilly (James Brolin) with an incongruously aristocratic bloodline fucks around for 40 years with the aid of mountains of cocaine, gallons of booze, and enough loose women to stock a Texas whorehouse. Then he discovers Jesus, buys a baseball team, becomes governor of Texas, and kills a bunch of people through capital punishment. Then, in a far-fetched, credibility-straining plot twist, this funny-talking, semi-literate yahoo becomes a two-term President Of The United States and nearly destroys the world in the process. This sounds like the premise for a zany farce like President Baseball—albeit with a lot less baseball—but director Oliver Stone swears it’s based on a true story. Like anybody should trust that crackpot

Rick Steiner, a University of Alaska professor, sought the e-mail messages of state scientists who had examined the effect of global warming on polar bears. (Ms. Palin said the scientists had found no ill effects, and she has sued the federal government to block the listing of the bears as endangered.) An administration official told Mr. Steiner that his request would cost $468,784 to process. When Mr. Steiner finally obtained the e-mail messages — through a federal records request — he discovered that state scientists had in fact agreed that the bears were in danger, records show. “Their secrecy is off the charts,” Mr. Steiner said.

And to figure out how fiction can engage a reader, much of whose sensibility has been formed by pop culture, without simply becoming more shit in the pop culture machine. It’s unbelievably difficult and confusing and scary, but it’s neat. There’s so much mass commercial entertainment that’s so good and so slick, this is something that I don’t think any other generation has confronted. That’s what it’s like to be a writer now. I think it’s the best time to be alive ever and it’s probably the best time to be a writer. I’m not sure it’s the easiest time.

Palin is a shallow, chirpy person with those vaguely alarming eyeglasses. Now her fans all want a pair. Remember back when women wore glasses that departed their ears in plastic swoops and swirls? My theory is, anyone who wears glasses that look weird is telling me something I don’t want to know.